Starting All Over Again

How time flies!!  I've been neglecting my blog for four years and it's time to get back into the blog-o-sphere.  I find that Facebook is not sufficient for saying much of import.  Not that I have much of import to say!  But, at least here I can expand on my knitting projects!

The Yarn Harlot admitted to having at least four unfinished projects.  I have been going her one better by proclaiming all of my unfinished projects on Facebook, one at a time! 
I made a knitter's vow after Christmas  that I will finish all of my incomplete projects before starting a new one!!  Thus, far I have almost stuck to my promise.  Here is where I stand.

1.  Sipsy's Folly.  Designed by Amy Detjen.  Available on Craftsy.  
Excuse for not completing: 1.  Charted the poetry for the inside hem five times, and knit the poetic hem three times.  I'm not doing it again.  I have to live with the fact that the letters are upside down.  2. The hip/waist shaping is too dramatic for me, a woman of a certain age.  I have ripped back to the hem and am starting anew.  

Where it stands now:  In time out, once again. 

2.  Lingerie Socks.  I promised these socks to a friend for her birthday, back in August 2013.  I finished them after taking my vow on February 14, 2014.  I think the socks are beautiful, but they remained incomplete for a long time due to: 1) intervening Christmas knitting; 2) the need to carry a pattern with me at all times.  Status: friend loves them.

3.  Lengthen beanie made for Daughter #1 years ago.  Status: Done!!  Excuses for delay: 1) needed to find matching yarn in my yarn bins; 2) Ripped out two different extensions that were unsatisfactory. 3) acceptable to Daughter #1. Status: The Black and Blue corrugated ribbing was a successs!  Ears warm.

4.  Make Shawl for church auction, Exception #1.   For this, I needed to violate my vow; I started this as a new project post-vow taking.  I know, Knitter's Vows are not really worth much, but I felt this was for a good cause.  At least I used yarn already in my stash.  I whipped this up as quickly as possible and it sold for $60 at the fundraising auction!! Yarn used: Noro Taiyo sock yarn.  Pattern: Simple Yet Effective Shawl, with applied lace edging.  

5.  Socks for purse knitting, Exception #2.  Ok, I admit it.  I made another exception to my vow.  Purse knitting.  Easy knitting for which no pattern is needed and that fits in my purse.  Knitting I can do at a stop sign, while waiting in line at the grocery store, when I need to really pay attention to the friend with whom I am talking.  I can't carry my incomplete projects with me at all times, so I need a bit of a project for my purse.  Besides, I need to replenish my sock drawer.  Status: happily living in my purse.

6.  My Wonderful Mittens.  I started these Winter Wonder Mittens before Christmas, using Fresco yarn., made of wool, alpaca and angora!!!  The ultimate in soft warmth.  Excuses for not completing: 1) Intervening Christmas knitting.  2) Finishing Lingerie socks, above.  3) not really NEEDED.  4) items for me tend to go to the bottom of the heap.  Status: Knitting completed.   Now I am looking for supple white leather to put on the palms so that I don't wear holes in them due to driving, etc.  This is Wisconsin, people, mittens are not worn just for show!!

7.  Heirloom Blanket.  I don't recall when I started this blanket, but I fell in love with the motif, swatched it, and started knitting with Kauni yarn in long lengths of purple to blue to green.  I am still deeply in love with the project.  But, it has been marinating in the knitting bag for a LONG time.  Excuses for not completing: 1) This is a 5.5ft by 4ft blanket people!! 2)  I'm using size 3 needles!!  3)  The Kauni yarn does not pull evenly and gets stuck on my fingers, for pity sake!!  The knitting is a slog.  Status: since taking my vow I have knit 12-14" and it is now about 4 ft long.  

8--????.  More incomplete projects.  I actually have more incomplete projects, but I am too exhausted from having confessed my knitterly sins and from the daunting task ahead of me.  I'm not sure when I can ever start a new project.  Clearly, being bored and thinking that I can just whip out a small project without affecting progress on larger projects is misguided and has landed me in an ever deepening abyss of Unfinished Projects!

Stay tuned for more, unless this also makes you depressed!!

