Remember me?

Snowy vista, originally uploaded by hannah8ball.

I know its been a while, but I'm here and things are brewing. I'll be back soon with something substantive. I've been uploading a bunch of pics to my flickr photostream the last couple of weeks, so if you find yourself with some time head on over. But for now, may you find peace in your journey. Hasta pronto!

Etc.

It's been a crazy few weeks. I'm so behind on editing and posting pictures, I'll just apologize now. I guess I could try to be proactive and get with it today, but I think I'll take a shower instead. This is exactly why I'm so behind. :)

That, and I've taken the speedtest test...

90 words

Speed test

C'mon, take it. You know you're curious. :)

It's funny, but at church I was "volunteered" (I have yet to find out who put my name into the hat) to be the typing part of the Apostle Paul typing out an email to the church at Philippi. (Hey, you've got to modernize it sometimes, right?) Anyway, the idea was that someone would read the letter, and someone else would be typing it (and another person would be holding the mic which I occasionally bump... :S) It has been surprisingly a big hit, who knew? But, anyone who has done dictation typing will know how crazy/difficult it is to type in "real time" even if you already have the text in front of you. There is nothing like the pressure of being on the big screen.

Let's see, since we last talked, I have still not finished my second Baudelaire. Summer came all at once, and the thought of putting on alpaca socks, is well, not delightful. That, and I've lost interest in the pattern. I have the dreaded SSS (Second Sock Syndrome to those of you who have yet to come under its spell).

Magknits has gone under, taking with it the fingerless gloves project that I was planning on doing next. The pattern still hasn't resurfaced :( Which means I can either take some close looks at the pictures and reverse engineer it, or I can do a different pattern, or I can just be patient. None of which is appealing. So, I've kind of stalled on that front. Nothing sounds good.

I decided I wanted to try stranded knitting, so I was going to put this skull motif (from So Much Yarn, So Little Time) onto this soaker pattern (from Curly Purly). But then I saw this video, which is a confusing combination of a song about humbling yourself in order to get forgiveness, and a video montage of soldiers shooting at things in Iraq. Opinions on the war aside, I was struck by how inconsistent the tone of the song was with the images, and then thought about how inconsistent it would be for me to put a symbol of death on my daughter's diaper cover. Now, I might decide later that a pirate skull is a pretty cool thing to put on her diaper cover, and I'm not saying that anyone else who has put skulls on things is promoting death (so please, no flaming).

Just for the moment, I decided that I'd put a peace sign on her bum instead... of course, I couldn't find one I liked, so I made one. I've probably set myself up for failure because I've never done a stranded knitting project, so I don't know what works and what doesn't, so my design might be entirely unworkable. Who knows. I'll let you know :)

Well, I've got to run if I'm going to get my shower in before the little one wakes up. Hope your Saturday is restful and filled with love.

Peace.

No knitting here

It seems the lack of good, quality uninterrupted sleep is finally catching up with me. It's been nearly 15 months since this child has exited my body, and I can count the number of times I've had a 5 hour interval of uninterrupted sleep on my hands. Lately, she's been waking at about the 1-2 hour mark and then is nursing for about 10 minutes. If you figure she wakes up around 6 times per night, I've lost an entire hour of sleep plus however long it takes me to drift back down. blah blah blah, whiney whiney whiney. Let's just say that I feel like I'm walking around in a continual (and getting worse) sleepy fog, which doesn't make for good knitting.

I finally ripped and restarted Jason's sweater. I counted everything 5 times and reattached the first sleeve upside down. Yeah. Rip again. However, things seems to be moving along as well as can be expected. And for what it's worth, it's fairly mindless knitting, so it's my go-to lately.

Firebird is relaxing. It's too complicated right now. I look at it and wish I could pick it up, but I have a few concerns:
1. I haven't been able to try it on, so I'm not convinced its big enough to fit around my foot. I could take it off the needles, but that'd be extra work. Instead, I just look at it, and feel it, and measure my gauge. And then go back to the sweater.
2. I have a row gauge problem, mine is bigger than the recommended. And I have a smaller foot than what the pattern is built for, so how many cable repeats to do before starting the gusset? It takes too much brain power, so I look at it, and feel it, and measure my gauge, and go back to the sweater.

