Yarn Along on a Misty Moisty Morning

Joining in the Wednesday Yarn Along with Ginny of Small Things.  That's a lot of capital letters.  I don't usually write in the mornings.  You can see why.

 I have a bit of a girl crush on Ginny, who recently designed a most gorgeous little cardigan, that I am eager to get started on.  However, that's not what is on the needles.  What is on the needles is another gorgeous little cardi by Georgie Hallam of TiKKi.  Wannie picked out the pattern, which is called Annie, and since it has new-to-me stitches, (I'm endeavoring to learn a new stitch, design element, or technique with each project) I said "oooooookay."  I was chucking a bit of a sad because I wanted to knit the Sunday Sweater that Ginny just published, but unfortunately I bought yarn that was too light-weight for the project.  It seemed heavier than its label described, but not long after casting on, I knew it wasn't going to work.

Never mind!  I love the Annie project so far and the daisy pattern is so much fun, and the color of the yarn -- Berroco wool blend -- is delicious knitted up.  So, it's all good.

I'm reading (which is unusual, because my normal now is listening to library recordings while I knit or clean or whatever I'm doing) this book, Discipline by Elisabeth Elliot. I just got it the other day and I'm only reading a chapter at a time (also unusual for me -- I usually devour books in a single session).  It's not a self-help book, it's a book about spiritual discipline.  I love Elisabeth Elliot, one of the few female Christian authors who are honest, blunt, and to-the-point. 

I've promised to make apple fritters for the kids this morning as it's Donut Day around here, but I'm trying to save money, and $7 for donuts is not in this week's budget.  So we'll give homemade donuts a try.   I need to get to it.  It's a gray moist morning and the fritters will be well-received, I'm sure.  I have a small conundrum related to them: the book I'm reading says a bit -- well, quite a lot, really -- about food and the eating of too much of the wrong kinds of it.  I am fairly sure that apple fritters are not spiritually enhancing, but...maybe one?  Just one? 

I Love Yarn Day (two weeks early)

   

My sister said something today about it being I Love Yarn Day.  As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short, but fortunately I do have something that I'd already planned to share with you today.  

My project, the one I am so excited about, is finished.  It's a fair-isle stocking that I designed.  I'm surprised and thrilled it turned out.  Mostly surprised.  

The knitting group is having a Christmas stocking competition, and everyone else was knitting fabulous stockings, including all the newbie beginners.  I tried to hold out and just focus on the little girls' cardigans, but as more and more people entered their creative and colorful projects, I was feeling left out of the fun.  So I joined in too. 

One day to make the design, with pots of tea and candles and flowers and teacups and snowflakes, and hubby, the six kids and me. Then a couple days to knit it up as I could find the time.  It would have been quite fast, but I had to frog the lace at the top a lot of times, and then a few more froggings of other bits as well.  A challenge, but it was fun, so much fun, to do this.  And really, not hard.  Surprisingly easy, in fact, once I figured out what I was doing.

So here are some pictures, for I Love Yarn Day, of some of the stocking entries at the knitting group and my little stocking as well.  I do love yarn, I really really do.  When is I Love Knitting Day?

** I've just been googling I Love Yarn Day and it's not until October 12!  I'm early!  Woot :)

Project details: pattern adapted from Leisure Arts 4962, Old-fashioned Christmas Stocking.  Yarn is Berroco Comfort DK in Aegean Sea and White on size 6 needles.  Fair Isle pattern is custom design.

Joy Comes in the Morning

Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a morning person, at all. Unless 11pm could be considered morning, because without fail, that is the time that I wake up and finally get my groove on for the day. That said, lately, I've been awake earlier, in the yet-tender hours of the morning. Maybe it's the thyroid meds finally (finally) kicking in, or maybe -- and this could certainly be the motivator -- it's the promise of knitting that exciting, intriguing, can't-put-me-down project currently on the needles, before the hordes crash and smash their way into the day.

 In hopes of motivating myself to not waste the morning hours with one eye barely open and the other mostly shut, I cajoled cooperation out of myself by promising and swearing not to get up choring, but to get up knitting. Oh yes, that makes a difference. You should try it.

This morning, in the tender hours, it was unusually quiet and serene, and yet I was still not eager to face the chilliness of the early autumn air. But then: a cinnamon candle, a pot of tea, and, oh yes -- something I've been meaning to share with you -- a GIFT! A gift from a very kind and generous reader, Joy, who sent me the little card I set on my tray because it looked SO well with my cheery yellow teapot, and because it made me feel really, really happy even though it was morning.

 Thank you, Joy, for sending me some joy in the morning.

 Joy has many other gorgeous self-made cards for all occasions: you would be blessed to see her etsy site and maybe order a little gift for someone you love.

It's the time of year, already, for goldenrod. Oh, goldenrod. I love it. Subjectively. Because: yarn. Dye. Gold-dyed-goldenroddy-autumny-yellow-yarn. Goldenrod is the last of the summer sun's rays, stored up and gifted to us to glow sunnily through the winter in the form of warm, soft, golden-yellow-dyed sweaters and shawls and scarves and hats. Oh, I'm dying to do something with it. We have so much of it!

