The knitting yogini

Pansy Shawl

2011-05-09T09:05:00.001-04:00

My kids amaze me. As I write this Hubby is at home watching Didi circle the cul-de-sac on his two wheel bicycle. Mind you, Didi is 3 and potty train is still in progress. I never knew that cycling could come before toiletting. The Falcon is equally amazing. And they’re both exhausting. But it is Didi in particular who is trying to break me at the moment. He brilliant, beautiful and just a little bit evil.

So, my fiber arts projects have taken a turn toward comfort knitting. That lovely beaded shawl I started is packed safely away waiting for better times. The spinning wheel has been dormant largely because my legs have been tired from chasing, biking, and hauling laundry up and down stairs. But, I have always related to Elizabeth Zimmerman, “Knit On, with confidence and hope, through all crises.”. Its just that in trying times what I knit has to change--usually into something that is predominantly stockinette.

This project was quiet pleasing. The knitting was very simple. Endless acres of stockinette broken just a bit by some Old Shale that I threw in at the end. Old Shale is the first knitted lace that I ever did--I remember knitting my great-grandmother a lap afghan in Old Shale stripes when I was probably about 10. (I also remember that the sides were a bit uneven as I gained and lost stitches occasionally). So, the knitting itself was very simple. Yet the FO is not. Its the result of more complicated spinning.

I spun this back in 2009(?) from two rovings (one from Hello Yarn and one from Spunky Eclectic) and documented it here. My main worry was the green--specifically the bright lime. I didn’t think it would look nice intermingled in the yarn or even in small bits (ie from a Navajo ply). I very nearly picked it all out and saved it for some thing else. Even after I spun the yarn, I considered projects that would only use the purple and pink. Clicking through pretty pictures on Ravelry though, I saw some pretty shawls much like this--semi-circular with a high contrast final border.

This is from the Lune pattern and it is wider than a true semi-circle. Its been in my queue for awhile because I wanted to see how that shaping would compare to a faeroe type construction. I’m happy to report that it drapes nicely over my shoulders in a variety of ways with no pin. The addition of the garter stitch ground Old Shale at the end is my modification. I wanted to give it a bit of an organic appearance and I think that having the green as a lace would keep it from being so stark since its just a bit see through.

All is quiet

2011-04-26T14:01:00.000-04:00

on the blog, but no so much in my house. The small one has shed the last of his babyhood, moved through toddler and is rapidly becoming BOY. He’s keeping me on my toes during the day and awake through his restless nights. That plus the spring pollen may kill me outright. There is not much going on in the fiber arts area at this time and what is happening requires little concentration. Such as plain sock knit from some roving spun last year:

But, I do have some cute boy photos:

A little bit of lego

2011-03-31T11:45:00.002-04:00

Our lego league season has come to an end. One of the hard things for me as coach was trying to figure out what parts we had. This was the second year for lego league for the school, but the first year for me and The Falcon. We had a ton of legos, and I could find tons of activities on-line and in the instructions that came with the kits. Unfortunately, the kits had been mixed together in the first year and we had more than one type of kit. Initially, I tried to sort the kits back out ultimately realizing it was futile mid-season. Because the kits weren’t 100% the kids had no reluctance in searching more than one bin for what parts they needed if they didn't find a part right way. And, they made little effort to return their project to any particular bin when finished. Finally, I just poured all the lego together into as few bins as possible attempting only to keep the technic lego somewhat separated from the classic lego.

And, so we carried on. I simply chose activities that seemed to use the most basic parts. I promised myself I would sort them back into kits at the end of the season so that the next coach (possibly me) would at least know what was there and what if anything was missing. At the end of the season, I asked for parent volunteers to help sort. I’m so glad a couple ladies came to help.

This is after the Big Sort, but not at the end of the project. The ladies and I sorted them by parts, but not into kits. Its even more impressive when you know that except for the big bin on the bottom, the rest bins are filled with more cups containing separate parts.

With it so nicely separated, it should be no problem to get it back into the kits, get a good inventory, and get them put away in the schools storage closet. But, I’ve got to get it done fast before my little gremlins come by and undo all my hard work!