Transitions

In a few short months, my precious Daughter #2 will flap her wings and head off for college. This fledging has been a wonderful chick in our nest. She was an inquisitive and excited little sprite who danced and pranced her way into life. She's been a devoted child, who still loves to spend time with her older parents, charming them with her tender heart, hard work and good spirit. Although normally I love the transition of winter to spring, with the lengthening daylight , this year it is bitter sweet. I know that her time with us is shorter and shorter.

Daughter #2 has delighted us with her love of choral music. She began singing in a choir at age 4 and now participates in four choirs! She loathes solos, but finds that choral participation is the only time she truly relaxes--and buries herself in the intertwining melodies. This month, as last year, she scored a "#1" in the regional competition of solo and ensemble vocal music. This means she will go to the state level competition again--something that makes her very proud.

My precious girl is on the right, one of her good friends (a superb soprano) is on the left. They sing in three choirs together.

My daughter selected her college of choice based on their fabulous choral music program. She does not want to major in music, but she wants to continue to take voice lessons and to participate in a hard-working and excellent choir. Unfortunately, although this college accepted her, it did not offer her a scholarship. Two other colleges accepted her and offered her scholarships. We have some tough decisions to make. I would love to stop time and to keep this precious daughter at home for years to come. But, her time has come to flutter her wings and we all have to let go. Sigh.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I've also been experiencing some frustrations. Last year I started a Dale of Norway sweater for myself. It's in my favorite color--red! But, it took back seat to items for other people. I started with the sleeves and only finished the sleeves. After completing the Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl, I dug out the red sweater. (after I located it, that is. For a few panic-ed weeks I was sure that I had lost it. Found it in the back of a closet.)

When I pulled on the sleeves I realized the truth about why I stuffed the project into the back of a closet! The cuffs were too tight! I couldn't hide from facts--I needed to re-knit the cuffs. There was no way around it. I got out the scissors.


I cut off the cuffs and then picked up the stitches and re-knit the cuffs going down, rather than up. That means that the cuff's edge was bound off rather than cast on. See---

Trust me, it looks better in person.
My cut-and-pick-up-stitches solution worked for only sleeve #1. For some reason, the textured stitches of sleeve #2 refused to cooperate. I finally gave into my fate. Here's sleeve #2.


That is what Tiur yarn looks like after being knit into a textured sleeve, sitting one year in the back of a dark closet, and being ripped out. Kind of like spiral pasta soaked in tomato sauce. The solution?
A good long soak in wool wash, hanging to dry, winding and re-knitting.

Here's sleeve #2--version #2. What's wrong with this picture?

Notice the pink chain where the cuff should be? Because cuff #2 on sleeve#1 was knit DOWN rather than UP, I didn't want to knit cuff #3 on sleeve #2 UP rather than DOWN. I didn't want two different looking and different feeling cuffs. So, I cast on provisionally, using pink yarn for a crochet chain. After taking this photo, I picked up the live stitches as I undid the chain, took out my smaller needles and knit the cuff for sleeve #2 for the second time. Then, I finished sleeve #2 for the second time and I have two complete sleeves back in the knitting bag. Back to where I started two weeks ago. Definitely a knitting time warp!

Now, on to the body!

Milestones

Milestones, those markers on the road of life that let us know that we have accomplished something. Somehow our lives are changed when passing the milestones--usually for the good. I passed an important milestone on May 20, and I hope it is good. I finally received my masters degree in library and information studies. I also am now eligible to receive the appropriate license to be a school librarian.

I knit my way through many classes, until the classes became so complicated that I needed both hands to take notes!! Information technology was one such class, as was information architecture and cataloging.

Here I am in my robe, hood and hat with my daughter #2! She was more excited about my graduation than I was!! She earned it--she got me up to go to my 7:45 a.m. Spanish class more than once. And she set an example of how to stick to one's homework until it is done. And how to keep at it until you understand it. And how to go to school even when you are not feeling well--no wimp scholar is she!! High school kids have a hard life; harder than I ever had it and harder than my graduate school life.



