A bit of the blahs...

I'm not sure where my awesome knitting mojo went, but it's trickled away. I had the day "off" yesterday - in the morning I went and did some studying and then did a yoga class. The yoga classes offered at my gym aren't really the style of yoga I love, but it was really nice, and it was an actual class I could actually go to, as opposed to those amazing hypothetical classes that don't work in my schedule. I dashed home, nursed DD and shoveled some lunch into myself, and headed off to the movies. YAY! I love going to the movies, and actually love going alone. It was the first matinee of the day, and I think there was one other woman in the theater to me. I chose to go light, I saw He's Just Not That Into You.

Now, I am someone who truly enjoys being entertained and doesn't need everything I watch to be High Art, or even really all that good. So perhaps my expectations were low, but I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I laughed, I teared up (yes, I am hormotional, whatever), and I actually found it quite thought provoking. I could relate to the dilemmas of the women, in some way, and wondered why it took me so long to learn in my own life that men who treat you like dirt and play games just aren't worth it. I also thought it was interesting that while these women were all portrayed as being desperate to find THE ONE and get married, most of the actual marriages were portrayed very negatively. Anyway, after that I had the option to go knit, but I realized that I so rarely get to shop for ME without kids in tow, so I went and got some new yoga wear.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that I haven't been knitting much. DH and I watched a movie on Friday night and I did some rounds on one of my socks, but that's about it. I'm at that point where I'm just BORED with everything I'm doing, or it takes more brain power than I have available. All I want to do is cast on tons of new projects, mostly socks, but I'm exercising restraint and not doing it because I really want to finish.

Also, I went through this phase where I was knitting a ton and I wasn't reading much. Now I am a voracious reader, and I always have at least one book going, usually more. I actually, for perhaps the first time, didn't have a book I was reading! While I was away last week, I got rehooked into reading. I read...5 books while I was there (about a book a day), and now all I want to do is curl up and read. Most of what I read was the emotional equivalent of comfort food, but I did read this, and thought it was absolutely FANTASTIC. (I'm not sure why Amazon thinks it hasn't been released yet...my sister used to work for a bookstore, maybe she got an advance copy? It wasn't a reader. Oh wait, it's book two that's coming out in April. Squee!). Anyway, if you're a Fantasy Fiction reader (which I am) and if you're a writing snob (err, which I am, a bit - I know, it seems in contrast to my statement above, but honestly, so much that's published is just crappy writing), you will appreciate this book.

What else...school vacation is over, THANK GOD. That's how I know I have truly become an adult. It's not that I don't enjoy my kids, I do. But, I'm lucky enough to be a stay-at-home-mom, which means that I'm with them all the time. School gives us all a bit of a break from each other, which is a good thing. My oldest is...intense, and having some time away from him helps me be more present and available when I am with him. I actually hit a point yesterday where I was trying to get something done in the kitchen and both my sons were coming at me. I was backed up against the cabinets, whimpering, and saying "SPACE! I NEED SPACE!! NOBODY TOUCH ME!!" So yeah, school=good. I'll try and get some knitting done tomorrow...

And now I should post this rambling, non-knitting entry before my internet turns off.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

I am back from my trip. Overall it was really nice, it was great to spend time with my family, though I did miss my DH. The kids all decided to have massive sleep upheavals which really was not fun, but we got through it. All of them were driving me crazy at different times, but then they all managed to enchant me as well, which is pretty cool, actually. My daughter is just about to learn to crawl up stairs, oh joy.

I have some yarn feedback to report.

1. This, the Mermaid is much more teal/aqua than I expected it would be. I was picturing softer blues, somehow. Softer colors all around. It's nice, I suppose, but I'm not sure it's really *my* colors. Of course, venturing outside of my narrow palette of purple and green might be good for my soul or something. Maybe? You think? Of course, I also bought the Wicked Witch colorway, which is very pretty, though a bit darker than I expected. Still, lovely.

2. The Cadena is just the wrong shade of green. I knew it was a risk - greens are hard to coordinate, but I thought there was a chance. Their picture is pretty good actually, and mine sort of sucks, but it's too much of a blue-green (it's not a blue-green, but it's a green that's a bit more to the blue side), and I need a green that's a bit more to the yellow/olive side. It's very pretty and I'm sure I can find something lovely to do with it, but it won't be the replacement for my Foliage that I had hoped.