You should check out the new knitty. Everyone is raving. I particularly like Yosemite. I am considering getting the yarn for it. It's knit in the round, it has cables, a shawl collar. It has my name written all over it.

But then I already have a perfectly good spring knit languishing on the needles. Remember Isabella? Well, I think she's headed for the frog pond. I figured out I was doing my yarn overs backwards, and I made a few stitch count errors at the beginning, all of which is enough for me to start over. I actually have a job where I could wear this, so it's made its way back onto my radar.

Blog, what?

I am not such a great blogger, many apologies... I blame it all on Ravelry. It is so easy to just update my projects on there, add pics and details, and then on to the next project.

Lets see, in the last month or so I have finished several objects, bought lotsa yummy yarn for a sweater for my hubbo, started Christmas knitting, knit several longies, harvested tomatoes, shortened my netflix queue, eaten lots of good food, had lots of good conversation. Oh, and A has started walking! (Yeah, she's only 10 months... eep!)

Here's a quick run down of FOs (not in any specific order)

Irish Hiking Scarf - I knit this for the red scarf project. As a redhead who doesn't like to wear red, it was important to me to knit a scarf for that special someone who wants a scarf, just not a red one. Mission accomplished. I used Patons Soy Wool Stripes and fell in love with the softness of it. I'm definitely going to have to add more of this to my stash.

Kim's Hat - knit with the rest of the SWS skein to match the scarf. quick and easy. The first project from Last minute Knitted Gifts that actually held to the time constraints.

Soakers - a greenie from Peace Fleece, with the addition of the Honeycomb motif from the sock pattern at interweave knits. Love this little detail, makes the pants cute and feminine.

Blue jeans from Patons Merino wool. Basic pattern (from Little Turtle Knits). Easy peasy.

And I've been working on my first pair of socks. Loving it. I've got one done, am making some mods to the second one to make it work better for me... I'm not the sort who needs to make two pair of identical socks... If I want to change something, I'm going to change it so that I can figure out with the next sock whether I liked that change or not.

Well, I need to get back to work. And then clean the house, we have a play date in half an hour. Wee! Later!

And we're back!

Its been a busy summer. Our entire family (both mine and hubbo's sides) has come to visit. (Here's a picture of Little Bit with her Daddy's side of the family - FOUR generations!) Little Bit has learned to crawl and stand and eat people food. Work projects have been completed, giant personnel changes have occurred, new people have been hired. Knitting has occurred in fits and starts as I have struggled to balance all the things pulling at me.

In the good news arena, I seem to have magically inherited a free flickr pro account. It occurred at about the same time I transferred my pictures from Yahoo photos... apparently, when you have an SBC/Cingular/AT&T/Yahoo account, you get free flickr... (except that we haven't gotten our internet from SBC since we moved October 2004). I'm excited though as that means I get unlimited uploads and storage... no more blogging without pictures! :)

Currently, on the needles:

Isabella - I ditched the picot edge for a seed stitch border... still feminine, but more my style. I'll change the sleeve edging to seed stitch as well to match. I also cast on in the round. I am doing the decreases one stitch from the edge instead of two as the pattern calls for, so I removed one stitch from each end to compensate. I've got about 4.5 inches done. I'm hoping to be done with this before the end of September, when it will still be warm enough to wear :)

Monkey socks - I started this very popular pattern a few weeks ago, modified it to use my 4 DPNs, but somewhere along the way I messed up the pattern and decided to just frog the whole thing and start over. It will be better in its second life, I know. and I'll be using the 5 needles as called for... less to keep up with.

I plan to cast on for a new pair of picky pants for Little Bit, a shopping bag, and the second leg of my Leg Warmers. Must get back to knitting while LB sleeps :)

Socks - here I come!