But but but. Time. We have so little of that.  We are moving, you know. Slowly.

Bright and Sunny Sunshine Morning

Suddenly in sunshine
Out we go in Sunday best
To whirl and twirl and see ourselves
Unusually well-dressed.

If Mama lingers long enough
And doesn't catch us first,
By the time we leave for church
We'll be in Sunday worst.    edit: in response to commentor's question: yes, I knitted those!  I'm chuffed, love the pattern.  It's Tiny Tea Leaves by Madeline Tosh . I'm still learning to knit.  Stay tuned, I have something cool on the needles. :)

Sign of a Desperate Woman

I went to knitting group this morning.  It was awesome.  I stayed until three, just as if I had absolutely nothing else in the world to do today.  I go there to get away from the cray-cray in this house. 
How about that tatt?  If I ever got a tatt, that would be it.  I used to sit in geometry class with this girl over 20 years ago.  I had no idea she was going to grow up to be that cool.   Much hilarity, much fun, crazy knitting ladies.  The leader/teacher/head cray-cray is running a Christmas stocking competition, so most of the knitters are working on stockings.  Most of the knitters are very new knitters.  The one in the tutu, whose head I cut off for sake of dignity, came in asking to learn how to "do that thing with the two sticks."   Lots of work done today, three Christmas stockings finished, and I finished up both my little cardigans for my little girls, plus a sleeve on the new pink cardigan for Gater.   Really, all I want to do is knit and knit and knit.  I don't really want to think about yard sales and packing and cleaning and moving and selling the house and fall and upheaval and stress. Knitting. How about you?

Irritated

... to say the least, right now!

Today we had the carpets cleaned -- which really makes me cross and out-of-sorts, I can tell you.  I hate having the furniture everywhere and rooms blocked off and kids draped across areas where they are normally not.  Gah.  It's really humid as we are waiting for weather from the hurricane, and it's hot and damp and crowded, and with eight people at home, I am just about...done.

Tomorrow morning: hope for me, as I am going to knitting group.  Yay!  I went for the first time last week, with a little strawberry-pink cardigan I'm making for Gater.

I already made her a cardigan.  This is it.



She took one look at it and said, "I wanted a pink one."



Fortunately, being a new knitter (well, not in time, but in experience -- I've learned to knit a couple of times and forgotten how between my very sparse projects -- Gater's cardigan being the third project I've completed --)I am quite an addict and more than happy to make her a pink one.  Since I made her cardi, I also made one for Wanny in autumn-red, and a waterfall scarf in some Noro variegated wool.

I really need to be working on the house. We are getting ready to put it on the market. It is an enormous undertaking, just enormous and I feel buried under the weight of it all. We have to pare down to about 80lbs of stuff per person, as that's what we'll be taking with us. Spare a thought for me, this will probably drive me completely mad. But tomorrow; Knitting Group.

The Dishcloth

Pattern was mentioned by Rhonda Jean, and can be found here at Homespun Living....thanks for asking!

A Post Between Posts

Well, Mammam, otherwise known as drkr, was the clever winner of the dishcloth. Now she needs to send me her mailing address because I never did get that straight. PM me, Mammam! Because you are so special, I will send you my one and only KNITTED dishcloth. My one and only, because I just learned to knit, (well, I learned to knit over the two days I made the cloth, and have probably forgotten how to knit again by now, 3 weeks later :-) )

I have some photos to share with you all but just found my battery recharger, so we must all be patient while the battery charges.

In the meantime, I had the thought that I might just do a post-a-day this week. We have a beautiful life, but I don't tend to share the day-to-day events, when in the back of my mind, I'm a little afraid of doing things for the blog, instead of doing things for the love of doing them, or for the love of my family. Often when we have done something "special", it will get a photo, and naturally end up on the blog; and I can see how doing things "special" could easily seem to the children as though we're doing something "special" to blog about it.

As a matter of fact, I felt a bit bad when the children were doing something lately, something special and a little out of the ordinary, although I can't remember what it was now, and they asked if I was going to "put this on the blog." I wondered if they thought we only do nice things to put on the blog. It's not true -- we do nice things all the time, but naturally, the nicer things are more fun to photograph and talk about, and I dunno -- it felt weird to me that they asked.

Yet -- I have a fantastic overseas family who needs to be involved in our lives. They need to contact with the children and be able to see them growing up, and the fun -- and not so fun -- things they are doing.

At any rate, I'm just sort of "thinking out loud" here -- the long and short of it, is that I will try to blog each day this week so you can be with us, in the usual, normal, day-to-day.

I'll try to get photos, and I'll try not to arrange subjects to make them "pretty" -- well, I don't pose the kids anyway, but I do rearrange the food and tablecloths and whatnot, and shove the messes out of the way, and here you all are, thinking I have a neat and tidy house.

So, if you will visit with me, as things are, and naturally you will not "notice" the crumbs on the counter or the milk-spots on the floor, as you wouldn't "notice" them if you were really here -- would you? :-) Then I will visit with you and try not to stress about the fact that the crumbs never do go away, and the milkspots return within 30 minutes of the floor having been mopped, and we will all agree that this is living life with five children. :-)

I'll be back later!