Spring time Lily

2011-03-23T10:42:00.002-04:00

Spring has come! I managed to hold off starting anything new until I finished my Lily sweater. I convinced myself that if I knit it and nothing else that I would have a chance to wear it this spring. Its still early enough here that we could have some weather that would warrant wearing this all day. But, I hope not for too much longer.

(Sorry for the focus. I’ll have to have a good sit down with my “big girl camera” and figure out how to get it to focus on me instead of the trees behind me.)

This was experiment #2 in very little ease. I calculate it to be zero ease around the bust line. Its a bit modified though it should be hard to tell from the pictures. I’m tallish, so I added an inch below the armpits by adding rows to the decrease/increase instructions (it has waist fitting). The sleeves took a bit more tinkering. Initially, I applied a similar lengthening method to the sleeves, but the first one came out too short and too tight. I modified them further by adding 6 stitches to the entire width and as well as a repeat of the lace pattern. When I got to the yoke, I modified the sleeve decreases on the sleeve side to decrease down to the pattern’s original number of neckline stitches over the original number of rows (basically I decreased faster).

Though, I have many Twist Collective patterns in the queue this is the first I’ve knit (as well as the first by designer Marnie MacLean). I found this very clearly written which helped with the modifications. As someone who has knit for a very long time (30 years!) and has improvised my own patterns, I enjoyed following this one. Sometimes, I’ll use/buy a pattern because I don’t want to do the maths myself and sometimes I buy a pattern because it looks interesting. This was the later case. I’ve done bottom-up raglan sweaters before, even with my own maths, and this one was different. It was a good read, so to speak.

I’m also very pleased with the yarn. It handspun--2 plies of handpainted targhee from Hello Yarn and one ply of fawn colored alpaca from Hidden View Alpacas. It is elastic and so soft.

The Mojo

2011-03-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

My fiber arts are in a state not so much of Startitis* as having the knitting mojo going, but not having the time to do anything about it. I have three projects on the needles even though in recent years I have only allowed myself two. Furthermore I have projects in the queue that I am anxious to cast-on, but I'm not allowing myself to do so until I finish two of the knitting projects in progress now.

On the needles are:

Lily in the yarn I spun for the Tour de Fleece. I am so pleased by myself over this one. Initially, I started this in a mill-spun yarn and then frogged and swatched again discovering that my handspun was a better choice. This pattern needs a yarn with some stitch definition and I was pleased that my handspun met the criteria. Its also deliciously soft and springing, so I’m itching to work on it. I’d hoped to finish it before starting my third project, but I have quiet awhile to go yet and make actually decide to rip back the sleeves and make them wider.
My In Dreams Mystery Shawl. I’m still on Clue 1 though Clue 3 has been released. This a my bit of beaded extravagance, and I had a few heart palpitations when I saw the first charts. Once I get going on it, its not so bad. Its fussy, but sometimes I like a bit of a challenge. The main challenge, as I predicted, is figuring out when to work on it. I only break out the complicated charts, cup of loose beads and pale yarn when conditions are just right--the kids are firmly asleep, the dog is tired, I’m not tired, and I’m not planning on watching the tv (but maybe listen to it). This is a rare event. But, when it does happen, I’m very happy to be doing it. I have hopes of actually finishing this before July and wearing it to a summer wedding, but maybe donning it for their 10th anniversary party is more realistic.

J.D.’s socks. My sister J.D. requested a pair of hand knit socks to wear in the hospital after her baby is born. I spent more time then necessary picking out the yarn/pattern. Now I'm on a deadline since the baby is due next month. Its kind of awesome. Knitting has made it to my chore To Do list. Now, I’m no longer procrastinating when I knit them I’m “working”. I’ll be a bit sad when these finish. For whatever reason, I also decided to do them on dpns. Normally, I’m a magic loop person, but I’m enjoying using the dpns and will have to do that again soon.

And once those are finished, I’d really love to knit some handspun socks, or a lace shrug from some sparkly alpaca sock yarn, or a tunic from some handspun alpaca....

*Startitis: starting multiple projects, but not finishing.