I've done it! I've purchased my first ever sock yarn (from Fearless Fiber) in the delightfully fresh Meadow colorway. I've also decided to use DPNs instead of the two circulars method as I have much less of a laddering problem with DPNs than with the two circulars. I have not a clue why, but, it works for me, I guess. I have won an auction on ebay and my dpns should be in the mail soon. So now I'm stalking the post lady... please please bring me my new gifts!

In other news, Isabella was frogged. I wasn't happy with the eyelets, I was dreading the joining together, the hemming, the short row shoulders, all of it. I'm currently attempting to re-roll my yarn from its ramen noodle state - any suggestions on how to keep freshly frogged yarn from tangling all up during the frogging to just like new status? This is my second frog and I have made a HUGE mess. So huge, my husband wonders why I'm wasting so much time on unravelling... can't I just buy new yarn? Well, not really, plus, there is something calming about untangling yarn. But not so calming that I'm not interesting in hearing how others avoid this problem :)

Well, I'm signing off for the weekend. I have a baseball game to attend, new bedroom and livingroom furniture to purchase, fresh tomatoes (homegrown!) to eat, a baby to chase around and some grandparents to entertain. All in all, it should be a fun, not-so-relaxing weekend ahead. Enjoy yours!

Serendipity

So, my day started out pretty good. I got the latest version of knitty. As always, there are patterns that I'm eagerly adding to my quickly expanding "to-do" list. One of them, "Grow with me" especially caught my eye as it uses cotton ease - an easy addition to my stash as it is relatively cheap and available at the local chain craft store. As I scrolled down to the bottom to read the stats about the designer, I was taken aback. I KNOW this person! Of course, its been 5 years, and I might be mistaken. But seriously. I'd even been thinking about trying to look her up lately. and Shazam... there she was. Published in knitty.

So, I send her a tentative email, hoping I don't creep her out and she replied that yes, indeed, she is the Laura Brown I worked with one summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I know a published knit designer. Sweet. Of course, back then, I knew nothing of knitting's joys and Laura and I chatted about politics and our life dreams and how much a college town sucks when all the students go home for the summer. If it weren't for knitting, I'd never have found her.

Unfortunately, my day sort of went down hill after that. The admin that had given her two weeks notice, decided that she'd rather just not come back in, so instead of having until next Thursday to get someone trained, I suddenly had both all of the training, all of the organizing, all of the shite back on my plate to deal with. And I was THIS close to finishing a gigantic project that I'm sick and tired of dealing with. THIS close, ladies and gentleman. Gurk.

And then I finally went to the dentist. I have naturally pitted teeth, so visits to the dentist are always traumatizing and painful experiences. Not so, this time. He didn't even stick his nasty little hook into my teeth. Not once! I have two cavities that need to be filled (boo!), but its been 6 years, so all in all, that's not too bad. I was told, once again, that I need to have my wisdom teeth removed. Since I actually have money this time (last time I was a college student and had better things to do with my time and money than undergo oral surgery...), I might actually call up their office and schedule an appointment. But not until work gets ironed out.

Annan is doing really well. She's still waking much more often than I'd prefer, but we're adjusting. And, really, not much is better than cuddling a warm, soft baby, even if its 3AM. I'm pretty sure she's very close to crawling. She has really started to turn around in circles well and has mastered the art of rolling from back to tummy to back again, so I have to be careful where I leave my knitting supplies. She's already tried to eat my WIP at least twice.

My mom comes out to visit at the end of next week. I'm excited. Its only been a few months, but its always good to hang out with family. And now that Annan's here, I don't have to worry about entertaining. My LO does that for me :)

Oh yes, knitting updates. I'm nearly done with my curly purly diaper cover. I'm currently trying to puzzle out the final knitting insturctions. I'm not sure if "continue in stockinette until leg opening measures 11" means that I should be measuring the length of the fabric since the leg opening started or if the length of the two sides of the legholes should be 11" from end to end when laid flat. I'm thinking the latter, but I'll need to test it on Annan before doing anything permanent to be sure. Tonight, we'll be watching the first disk in the last season of Deadwood, so I doubt much knitting will get done. I'm still not very good at knitting and watching TV.

Well, dinner is nearly ready. Hope you have a blessed day!