Here I am with my parents. I am wearing my father's PhD robe, the one he wore when he was a faculty member and marched in annual graduation processions. I wore the robe out of respect for his accomplishment. He started college when I was 1 month old, after he returned from WWII. He finished his PhD when I was 16--and there were a total of five children in the family. He worked full time and studied whenever he could. Of course, my mother sacrificed a lot to achieve the goal--she deserves an honorary PhD. (She never went to college because she was at home taking care of us kids.) Nothing I experienced as a late in life graduate student compared with the hard times they had making ends meet and burning the candle at both ends.
Knitting milestones are also important. Blocking an item is like a graduation, of sorts. all the coursework is completed; all the papers are handed in and this is the ultimate final step before sending it off into the world to do good!! Here is my Shaped Triangle Shawl from Gathering of Lace; the one I started in 2002 after Knitting Camp. Or, maybe I started it in 2003. At any rate, I purchased the yarn, Joslyn's lace weight yarn called angel hair, at Knitting Camp. (the yarn is truly deserving of the name. It is wonderful laceweight yarn!!) The shawl sat smushed in a bag for years and I finally retrieved it this winter. I vowed to finish it by June 1, and I blocked it this evening!!!

Ignore the little blips--There are some in the photos. I'm planning on wearing it with great pride, even with the little problems for which I did NOT rip back. I ripped back for a number of problems, let me assure you. But, at some point I just had to get this baby done!!



And done it is!! The temperatures are in the mid to upper 80's this week and I don't have anyplace to wear this. Maybe I'll have my husband take me out to dinner at an air conditioned restaurant. I plan to wear it to Knitting Camp beginning July 5, regardless of the temperature!!!!

Where do all of you wear your shawls?? Do you have an elegant life that I don't?? Maybe I should celebrate finishing the shawl and graduation all in one!! Although, dh already paid for a dinner for 10 family and friends after the ceremony........ Clearly, I need more milestones to celebrate by wearing my shawls!

Family Reunion and resurrected shawl

My family reunion has taken precedence over everything, including blogging and knitting. Beginning 10 days ago, family members began arriving to celebrate my parents' 80th birthdays. Sister Terese and her 9 year old son were the first to arrive. Four days later Sister Annette, brother Mark and my mom and dad arrived. Two days later her husband John and son Carl arrived. With my brother Jon and his wife Robin living in Madison, we were at full strength.
My ex-husband, also named John, is now an amateur group photographer. So, he took lots of family photos in a park, which I will put in an album for my parents. Here's a shot of all the women, plus Jack, with the fans I brought back for them from Barcelona! We spent some time practicing snapping the fans open and closed. Jack, as you can see, took the opportunity to ham things up!!

In the late 1960's our family (mom, dad and five children) lived in Northern Nigeria for two years. During that time, we came to love chicken curry--brought to Kaduna by the British. My brother Jon made a huge pot of curry one evening and we had a fabulous dinner at his house where I completely ignored Weight Watchers point limits and ate three helpings. Here is helping #3. (Note: Weight Watcher points were also ignored for cakes, ice cream, fruit tarts and real cream in coffee! I skipped the WW meeting this week!!!)


Knitting took a backburner to cooking, planning, organizing and celebrating. But, I was able to finally finish the shapely shawlette shawl I made to take to Barcelona earlier in the summer. I used soy silk yarn from Southwest Trading. I had two problems with the yarn. First, the balls had knots!!!!! I sent an email message to the company and they told me that I had some old skeins of yarn and that the new yarn did not have knots. Let's hope "knot"!! Second, the yarn is completely inelastic. I used the yarn happily, however, because I liked the drape and the light weight.
Knowing that the yarn was inelastic did not stop me, however, from using the recommended double bind off from the pattern. I have made about 5 shapely shawlettes in my time (they are wonderful, easy knits that stay on one's shoulder!!) and never had problems with the bindoff before.
Well, this time the shawl "bound" my shoulders when worn. So, I frogged and applied a horizontal lace pattern to the live stitches on the edge. Knitter's error in deciding how many stitches to use for each row of the horizontal lace resulted in another in-elastic edge. I took the thing to Barcelona anyway. It was so hot that I never took the thing out of my suitcase!
When I got home to the U.S. I finally solved the problem. I frogged the recalcitrant horizontal lace and took matters firmly into my own creativity. I needed an edge that would stretch, but not result in a curly mess. I needed more stitches. So, I *bound off two stitches, put a backwards loop on the needle and used it as a stitch to bind off* and repeated across the long, long edge. Voila--a beautiful, non-curling but elastic edge!!

I still haven't worn the shawl, but when the weather cools off, I will.