That's okay though, because I happened to stop into a yarn store in my home town...*innocent look* and found a lovely yarn that will work with my coat! The green is in the right family of olives. It's obviously not a bulky, but I think it should work for the worsted weight version of Foliage. We'll see. I also gave into the Noro sock yarn. We'll see how it turns out.

And with these purchases, I am now officially putting myself on a YARN DIET. I really need to just start a knitting marathon and get some stuff done!

The amusing part of all this yarn purchasing is that I did start something new...well, not new exactly. FALLING LEAF #2! I did about 2 rows on my other sock and just wasn't into it, so I pulled out the Tofutsies and cast it on. I managed to get the toe and one whole lace repeat done as well. (Apparently I finished the first one in October of 2007.)

So, yarn diet. We'll see how that goes. Knit a whole lot. We'll see how that goes. Do these count as New Year's Resolutions, if it's already more than halfway through February?

Packing

It's school vacation week here in MA, and since our little co-op nursery school follows the school calendar, we're off for the week. So I'm doing what any sane woman (with an awesome mom) does, and fleeing the state to go visit my family. DH isn't coming with, he's got work and since things have been tough for him lately, I'm hoping a break will help restore him a bit. At least maybe he'll get some sleep.

It turns out that having a baby who wakes up and screams for an hour to an hour and a half in the middle of the night isn't really all that much fun! I know, I'm shocked too. The brochure made it sound so appealing.

I always have this fantasy that I'm going to get So Much Knitting Done when I'm at my folks. I do often get stuff done, but not as much as I dream about. And yet, the question remains, what do I pack?

Right now I've got two socks in flight, plus a scarf, plus a crochet project plus another big project. And I have all this lovely new sock yarn, and I really need socks. I think the smartest thing to do would be to bring the scarf and the socks that are in process, and *maybe* yarn to cast-on one more pair, just in case I suddenly, you know, become a really speedy knitter. Because g-d forbid I run out of knitting options.

Have I mentioned that I'm helpless in the face of sock yarn?

Yeah. It's true.

I had a gift certificate to KnitPicks for Christmas, so a few things are coming to live with me...

This, in Mermaid Lagoon and Wicked Witch....
This, in Leaf (hopefully to match my coat for another Foliage, as the Malabrigo Chunky in Olive appears to be sold out everywhere, and yes this isn't sock yarn, I know)
This, in Tyrian Purple (I did some socks in an older colorway and I really like the yarn, it's durable and soft)
This, in Ash (I have a couple possible plans for this yarn)
And then this, just because I need it.

And now, a few skeins of this are coming to live with me, in Intense Rainbow and Violet Rainbow. One possible plan for this is to stripe the intense rainbow with the Ash KP Essential, either in socks or a scarf (a la Noro 1x1 ribbed scarf). I'm not sure about my sanity, that I'm considering knitting a scarf out of SOCK YARN. Clearly some sort of intervention is required. :)

I also think I have more than enough sock yarn in purple/green combos, and I need to start actually, you know, knitting the darn socks.

Time Out

I was on such a knitting streak, getting stuff done and posting about it! That's on hold for the moment. My husband's uncle passed away last week, so DH has been out of town. My mom came down to help me but there's not been much downtime and my heart's not really been in it. I'd like to do some knitting today. My mom left this morning and DH gets home later tonight, so we'll see.

The rest of my yarn shipment from Webs arrived, the last of the Noro Silk Garden...My mom really liked the colors of the scarf I'm doing now, so I'd love to get that done this week for her. Noro is so different in real life than what you see on the page, so I'm not sure I'll order it without being able to see it again. I also now have two skeins in a colorway that I don't like as much in person, not sure what to do with it...and the baby unwound one of them so I don't think I can sell it...maybe I'll list it on Ravelry.

Blah. I'm just feeling blah today.

I did get a larger mat for using the rotary cutter (40% off!), so maybe I'll go cut up fleece for blankies!

FO: Flowers of a Grave

I absolutely love cloche-style hats. I don't have any (until now) but I always try them on and want one! Because my head is a bit smaller than the average bear's, the ones available in stores don't tend to fit me either. It just occurred to me, HEY! I'm a knitter, right? I could make one! I did a bunch of rav-surfing and found this pattern, and decided to try it! I had some Noro Kureyon that happened to come in my latest Webs order, so I cast it on. It's a quick knit, fairly easy. I should have taken pictures of the pre-felted product, it was VERY large.