Scenes from the project that is not fiber arts

2011-02-28T07:49:00.002-05:00

We've gotten farther along that the pictures currently show, but I haven't had a chance to upload any new ones. Its coming along nicely, but I will be very happy when I have everything put away and can cook a normal meal without moving paint cans and finding stuff that's been moved out of the way to the basement.

Revisiting a handspun FO

2011-02-13T13:19:00.002-05:00

(This time I did NOT rip anything out).

This is my favorite sweater. Its is also my most heavily favorited Ravelry project (Deep Sea Lady). Despite my repeated assertion that my best color is dull green, this deep saturated blue functions as a neutral in my wardrobe. I can thrown it on over about 90% of my outfits and it looks especially good with a pair of dark denim jeans and a knit shirt. It is also the perfect weight. It is warm enough to be warn as a outer layer in spring and fall, and light enough to be worn inside during the winter.

The yarn is my own handspun from Lisa Souza’s handpainted BFL roving in Deep Sea and it is really this beautiful color that I think makes this project. It was the first time I spun enough wool for a sweater. I tore the bumps into strips and mixed them before weighing them into even bobbin-sized portions . I plyed the singles into 2-ply DK weight. Using the Blue Moon Fiber Arts parlance for a handpainted yarn, I would call this a “water color wave”. It does have some color definition and hence some striping, but it is definitely not high contrast.

Here it is 2.5 years later:

Overall, I think it has held up very well considered the rather heavy wearing and washing it has received. While I don’t wash it every time I wear it, I do wash it every second or third wearing. I live a dirty life. It has faded, and I think it may have shrunk a bit (its hard to tell as I have also gained weight and block it very casually). It has pilled like the devil and for that I blame my spinning. With 3 years more spinning experience under my belt, I can see the my yarn should have been more tightly plied. Additionally, if I had to do it over again, I would have 3-plied this. Not only should that have given it more durability, but it would have given it more stitch definition and taken it from a “water color wave” all the way into a deep rich semi-solid.

Don’t think that I regret any of the time on this. It is still my favorite sweater.

More Sparkles

2011-02-02T11:20:00.003-05:00

I was not a tomboy when I was a little girl. I wanted to be a ballerina until I decided that I wanted to be an astronaut instead. This was not a sudden shift toward boyish rocket ship adventures, but rather due to my love of National Geographic nebulae photos and Princess Leia. It was as an adult that I decided that I wanted to learn to surf and ride motorcycles and that it would fun to ride around on a giant big bike loaded with kids and build lego robots.

In large part, the majority of my current clothing has been chosen to resist coffee and grass stains, to survive being covered in snot and cooking spatter, and to need no ironing. My hairstyle must be easy care. I have a hard enough time putting the house back together after a shower without also blowing my hair dry. Flat iron? Forget it.

In recent years I’ve found that I still have an inner Space Princess Ballerina. I like my hair dyed and tied up in a fancy clip. I like a little mascara and lip gloss and seem to be acquiring a slight hint of steampunk. And, I like to wear a little something fancy with my yoga pants and t-shirt--maybe a bit of knitted lace, something an especially pretty color, or a bit of fancy cable something. It was last year’s new years resolution to wear some of my fancier and stranger knitted garments and I found that I really like it especially at this time of year. (Let's face it, its just not normal to pick a kid of from school in a a cabled kid mohair stole.)

Consequently, my Ravelry queue and my knitting stash has had a bit of a shift towards the girly. But, I’m now starting a project that may be taking it a bit too far. I’m doing the In Dreams KAL. I’ve been admiring Susan Podoff’s designs for sometime, but never had one high in the queue to get on the needles. I got hooked into this one because of the yarn--Unique Sheep Eos Gradience I’ve been wondering how to use a long color shifting yarn like this in a design to really highlight it. I’m excited to see how and when we will be shifting the colors for best effect. Oh, and there are beads? Why not? I’ve been wanting to try that to!

So, off I went to buy specific yarn for a specific project. Its been a long time since I’ve done that. I seem to buy yarn and then match to a pattern later even if I’m not knitting from stash. I decided that the colorway “Midnight in the Garden” both suited my taste in color and the theme “In Dreams”. I bought 5000 silver lined crystal beads give me some moonlit sparkles and admired the whole thing when it showed up in a tidy little bag.