In my nest post I hope to show you the completed Violets by the River shawl!!! I am now on the honeybees, the top edge. Six rows on 368 lace stitches and I'm done!!!!

Spring cleaning

Ok, spring is definitely here, complete with daffodils that have finished their bloom and tulips that are waning! This means it's time for spring cleaning. No, I don't mean sweeping the cobwebs from the corners, I mean cleaning out the various knitting bags of their unfinished objects and FINISHING THEM. Or, at least, making a stab at finishing them.

My first finished object is the little toddler hooded jacket that I started sometime this winter, when I was waiting for my (dear) husband to select the colors for his Dale of Norway sweater. I was so frustrated with his inability to focus on the task and make a decision that I started another project, with yarn from my stash. I don't even know where I got the yarn. It didn't have any labels. I believe it is acrylic, but it is cute! Here it is. My daughter's church choir director has a two year old, vivacious daughter. I think it will be perfect for her. (pattern is Lillie's Little Sweater, knit all in one piece from the hood down, from Cottage Creations. No web site.)
My daughter had her coming of age ceremony at our church last weekend. It was an emotional ceremony, watching our baby be acknowledged as passing from child to more mature adolescent. In our church, the kids must write their own statement of faith; that is, their religious beliefs. They also design the ceremony, and perform the music. My dear child wrote a beautiful statement, and of course, it was the best and most sincere of all!! Here she is!
At our child dedication ceremony, shortly after birth, we give children a rose with all the thorns removed, representing the beauty of the world as we wish we could give to them--without sorrow. Now, at coming of age, we give the kids roses with thorns, recognizing that they now are increasingly able to deal with life's sorrows as well as its beauty.

Unfortunately, this must be the end of this blog entry. I have tried three times to add other photos, add to this post and publish it. Each time Blogger tells me that it has successfully loaded the photos, then they don't appear. or, the photos appear and I write lots of great commentary, and the blog won't publish. I am quitting for today while I am ahead!!

Obsession

I admit it, I am obsessed with basically no-brainer knitting. Once I started this left over sock yarn blanket I have become totally dedicated to making these bias squares and sewing them into the blanket. As you can see, the bias stripes formed by the self striping yarn create an optical illusion effect. I love it, as does the daughter for whom it is intended.

You can see that I have learned a bit in making and assembling the squares. I learned that one needs to create stripes if the leftover yarn is not self striping. Therefore, I have used two sock yarns in some squares to achieve a striped effect.
I have also learned that my patience is not as great as I thought it was. That is, I had intended this to be a long term project (read--over several years). But I have become obsessed. I am running out of sock yarn and I want to stand on the street corner, soliciting left over sock yarn so that I can finish the blanket this spring. I can't possibly generate enough left over sock yarn by knitting dozens of socks within the next two months!!! Hmm, maybe I could post an ad at the LYS!!!

Meanwhile, I have been teaching a class on making the Flower Basket Shawl. I hope to take photos at our last class in two weeks, so that I can post the beautiful shawls that have been made.

I haven't been knitting on any other projects mainly because I have been busy with school assignments. I am doing my student teaching at a local elementary school, in the school library. I spend lots of time reading books to kids and preparing for a big research project that will begin this week with the 5th graders. They will be researching famous people from the Civil War.

In addition, my dishwasher has refused to empty water. Since I don't have time to stay at home to wait for a repair person, I need to start doing dishes by hand. I know, this is not a big deal in terms of the world as a whole, but it does cut into knitting time!!

On a happier note, my 14 year old daughter is preparing for the coming of age ceremony at our church next week. We purchased a cute spagetti-strapped pink dress with a "tutu" underneath. When I was young, we called those "tutus" stick-out slips and my mother would starch them. Now, it is just gathered netting with no name; christened "tutus" by my daughter. She thinks this is a new style! Ha! What does she know??

How did she possibly get so old?? She is finishing her freshman year in high school and will be at home for only three more years before going off to college. Oh my, I don't know if I am prepared to be an empty-nester. My nest has been full for 30 years--my oldest is 29 years old now. I don't know what it will be like to have only my husband and myself at home. How lonely it will feel. Meanwhile, we are enjoying and getting the most out of every minute with the 14 year old. Because we each have had our older children leave our nests, we have come to cherish all moments with this daughter--even the hormone driven teenage "moments"--because we know that her life with us is so limited.