Since I have a front-loader, I decided to attempt to hand-felt it. This would have been successful if I were willing and able to put the time in, but I just wasn't. (And I started working on my arms at the gym today too.) I ended up running it through the wash 3x before it felted enough and wasn't down around my nose! On the last round, I made sure I was using HOT water and a heavy-duty agitation, and that worked well. I am so pleased with how this came out! I just love the colors, I love how Noro felts, and I am completely amused that it matches the Booga Bag. Sadly, we're getting ANOTHER snow storm today, and this hat doesn't really go, stylistically-speaking, with my heavy winter coat, so I'm going to have to wait until we have slightly warmer weather to wear it with my wool coat, which will work. Fun fun!

Happy February!

Where on earth did the month go? My goodness, time is flying. We had a birthday party for a friend of DS2's today and we're now on vomit-watch 2009, as two kids barfed at the party. GOOD TIMES! DS had a good time. He's a poor second child who has pretty much tended to be friends with his big brother's friends, so having his own school time has been awesome for him this year. One of the moms announced that she was pregnant (her third) and I was so happy for her, and so glad it's not me!

So for knitting...I'm wearing my spiral hat and scarf all the time and loving them. I realized that one of the reasons I'm really focused on knitting for ME right now is that I have so little in my life that really is just for me. I'm too tired (or had too many kids) to have any brain cells left for the big stuff that requires thinking, but knitting is something I can do. Wearing things I've made for myself feels like self-care, which is cool. I've had various helping professionals over the years tell me I needed to learn "self-care" and I never really understood what that meant, but now I'm starting to get it.

So, I finished the knitting of Flowers on a Grave today, and attempted to felt it by hand. After 20 minutes I decided I was tired (and need to lift more weights), so I sent it through the washer. Now, I do have a front-loader which is supposed to be not-as-good for felting, but it felted my Foliage just fine (insert eye roll here), so I thought I'd see what happened. It's a quick knit, so if it fails utterly, well, that's okay. After one trip through, it was still reaching down to my nose. After two trips through, it was reaching down over my eyebrows. We'll see what the third trip does!

I was knitting along, and it was time to go to the above-mentioned birthday party, so I pulled out my Booga Bag (total side note, going out with a kid where I brought NOTHING kid-related with me=awesome!), and realized that I knit the hat in the same colorway as the booga bag, though the stripes are a bit different. I am amused.

My husband was laughing at me because I was saying to him "I seem to be obsessed with hats and scarves right now, but once I'm done with that, I'm going to be obsessed with socks." He said "You're planning your obsessions?" Um, doesn't everyone?

I'm plugging away on my Noro stripe scarf...it's funny, I know it's not going to be for me, but I don't know who it is going to be for!

Details on the Hat and Scarf

So, the hat is the Noro One-Skein Spiral hat. It is knit in Noro Silk Garden, colorway 241. I knit this on my 16" size 7 circs, and finished with the Magic Loop, using my KP Options. I cast-on 88 stitches, and did around 6 or 7 rows of a 2x2 ribbing, which I actually like for this hat. It's definitely a fitted hat, and I have a smaller head, so if your head is normal sized, either go up a couple of sizes on needles or cast on more stitches. The first attempt I made, I had to frog because my eyelits were stacking instead of spiraling. Turns out that I was misreading the pattern. When you actually follow the pattern, it works! I knit it to about 5 3/4" deep, and then did the decreases. I *love* the top, and it's exceedingly clever in how it's done! This is a cute hate and I'm really enjoying it! In the picture, it's sitting on my medium-sized mixing bowl which seems to be a good fit for blocking hats...I'm not sure how it'll work to block a hat with more of a brim (I'm doing a felted cloche next), but we'll see.

The scarf is from the Gentle Stripes pattern. I cast-on 28 instead of whatever she suggests (20? 24?), because I like a wider scarf for warmth. I think this pattern works really well with the color gradations of Noro. And I love the fact that the ends somehow came out almost matching! It's a warm and cozy scarf, and I've been wearing it almost non-stop.

So, still on needles we have...

1. Another Noro Stripe Scarf
2. Branching Out
3. My Cat Bordhi sock (can't remember which one it is)

And to be cast-on, my poor neglected Falling Leaves sock.

Once I get these things done, I need to focus on socks for a while. I really need more socks and winter is showing no signs of ever letting up, so warm socks are a must! I find that when I wear my commercial socks now, my feet are just cold! No good.

