2 shoe day

The sweater is coming along nicely (10" left!), I finished the alterations and will be mailing them today, SuperGirl is a little sick so I have 2 kiddos to keep me company, I actually feel like sewing my kitchen curtains (doing this allows the old blue makeshift curtains that have been there for 4 years to retire and be made into a back for Hubby's and my t-shirt quilt), and I found my saddleshoes.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Fluevog-Erika-Spectator-Cappuccino/dp/B001B2IZH6/ref=sr_1_3/184-4241859-6511710?ie=UTF8&s=shoes&qid=1274880847&sr=1-3

Any takers to buy these for me?  Who cares that I have really picky feet and have gone to Vibram 5 fingers (which are awesome by the way, especially if you like being barefoot; I call them my frog feet because I do look a bit flipper-y in my size 10 feet).  I've been dying for saddleshoes for years.  Might possibly have to find some high end store to try them on...  but buying them is out of the question.  I can admire, though!

cozy-ing up...

Knitting away and it feels grand.  That's about 13" in the picture, enjoying it's time with Little Guy's foam block building.

The link to the pattern is below.  You'll probably have to join Lion Brand to view it but it's free and they have great patterns.

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90687AD.html?noImages=&service=801&letterId=55418

Everything's not lost

It's all go at our place.  The house is being re-plumbed, I did NOT have to baby-sit a friend's kids at 8 am (It's in another week; got the dates wrong.  Good thing I called her first while heading to her house; she was a little confused as it was and had a house full of out of town family so two more people showing up might have been a little much at breakfast time), I did have to call another friend to make sure she could watch Little Guy later in the morning (get to clean-out classroom at new job!  Exciting!) and in exchange I'm watching her two kids while she runs to the bank, I have alterations to do but not possible due to needing to steam iron and there is no water but yes plumber in the middle of my kitchen, and I've suddenly rediscovered knitting.  This afternoon is still watching all the extra kids so we'll see how that goes if I still have no water.  Lucky thing the in-laws live across the street; we'll still get showers tonight without crashing Mom and Dad's house even though I know they wouldn't mind!

But about the rediscovered knitting thing.  It came as a slow, but sudden, surprise.  I was worried I had burned myself out totally but I couldn't bring myself to "get rid" of anything.  The knitting stuff didn't want to be ridded-of.  It bore me not ill will.  The yarn, the needles, the two WIPs left were sitting there tucked away, not feeling neglected, just patiently waiting for Harriet to visit me again and show me what they wanted to be made in to.  I had to take a breather.  In the end I've come out better.  I'm not tempted by new yarn like before.  That's a REALLY good thing for a person on a budget.

But I digress...

I had frogged that cotton cardigan and put it away but it stayed on my mind.  I wasn't sure why, especially since I had had such relief when I frogged those other projects months ago.  This one wouldn't go away.  It sat there wimpering, wanting desperately to be made.  A few days later I had some time on the computer and started going through Ravelry's shrug pattern index.  I had thought maybe there was a free pattern somewhere that just might work and it was worth a look; I wasn't losing anything if I didn't find it.  They have a great selection, by the way.  Totally worth joining Ravelry.  They also list right off if the pattern is free so you don't have to go to the pattern to check.  We need free.  We like free a lot.  Paying for a pattern means waiting till the truck sells and that's driving me batty enough as is.  I was amused with myself because lots of the patterns I liked from the pictures ended up being free anyway and a majority of them were from Lion Brand.  I didn't think I liked Lion Brand's stuff that much.  I ended up finding 2 patterns that were perfect in the first 12 pages of the list.  I printed out both, figured the yardage I had and what I would need, one worked and one didn't, and I got to work.  It's a simple, slightly loose shrug, knitted in a 32" by 38" rectangle, 4 sts=1" gauge, 2" of 1x1 ribbing on CO and BO edges, and 2 seams to sew when finished (fold it in half matching rib so is continuous, exclude 7" on fold side for sleeves, and sew up!).  It's cool enough to carry around this summer if I get caught in a cold office, washable so I can wear it to teach school, and warm enough (and big enough) to wrap up in and layer in the winter.  I thought the 34" of stockinette in the middle would wear me out but I find it nice and zen-like this time around.  The yarn is happy, the needles are happy, the pattern is following deminsions perfectly, and I feel like a cat purring making biscuits when I'm knitting it.  I already have 7" knitted after 2 days.  Crazy!  2 days!  And one of those days was half occupied doing those alterations I needed to do.

I am still thinking about selling/giving away some of my books and magazines though.  I've moved on and would like them to go to good home.  Any of you who are interested and remember something I have you would like, email me and let me know.  The only things not going are Elizabeth Zimmermann's books and a few of the sock knitting books.  Just let me know!

Open up your eyes

Well, the sweater didn't even make it to the final stages.  The pattern called for picking up only 60 sts on the whole left front side and there was no way that would happen even if it was the length the pattern called for.  I tried the Ravelry thing and no one posted any problems so that meant 1) I was the problem or 2) the pattern was one that everyone could spot the issues to begin with and didn't attempt it in the first place.  I washed the pieces as they were and the darn thing didn't even shrink (better quality dishcloth cotton than I thought!) so it's going in the frog pile and will make a nice cotton cardigan sometime.  Just not now.  And I'll need a completely different pattern.

So everyone, when your project looks like it will fit an elephant and it's not supposed to, don't rely on the shrinking/blocking theory.  Quit and start over.

The fabric of our lives?