And then it began to dawn on me that I am planning to knit a pale, lace, beaded shawl. To wear where? And when am I going to be able to get out 5000 beads with a child, a toddler and a puppy in house? In my dreams? At midnight in the garden?

Well, I’m going to find out! I still want to do it even if it get finished years from now and hung high on the wall.

Going Local

2011-01-24T10:27:00.002-05:00

A while ago, I decided that I want to study two fibery things:
1. Alpaca
2. Local* fiber sources

And yes, there are many sources of local alpaca. Look, here’s some:

This handspun is from some roving I got from Rivianna River Farm that was processed at the Central VA fiber mill (and bought at the Mill’s booth at the Fall Fiber Festival). It was lovely to spin. I was only even looking at it because of my study-project. At first, it appeared to be pale, dull green--the kind of color I’m trying to train myself to buy. (I always want to buy bright, high contrast yarns and spinning fiber, but actually like to wear muted colors and knit complicated designs suited for a solids/semi-solids.) As I studied it in the booth, it got hit by a shaft of sunlight---its got some recycled sari silk and firestar. Normally, I am not a sparkle girl, but I had just been trying to convince myself it wasn’t too bland. So, I bought two bags and got to chat with the shepherd herd who had processed this herself as she also works at the mill. This is a two-ply somewhere in between true lace and fingering weight. I’m planning to knit a lace tunic out of it.

Next up is Solitude Yarns. They have some neat stuff and specialize not only in local fiber, but also yarns from different breeds. I tried their Suffolk/Dorset boot sock yarn and knit these:

This is a sport weight sock yarn, so they are thicker than I normally knit. They’re soft, but, I think, durable and I love the color. While they’re thicker than my normal, they are also not too thick. I can wear them with my boots and clogs--they’re not strictly restricted to “slipper” wearing. The tomatillo green seemed too bright in the skien, but is perfect with jeans. The only problem I had is that the dog is also in love with them, too. I had to be careful to zip them in my project bag and I have to make sure that they are put away in a shut drawer when not being worn. I’m thinking of knitting another pair for my sister-in-law who has taken up goat farming and cheese making in northern CA.

Next, I sampled some yarn from Mt. Airy Farm. This is california variegated mutant with angora--so soft. I knit the Yarn Harlot’s Encompass using a carry along yarn to give it a little added color. Almost all her yarns were the natural color which looks dull especially as she was next to booths like Spirit Trail and Wild Fibers. It does have a nice texture, and drape. I think it’d be lovely for a sweater like Brooklyn Tweed’s Seneca just as it is and I’d only need 4 skeins. The natural soft brown would be so wearable and classic. I got the scarf washed and blocked just before the super cold weather front hit us, and it was great. The angora content gave it a delicious warm softness, and it stayed in the yarn without jumping all over my clothes (at least as far as I could tell since I have 2 cats and dog). Sorry for the focus--it was cold! LOL, I didn’t realize until I downloaded that the camera liked the trees better, and I’m not going back out there!

That’s it for now.

*I’m defining “local” as VA/WV/MD. There are some amazingly close sources of fiber considering that I live in what I consider to be an inner-suburb of D.C.

Another post-project modification

2011-01-17T10:00:00.003-05:00

This is another re-work of a previous project. I originally knit this sweater back on 2006 just after we moved from southern California to northern Virginia. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann’s EPS yoke sweater and some Knit Picks alpaca adding a little bit of fancier stitch work right above the yoke decreases and for the hems. I added some short rows to the back to prevent what she calls DRU (dreaded ride up= when one’s sweater rides up in the back) which is something I seem prone to. I also gave it a crew neck adding some short rows to the back of the neck.

While I am still experimenting with flattering body shapes, I’ve known for a long time that crew necks are not flattering to me. I look awkward in basic t-shirts and usually try to get something that is a little looser and without much structure even for athletic clothes. I imagine that my initial choices with this sweater were these: First, I thought that I might want to keep the back of my neck warm more than I wanted the more flattering neckline. Second, that the drape of the alpaca might be problematic one a sweater with a very wide neckline. And finally, since I find EZ’s designs fascinating, I probably wanted to knit the “whole thing” rather than just stop.