Oh, and my younger son has taken the felted Foliage for his own, which makes me really happy. He loves green. I can't find Malabrigo Chunky in Olive in-stock anywhere, but perhaps that's for the best.

See, I am that into you!

You thought I was like that guy who took your number and never called or answered your texts or anything, but it's not true! I really like you, and here's the proof! Pictures! TWO FOs!!

Details to follow tomorrow because I have no time at the moment, but I was so excited to get this done! The scarf is all crumply because I've been wearing it a lot. I needed a scarf. I think the colors are much truer in the first hat picture than in the hat and scarf picture (which is too bad because I like those colors better).

Bummer, and yet, personal growth.

So, in my attempt to felt my foliage hat, I ruined it. It felted some, but not prettily, and it was too short. It did block nicely, but it looked like crap. *sigh* Oh well. I can make another easily enough, once I acquire some more malabrigo chunky. I am an idiot though because it didn't even occur to me until late last night (well after felting fiasco) that I could have just unraveled and reknit it!!!!

The personal growth piece is that I managed not to get upset or angry at myself for it. I was a bit bummed, sure, but I've got another hat I'm working on so I'll have a warm winter hat, and I can really just get more yarn and reknit it. It's not that big a deal. Sure, I'm out a few bucks and a few hours, but that's not so bad. And it's really got nothing to do with my worth and value as a human being.

And now off to order some more Malabrigo. :) Anyone ever ordered from eat.sleep.knit?

The Current Experiment

(I know, I know, no pictures of the scarf! It is warm though! I'll do some when I get back from today's preschool drop-off.)

My Foliage hat is currently in the washing machine. It's just too big. I have a front-loader, and I put some wool socks through to see what would happen and they felted just a bit, so I'm hoping that's what will happen to the hat. Worst case scenario, I'm out the yarn and the time, and I'll get some more and make a new one. (Wow, I can't believe I just said that!) I'll report back as to what happens. I'm also going to experiment with using my mixing bowl to block/dry the thing. It's a day of experiments!

Promises Promises

I've got to make this quick as I've only 13 minutes of internet left tonight (my computer internet connection drops at 9:30 to keep me from staying up waaay too late every night!). I finished a scarf and I'll post pictures tomorrow! I know, I keep saying I'll post more pictures. This time, I really mean it. And I'll call you too.

Anyway, this was an easy and quick knit. I took the Noro Silk Garden 241 that wasn't working in my stripes scarf and started a scarf with it. I took a chance and ordered two more balls from Webs, and it turned out to be the same dye lot (which doesn't actually apparently mean the colors will be the same). I used the Gentle Stripes scarf (ravelry pattern here), though I cast on 28 instead of 24 stitches. I just did the pattern for a long time (just about 3 balls worth, minus the stuff I had to pull out to make the color joins work). The scarf is long enough and wide enough (oh damn, now I have to go find my tape measure, hold on). It's about 6.5" wide, which I like since it's cold where I live and I really need a WARM scarf, and it's about 60" long. Knit on size 7 Takumi bamboo straights, if you can believe that. I got to the end and bound off in pattern just to see what it looked like. I didn't do my usual slipped stitch edge that I like to do on scarves, but I like it, it contributes to a real rustic look on this scarf, which works well with the yarn, I think. It's supposed to be wicked cold (that's Massachusetts speak for "really" cold) tomorrow, so I'm excited to have a nice warm and pretty scarf. I'm going to do a hat to match, probably this one (ravelry link).

I wouldn't say I adore NSG. It's more that I *want* to adore it...this colorway doesn't do it for me 100%, and it's very different in real life than the web pictures suggest, so I really will post pictures soon. Tomorrow. But I've only got four more minutes online, so I'm going to hit post.

FO: Baby Hat

I actually got this finished a few days ago! This is actually a different hat from the one I cast on but for some reason I was so bummed out about it, I had to frog it and restart. The fact that I'm getting NO SLEEP is perhaps contributing to the funk I've been in. I'm working on pulling out of it, it's all okay, it's just the winter, the fact that we're all sick, and that my lovely daughter has been up screaming in the middle of the night every night for the last...well, really long time. NO GOOD, as my younger son would say. Anyway, on to the hat!