I've been taking a break from knitting which means there is only 2 things in the works:  a sock for M-i-l's birthday and a light, cotton, mostly sleeveless sweater for me.  It's knitted in 3 parts (back, left front, right front) and I've finished all but the right front.  For some reason, it's taking me the time equivalency to do that one than the back and the other front.  I have several theories why:  I've actually burned myself out on knitting (the horror!), I have other things to do that are more important (the HORROR!), and when I sit down in the evening or go somewhere I don't want to be carrying yet another thing I have to finish (YE GODS!  WHO IS THIS WOMAN!!!)

So anyway, LSU is playing baseball badly, we are at the I-Ls (in-laws), and I am determined to finish this thing and sew it up within the next week at most.  Why?  Because I really need to wash it and make sure it's going to shrink as much as I thought it would.  If it doesn't, I got another too-big sweater to give away and I'm sure there are several readers of this blog who would love it.  Me?  I might just cry.

Sing a Simple Song

Cleaned out the cds today.  Little Guy had done a number on their order system these almost 2 years he's been mobile and it had gotten downright impossible to find anything other than the cds we had bought since the last time he "rearranged" everything.  I've kept my musical plethora (is there any other way to put it?) in 2 identical cd shelves all these years since college and they've been living next to my side of the bed in our bedroom (no other place to put them in the house) along with my knitting WIPs and yarn stash. When Little Guy could crawl and felt like visiting me (usually I was folding laundry or something) he soon discovered this and, totally ignoring the yarn and bags thank goodness, he proceeded on numerous occasions to take cds out and put them back.  Sometimes they went on the same shelf, sometimes not.  Sometimes they were upside down, sometimes labels didn't show, and sometimes they were stacked on top.  Sometimes they were left on the floor for me to find.  NEVER were they in the same spot or organized genera.  NEVER were they in any way shape or form anything but chaotic in their order.  He never tore them, took the cds out, or threw them; he only wanted to arrange them.  I did try to stop him on several occasions but due to the evidence above, didn't hold to it because, well, he really wasn't hurting anything other than my need for order and it kept him busy while I did whatever it was I was doing.  So what if I couldn't find my Lovin' Spoonful Greatest Hits when I needed to get that "You Know You Gotta Make Up Your Mind" song out of my head.  I at least knew it was there somewhere.

In the midst of all this financial redo-ing I've been cleaning out (I know, I never needed a financial situation as an excuse to "clean out") and it had hit the point where everything had been gone through.  Even the two storage boxes of random electronic junk had been cleaned out 4 months ago when we were on the search of the Sirius satellite radio (a search that continues to this day).  All closets, Christmas decor, dishes, cabinets, shoes, kid clothes had been organized and cleaned out at some time in the past 6 months and the WIPs had been dealt with, including stash stuff.  Even my fabric was organized.  All had been distributed, donated, and anything not being useful was gone.  I kept thinking that there was something else I wasn't cleaning out, possibly avoiding, and it didn't come totally clear until I cleaned out the truck of all the cds what that was.  The music collection.  It had to be next.

Before I was into much anything I was in to music.  Not all kinds but I've always enjoyed good music.  And I bought a lot of it.  It never bothered me much because everything I bought I listened to a lot.  Now times have changed, tastes have changed (but some are the same), and some things get collected for the sake of collection, not for true listening appreciation, and those things needed to be weeded out and moved on.  I needed to take off the rose colored glasses and be perfectly honest with myself on what I will continue to listen to and what I have not and WILL NOT listen to ever again.

It was a little wistful, a little painful, and a little dirty.  They had gotten dusty.  The Beatles were hanging out with 1995 Boys II Men and Prodigy (I told you he did a number on my organization) and Coltrane was lost in the middle of Bob Dylan.  I did find Lovin' Spoonful and now have that song stuck in my head again.  And I was reminded yet again of my crazy fascination with 60s rock and funk.  LOVE that stuff!  It's kind of funny how rock has kinda gotten back that way and those are the current bands we are listening to and own.  I could tell what we had fished out and listened to because they were in stacks rather than lined up in rows and in even a crazier order but at least were more current.  Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs were staying cozy with Flight of the Conchords and Frank Sinatra could still hold his own (that's Hubby's cd; I was always a Bobby Darin fan).  But I digress.  I found the old high school cds that helped me through teenage wasteland and the college cds I bought because it was cool to listen to them and anyone with music sense did, who cares that I didn't really like them.  I found my year of Phish, Rusted Root, and Talking Heads and my long love of Belle and Sebastian (Hubby steers clear of that collection).  I found those cds that I really liked them but HATE now because they became so over played (Paula Cole, leave us be.  Please.) and I found those that I'm not sure why I have them but I still think I need to keep (help!  "Blonde on Blonde" and "Highway 61 Revisited"!  I only listen to "Nashville Skyline" because Bob sings on those, I only like a few songs on the others.  I turn in other cds for that, do I hang on to these because it's Bob?).  I realized I only truely liked Radiohead through "OK Computer"; Kid A spoke a totally different language I knew others appreciated but I'm never going to listen to by choice.  I also have a bigger collection of jazz and swing than I thought (really nice surprise!) and my classical collection is slowly filling out as we broaden our horizons and need the genius of those.  And I'm a harpsichord nut.

So now there is a stack of cds to go now (I think I'm going to wait until I visit LMSS and subject her city to my rejected music tastes; plus there are some pretty good cds in there, I just don't want them anymore), a stack to listen to to make sure I don't want them anymore, and the 2 cd shelves still nearly full but now with things I know we want to keep.  I feel ok about it but I still feel like I could go through it again and weed out more.  Oh well. You gotta start somewhere.  And I'm keeping Sly and the Family Stone to help me through it.