What I found was that I rarely wore the sweater because it was too frumpy. I turns out that I would rather have a cold neck (or wear a scarf). The good news that I had knit it from the bottom up. So one morning four years later, I ravelled back to where it looked promising and did a simple crochet cast-off. This is the result:

I’ve worn it a couple times now. While its a bit on the FlashDance side, I prefer the new collar.

And, yikes! I’m going to do some serious work on my posture!

Happy Holidays

2010-12-23T10:25:00.002-05:00

Wishing you a magical holiday season!

To keep the blog alive...

2010-12-18T11:55:00.002-05:00

I thought I’d do a little post before my blog becomes completely defunct. I’ll go for a Holiday post later, but right now I’m taking a break and I thought that I would write about something else.

Long time ago, I wrote a post about trying to figure out what colors I looked good in. And, having sorted that through that somewhat, I’ve been trying to figure out what clothing shapes are good for my figure. Let’s face it, most of us can’t just throw on anything and look good. IMO looking good has less to do with your essential shape, than knowing what to wear. This why my middle sister is inevitably better dressed than me. She has style and sass, while I have confusion and shy.

The summer before last, I knit a Liesel out of handspun and experiment with negative ease (the pattern is here). I wasn’t really happy with how it looked on me. It was too small, and too short. But, I only had about 10 yards of yarn left. I actually wore it a couple of times. I love the colors and knobby texture. But, I knew it wasn’t right.

Recently, I realized that I’ve been buying shirts that are A-line or empire waist. The idea being to hide my poochy stomach. But, they seem to make me look fat or pregnant instead. I think the problem is that while I don’t have the world’s smallest boobs, they’re pretty small especially relative to my rear. The A-lines and empires just flare out emphasizing my abundant bum and hips. The good news is the despite all that plus two kids, I have a waist. I’m thinking I should go for fitted at the waist, and try to simulate more curves than I actually have.

So, I cut the buttons off the Liesel, and sewed the fronts together leaving gaps at top and bottom. I still think its a bit small.

If I had it to do over (and I would if I had more yarn), I would make the neckline wider, add an inch of ease and make it several inches longer. I would also make it as a pullover (or false cardigan as it is now) until the lower edge. What do you think? Improvement? (Also, I am a bit heavier is in the second photo.)

A bit of a lull...

2010-11-10T09:26:00.000-05:00

Well, sort of. This week we’re celebrating the end of soccer season. That’s not to say we don’t love soccer, but... Both Hubby and the Falcon play. Furthermore, Hubby coaches the Falcon’s team, so they try to never miss a game or practice. This means that every. Saturday. in. soccer. season. is taken for at least part of the day. Spring and Fall. It really limits what we can do on weekends--like do an overnight camp out. Combine that with the volunteering that we do for the childrens’ programs at church and normal house hold chores and we get weekends that are more busy than the weekdays. It will be nice to have a “free day” for a couple months.

Actually, I’ve been analyzing the situation and come to the conclusion that I have not over scheduled the Falcon as I feared I had done at the start of the school year. I do think I’ve over scheduled the family. Its not that number of activities that the Falcon is signed up for, but rather that either Hubby or myself is also heavily involved in each one. He coaches soccer and teaches RE at church. I coach Lego League, volunteer at the school, and volunteer in the church nursery. Even the dog has classes. Right now, Didi gets dragged from place to place, but someday soon he will also have his own set of activities.

Yet, there is nothing that I want to drop. I enjoy my time volunteering as does Hubby. Furthermore, I’m not sure there are parents ready to step up if we step back. I feel like if I want the programs then I have to volunteer. So while it a relief to feel that I have not over scheduled my eldest, I know that will need some strategy to make it through these next couple years as both boys grow and explore various activities.

Anyone know how to bend time?

No? Well, please join me in a quiet glass of wine as I celebrate the lull between the end of soccer and the official start of the Holidays. Ignore the laundry.