As usual, I winged it, and when it looked like it was going to be big enough, I decided that it was going to be a gift to some friends who are leaving on 2/4 for China to adopt their daughter. She's older than my daughter but about the same size, so I'm hoping it'll fit her!

You may recognize the yarn, this was the last of it. Um, I'm not sure how much I had left, okay just weighed the hat and it's 39 g, and I think I had about 10 g left over. I knit this on size 7s - the original size 7 circs that I bought to knit fruit hats on when I (re)started knitting over 4 years ago. Aww, nostalgia! Anyway, most of the hat was done on those and switched to KP Options to Magic Loop the decreases as apparently I don't even own size 7 DPKs, which I was going to use! Yes, I *can* knit in the round on DPKs, I don't prefer to. I think I cast on 72 stitches, and knit it for a while until I was worried that I was going to run out of yarn, and then I decreased down to 8? stitches (good lord, I really used to have a better memory than this), knit about 30 rows, pulled the yarn through the stitches and tied a knot with it. You know, just a basic little roll-brimmed hat. (The reason I have no brain cells left is the model above. Thanks, sweetie!) It could probably stand to be a bit longer, but it's not really a hat for warmth, just for cuteness and head protection. This is the first girl after three boys for this family, and I think it's really cute. The baby shower is tomorrow, so I'm going to wrap it up with an iTunes gift card and call it a present.

So, you know you're a knitter when you say to your husband "I'm just going to step into the closet and weigh this hat" and he barely looks up from the computer and just says "uh huh." Or when he comes into the kitchen to find you measuring one of your mixing bowls and trying it on your head to see if it'll work as a hat blocker so you don't have to spend the $36 for one of these (even though these are really cool).

In other news...scarves are plugging along, maybe I'll take some pictures tomorrow. I'm cold, so I really want at least one of these done. I've got a couple of hats to do as well, and then I think I need to focus on SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS!

I also think 2009 is the year of the sweater! I want to knit myself a sweater. Something warm and yet flattering...Some of my friends have made 241, which looks pretty...Or this one...Or Vivian (except I'm not sure I have the figure for it)....Or the Central Park Hoodie...

So yeah, a sweater. MAYBE.

Perhaps I was too ambitious.

So, when I had my grand idea for my service knitting, I totally forgot that we had one of THOSE days planned. We had a play date this morning here, so I had to do some cleaning...we went straight from the play date to the "big gym" (as my kids call my gym) where I had one of those runs that just feels like you're running through molasses. Then we hit the grocery store (still on my "nothing but perishables" kick), and then we had the "Big Show" at the kids' gym. The boys are taking a sports class and today was the last day for the semester, so they put on a demo. It was terribly cute! But no knitting happened. We got home, and I had the kids while DH did some work upstairs, then clean up.

So, I cast on the thing, I knit about three rows and then my lurking headache blossomed, and I was reminded about how I got no sleep last night, what with two sick boys, a teething daughter, and the final straw, a barfing cat.

I feel lame. My new goal is that I won't knit anything else until I get this done (and it will be done by the end of the month). Now I'm taking my sleepy, achy, lame-o self to bed.

Happy MLK/National Service Day

As we prepare for the change that is coming tomorrow (and excuse me while I squeal like a little girl), I'm thinking about Obama's call to service. I started this blog in the spirit of service, and it's still important to me, I've just yet to figure out how to fit it in right now. I decided to join in with Mommy + Knitter's goal of one baby hat a month, so my plan is to cast one on today and try and get that done. I'm also wanting to do somethings for Project Linus. I think I need to scale back my plans, as an actual blanket with a simple edging is preferable to that gorgeous blanket with the complicated edging that I don't actually finish. I keep thinking about how I want my kids to act, and reminding myself that I must lead by example.

So, I'll check back in tonight with the results!

Would It Be Wrong?

To start YET ANOTHER scarf, that is? I'm nearing the finish line with Just Enough Ruffles, but I'm about halfway through my last purl row, meaning I've got another 300 stitches to purl. And it's a purl-bind-off. Why is purling more awkward than knitting? The scarf is all scrunched up on the needle, but I think it's going to be really pretty.

I just would love to start the striping scarf to see how it's going to look. I decided on which yarn to get. I have to say, the yarn looks quite different in person than on the screen. I'm not loving the colors, but maybe it'll be a gift. Ha ha, start my Christmas knitting NOW, right?

That would mean FOUR scarves on the needles at one time, that's a lot. Maybe I should finish the Ruffles.