Cheers!

Eye Candy Friday : Double Trouble

2010-10-29T13:24:00.002-04:00

Some finshed and in progress objects

2010-10-28T10:30:00.002-04:00

Coming soon : Fiber project pictures. And who knows? Maybe someday, actual content.

Still busy, but there's hope

2010-10-22T08:45:00.002-04:00

Didi: I want to go back and stay at the Beach House. (That we rented in the Outer Banks this summer.)

Mama: That was fun. Maybe when you grow up, you can live at the beach.

Didi: YES!

Mama: Can I come visit?

Didi: Yes! And eat food!

Mama: Awesome.

Busy

2010-10-13T11:29:00.002-04:00

It was busy last week. I had my first meeting as a Junior Lego League Coach. The Falcon lost his first tooth...and then lost three more. I tried to take the kids camping without Hubby and discovered that we weren’t ready for that yet. When we returned, the Falcon got the plague and has since then been home from school.

Still, I think our very busy fall will be a good one. The Falcon’s face cracks me up, Halloween is coming and Didi will soon be three! The weather is turning cool and I’m hoping to go to a corn maze sometime soon. And don’t forget, sweater weather!

Finishing Part 1

2010-09-27T11:42:00.002-04:00

Still busy, busy and not on knitting and spinning. I think we may have the sweetest puppy ever, but I will admit that I have not even attempted to bring my spinning wheel out since he’s been here. The drive is giant rubber band that looks tempting to chew even to me. I have a spare, but its still seemed a bit risky. I’ve not been doing much knitting either though strangely I have finished several things.

The first is the Pi Shawl (picture someday soon). I finished knitting this quite awhile ago, but I don’t consider a project a true FO until its been blocked. When the time came to block it, I dodged and decided to first re-block my cherry blossom shawl since I hadn’t done a good job of that the first time. Hubby and I have a water bed, so I usually use Didi’s bed for blocking. Several times, I’ve done this and then he’s done a surprise nap or I’ve forgotten about it at bed time. So, this time I decided to block on the master bedroom floor and keep the door shut until it dried.

The best place for this was beyond the foot of the bed and in front of the dresser--where one would pass to go to the master bathroom. I pinned in out with a thousand little t-pins sticking straight out of the carpet. I closed the door and all was well. Until.... I fell asleep putting Didi to sleep in his bed that night as happens sometimes. Hubby fell asleep on the couch as also happens sometimes. About 1am, he woke up and headed for the master bath to take out his contacts....

Yes, I nearly killed my husband by blocking my knitting. He was nice about it even claiming that now that he knew it was there it could remain until morning. I didn’t take him at his word. Having survived maiming once, I felt it was too risky to trust that he would remember the danger first thing in the morning.

Its taken me several weeks to get up the nerve to block something else. I waited until the Falcon started school and then I waited some more for a day when I was pretty sure I’d have my wits about me enough to block in a reasonable place and with an “exit strategy” in case someone wanted to walk somewhere or sleep in their bed.

Here’s what I have to show for it so far---Not a Drop Scarf (ravelry link) from my handspun corridale.

What I've been doing

2010-09-15T12:58:00.001-04:00

DSC_0013
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

School has started and so has everything else. I wasn't under this illusion that I would be spending quiet, lazy days alone but somehow I didn't realize how busy it would be either. Hubby coaches the Falcon's soccer team and is on an adult rec league team. I volunteer at the elementary school, and we both volunteer for the children's activities at church.

Oh, and we got a puppy! This is Captain Rex .

Naps

2010-09-01T07:57:00.003-04:00

Didi has entered a dark phase that I think of as Nap Purgatory. For months, he has sometimes needed a nap and sometimes not. Now, I know some moms live for nap time, but honestly, I’ll be happy when its done. As long as the kid is happy enough without it, I’m happier to not have to worry about it. Still, until this last week, the Random Nap has been o.k. Didi, typical little sibling style, is notorious for just taking a snooze wherever it attacks him--once even beside the pool with his head half in the swim bag. Most of the time, I could tell at lunchtime if a nap was coming and adjust accordingly.

Nap Purgatory is something else entirely. For the past week, Didi has woken up between 6:30-7:00am, taken a nap in the afternoon and then gone to bed between 10:30-11:00pm. Its basically impossible to get him to go to bed earlier, and impossible to keep him awake during the afternoon. I can’t think of how to get him to sleep in.

Yesterday, I tried to limit his napping. We’d gotten some ice cream at the grocery earlier that day. When Didi fell asleep, the Falcon and I gave him an hour. F read to me, I read to him and then I sent F in. Falcon woke him up by blowing fart sounds on Didi’s face and say “Ice Cream! Ice Cream!”. Didi stumbled from the room weaving like a drunken dwarf on a quest for treasure. He ate his ice cream, attempted to play and fell back asleep. I tried to wake him several times, but he just could not manage it. He woke up for dinner and a ride on his Own Big Bike and then fell asleep around 10:30pm. He was up again at 6:30 this morning with his regular battle cry, “OATMEAL!!!”.

Here I am again. I don’t think there’s anyway that he can make it through the day without taking a nap. Heck, Hubby fell asleep before Didi and I woke up after him, so I think D’s actually had the least sleep of anybody (at least during the night time).

Back from the Beach

2010-08-23T11:57:00.002-04:00

Pi shawl
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

We're home from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When Hubby was growing up, his family went there almost every years. Ever since we've been here, he's wanted to go. Until now, I've put him off--too for far the littles or some place else we needed to go instead. Finally, this was the year.

It was fun. We had a great time playing on the beach, flying kites, and checking things out. The Falcon did some body boarding.

Looking for a knitting project to bring, I found this quote from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac:
“When you set out on the annual family trip naturally you have to take your knitting; something has to keep you sane in face of the possibly quite ferocious situations you will be up against in the next two weeks.

Try a shawl.

I have a circular shawl for you which starts at the center, has absolutely no pattern, and only six shaping-rounds in the whole thing.”

Furthermore, Aug. 9 was the 100th anniversary of her birth. What else could I knit? This is one of the 100th anniversary shawls designed by Mwaa Knits, and its now almost finished.

Some Finished Objects

2010-08-12T14:34:00.003-04:00

My Town and Country Cardigan (finally)

Alpaca Yarn--3oz/180yds 3 plies

Peaches--6 Quarts of pie filling and 10 pints canned in cinnamon honey syrup

On learning to fly

2010-08-10T14:52:00.002-04:00

The Falcon has been able to swim since he was little and this summer I knew many of his friends would join the swim team. I encouraged him, but I didn’t want to force him. He doesn’t like to swim for speed or distance and I knew that. But, I worried that he would miss the social aspect of the team. He was adamant that he did not want to join, and I followed his wishes.

Then we went to a pool party and F began copying the dads who were trying to out-do each other with the largest cannonball. F was fantastic--flipping around, jumping high, having a great time. I decided to sign him up for spring board diving.

I love watching Olympic diving. It has always looked fun and beautiful. I was excited to find that F, having just turned 6, was just old enough to take the “Beginning Spring Board Diving” at the local rec center for ages 6-Adult.

Ages 6-Adult....

I called a friend who teaches swimming. Had she ever seen an Adult in the the class? Not really. Would it be all 6 year olds? Probably not--more like 12 year olds. I consulted F. What did he think? Yes, both of us.

So, I signed us both up. We go on Friday nights and afterward usually go to Dairy Queen. Its date night with my eldest.

F is the youngest diver. I am not only the oldest, but I am old enough to be everybody else’s mom---including the coach. This is actually liberating. My theory is that I already look pretty silly standing in line with the kids. I might as well just go off the board doing my best with a light heart and a happy spirit. (Though it did give me pause the day I looked over and saw two different parents taking home video. Please don’t put me on YouTube.) It turns out to be a lot like riding roller coasters--a little bit scary, pretty fast and fun. F and I both get a good adrenaline rush from it and are usually a bit punch drunk at the end.