Knitting and the Internet

I don't have much knitting content today. I knit a few rows on the Just Enough Ruffles scarf, which isn't really that interesting to blog about. I knit a bunch of stitches. I purled a bunch of stitches. I wrapped a few here and there (thankfully I reread the pattern before this, because I almost did it completely wrong). Lots of knitting and purling, not much progress, when you've got 200 stitches in a row. And that's *before* the ruffle. :)

My on-line life has always been a really big part of my actual life, since college. This is sort of cool because I actually went to college in the dark ages before there was the Web. Yeah. We wrote papers on rocks with ashes from the fires that heated our tents. My first computer was an up-to-the-minute fancy-schmancy Mac Plus. I had ONE MEG of Ram. I had an EXTERNAL DISK DRIVE to run big programs. I did write a paper here and there on it, I mean, I got my degree so I must have, right? Mainly I played hours of Tetris and engaged in the precursor to chat rooms. Some of my very best friends, over 20 years later, came from that thing. So, I've always had a fondness for internet communities. I was on usenet starting in about 1995, and have a group of friends that have migrated from usenet to a Yahoo group to a private group, as well as LiveJournal and Facebook. Today I also got sucked into Twitter and Plurk. Like I need another time sink? All this to say, the internet, and social networking are a large part of my life, and have been for a really long time.

It's amusing to me at times how big a part the interent plays in my knitting as well. It's different from the other sorts of stuff I do. I'm on Ravelry, of course, though nowhere near as much as I could be. I'm in a bunch of groups, but don't participate all that much. I read some knitting blogs (and can always use suggestions for more!). Mainly the internet provides me with inspiration for yarn, projects, and tools. I love cruising around Ravelry looking at people's projects, and it's amazing to me how much time and effort people take to share their creativity with total strangers. What an amazing gift. It's so incredible to see what people are doing, both the kinds of projects that I long to do myself, as well as the stuff where I think "man, I'd never knit that but WOW."

So, no real point to this post other than to take a moment and feel thankful, both for all the amazing connections and friends I have in my life, and for all the amazing creativity that's out there and inspires me. I'm a lucky woman.

Knitting Annoyances

So my first annoyance is that my awesome Foliage hat has grown as I've worn it (I have been wearing it a lot because it's cold in my house), so it's now too big. I've turned up the ribbed brim so it's no longer in my eyes, but now it's just a tad too short. Grr. I'm not sure what to do about this, if anything.

My second annoyance is with my Noro. Knots. And the big annoyance with Noro knots is that they make zero effort to join two pieces in color sequence, so you either have a huge discrepency in your color, or you have to cut and wind. I chose to do the latter because I knew that it would bug the sh*t out of me to have such an abrupt color change. So much Noro's genius is in how the color shifts happen, so it's frustrating. It also means that I'm down a bunch of yarn, and I've got to hope that what I've ordered from Webs will not be drastically different. The scarf is really pretty, though honestly, I'm not *adoring* this colorway (#241, for one thing, my colors look totally different in real life than what I'm seeing on the screen). It's more muddy and muted than I'm liking. I'll try and do pictures tonight.

Speaking of colors looking different on the screen vs. in-life, after I made my Webs purchase, I checked out Dream in Color Smooshy on Ravelry, and the reviews were mixed. One issue mentioned was this one, that the colors look amazing on the screen but are way more muted in person. I looked for the yarn I bought in people's projects and essentially it's a blue yarn, which is totally different from how it looks on the screen. As gorgeous as the Lunar Zazzle is on-line, if that's not actually how it looks, and if all those Rav projects are a more accurate representation, I knew I'd be wicked disappointed with it, so I called them. They haven't shipped my order yet, so I swapped out the Lunar Zazzle for the Pansy Golightly. Also looking at the Rav projects, the colors look way more muted on there than on the Webs page, but it's much more purple, which is much more a ME colorway than the bright blue. (Okay, it just occurred to me to look around in people's stash, and yeah, I made the right choice. It does look like there's a wide variation of shades in this.) The gentleman I spoke with said they'd be shipping in the next couple of days...now I place my order on the 8th, so not having it even shipped until the 14th seems kind of a long delay. YARN YARN MUST HAVE YARN. *ahem* Man, I wish Webs carried Koigu.

I did a few rows on the Just Enough Ruffles scarf...it's hard to feel motivated when it's not going to be warm enough to wear the coat it goes with for a couple months at least, probably longer.

And, in life outside of knitting (is there such a thing?), dude, I'm tired. My lovely daughter is up way too much at night and my lovely younger son has a croupy cough so he was up a ton too. I'm setting myself a challenge, to purchase only the perishables for the next month, to use up the stuff we've got stockpiled in the pantry and freezer. Tonight, I used up 5 cans from the pantry! I'm making crock pot chicken, so I used 2 cans of corn, 1 can of black beans, 2 cans of Del Monte Zesty Mild Green Chiles (wow, I just noticed how much salt those have in them, hmm), and frozen chicken thighs. About a half hour before serving, I'll add a block of cream cheese. Normally I do this with jarred salsa instead of the canned tomato things, but I had them on hand, and I don't have the salsa I normally use (Trader Joe's Peach salsa). So, we'll see how it turns out. I'm quite sure the kid won't eat it, but they can have the rice. I love the crockpot.

No self-control, no, none at all.

So yesterday afternoon, I bundled the kids up and got us out to the post office to send off some knitted love. Then we had to head out to Harvard to pick up our meat (for real, we belong to a meat CSA, just one of the many awesome things I love about living out here), and I thought, HEY, I'll just, you know, swing by the LYS to see if they have any Noro Silk Garden to go along with what I've got already." With three kids. Yeah, I worry about my sanity too. But I had the baby in my gorgeous new carrier, and there's a tiny little play room that the boys disappeared into, so it was actually not too hard.

Their supplies of Noro were really limited, and the lovely lady working there mentioned that they aren't going to be restocking any time soon, because they're focusing on Spring and Summer yarns. (Hard to believe, with 4-6 inches of snow hitting us tomorrow that Spring *is* coming some day!) I did make it out of there without buying anything (though now I'm wishing I'd gotten another needle gague because I can't find mine). So, last night I did a little shopping...

When I order from Webs, I tend to order big because of the discount, and this was no exception. I bought a bunch of Silk Garden, figuring it'll either work for scarves or felted hats or *something*. I got two different things to try with the yarn I already have, plus yarn for another scarf plus more yarn in the same colorway as the scarf I am currently making (not a stripey scarf). So, um, yeah, a lot of Silk Garden.

Then, some sock yarn just happened to drop into my cart as well! *innocent look* No really, officer, it just happened, no idea how! First this came to me, in Clematis. I'm excited to try a yarn with some Tencel in it. Then, I saw this. I just fell in love with the Lunar Zazzle color. I also totally fell in love with the Pansy Golightly, but I thought I'd try one skein first and see what I think. It gets some mixed reviews, so we'll see. And then I called back and added a couple of skeins of Kureyon too, for an hat. It's fun to spend birthday money!

So, just for my own notes, on needles (and hooks) right now:

1. Lace doily
2. Crochet edging for baby blanket
3. Noro SG Scarf
4. Casting on Just Enough Ruffles tonight
5. Second Sock
6. Big lace project that's sort of stuck at the moment until I get enough brain cells to be able to focus.

I *think* that's it. Once I get the scarf and hat obsession worked through a bit, I need to do some more focusing on socks, as I'm in dire need.

No Noro Love Today

I took the yarn from my failed 1x1 scarf and repurposed it. The green/purple (241) is going to be a scarf for me. I've a small concern that I don't actually have anywhere near enough yarn for a scarf, given that it takes *four* skeins to make the 1x1 ribbed scarf, and I have two, but have I ever let something like common sense stop me? No! So, a scarf it is. We'll see how it all works out, eh?

I took one of the other skeins to my LYS to see if they had anything that would work, and they had one skein of something that would, which, you know, isn't enough. So I didn't get anything and I'm rethinking this. Of course, I didn't write down the number of the colorway I thought would work to order from somewhere else. I think I'm going to order a whole bunch of stuff from Webs and see if I can make something else work. These scarves are so awesome, and fun to knit...I could *even* do some Christmas knitting, right?

I'm going to order a couple other knitting related things. A hat shaper, in the bell cloche style, in a small, for me. A mat for blocking things. And this, which is technically not knitting-related, except that I drink a lot of seltzer, so well, I don't know. It's connected.

Okay, clearly I am too tired to be allowed access to keyboard. (One might wonder why I think access to a keyboard with a credit card on hand is a good idea.)