We don’t do anything fancy. It turns out that the “hurdle”--the step hop jump combo before jumping--is harder than you might think, especially for an Old Dog like me and a young puppy like F. Yoga has given me a good sense of where my body is in space and what it can do, but at a much. slower. pace. F wants us both to sign-up for the next session, but I’m unsure. I have no problem with him continuing, but he doesn’t want to do it without me. We’d both be in the beginning level again, so that’s o.k. I’m just not sure at what point it stops being a fun mother-and-son outing and starts being lame or even creepy. I’ve also warned him that someday he might be in a more advanced class than me.

On yoga (summer edition)

2010-08-08T12:09:00.002-04:00

When I last wrote about yoga, I had decided to skip church and go to class sending the boys to church without me. In a couple ways, that was a success. For one, I actually made it to most of the classes. And, since it was the off-season for youth league soccer, I was able to make-up those classes I did miss. I loved returning to class and enjoyed my teacher. I remember now how much I really enjoy yoga.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the boys initially struggled getting themselves to church. I left enough earlier that Hubby actually had to do most of the work of getting the kids ready as well as loading them in the car or on the bike. I think it is important that they know they are capable of doing this without me. Also, Didi had been struggling for months with being left in the nursery without one of us staying. During my yoga session, he was finally willing to stay and even enjoyed hanging out with the nice ladies and other kids. I think it was partially due to his being better able to separate from Hubby than from me (and also due to some really outstanding patience by the nursery ladies--thank you!!).

But, while on those parts the Sunday yoga experiment was a big win, there were several reasons not to continue. For one thing, we want to be part of the church community as a family. For another, the church community itself seemed to find it confusing. Initially I told everyone I would be missing church for “a class”, not really specifying yoga. When I would later admit that it was yoga, people seamed to assume it was a workshop or teacher training or something Important. As people gradually came to the realization that I was going to a “normal” yoga class, I think some feelings were hurt. I was often asked to come to whatever special service was happening. Though I wanted to come, I knew I wouldn’t be able to find time to do that many make-ups. Plus, I wanted to do the actual class that I had signed up for.

When the session was over, I did not sign-up again. Nor was I able to find a different day and time that I thought would be do-able. And, here we are at the end of the summer. Soon it will be time for fall sign-up. Hubby is signed up for adult soccer and to coach the Falcon’s youth soccer team. I’ll have to find a way to weave myself into their schedules. I am feeling fat and sluggish and promising myself once again to get a yoga home practice or even any exercise program started.

More later.

Ah....summer....

2010-08-06T08:05:00.001-04:00

Not much blog fodder really. We’ve just been hanging out here, but in a couple weeks we’ll go to the beach.

I kept on spinning after the TDF though at a slower pace. I don’t have any pictures to show yet. A couple days ago, I pulled out the Town and Country. I’m almost finished seaming and then I only have the button bands and collar to knit. I think I’m going to try to get that done before I leave. Not that I’ll be taking it with me, but it just seems time that it got finished.

It was also a bit shocking when I realized that I’ve technically had nothing “on the needles” for sometime. When I stopped knitting prior to TDF, the Town and County needed to be seamed and my other project, a hat for Didi, was finished except for pompoms. My knitting basket is totally full, so I don’t want to start another project until I finish something. Yet, until I get that seaming done, I don’t have any actual knitting. Weird.

I’m trying to decide what to knit next. I want something that is portable for vacation yet complex enough to last a week long road trip. A pair of socks (or two) are a natural choice, but its also near the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s birth. I’m thinking an EZ project might be a good choice--maybe a Pi shawl or a butterfly jacket.

The finish

2010-07-29T14:31:00.002-04:00

parrich
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

I did make it--~18 oz of fiber spun into ~1080 yds of Dkish yarn. When I decided to comb the alpaca I ended up spinning less fiber than I'd originally intended, but I also had to take time out to comb the fiber. So, I'm calling it a win.

This seem to be just shy of the yardage I'd need to make a couple of the dk weight cardigans in my queue. But, I have more of the handpaint Targhee as well as a different handpaint that I think goes well with it. So, I have several options for making a coordinating yarn. Or, maybe I could go with the top-down pullover or something of that sort.

Meanwhile, I've still been spinning away though at a slightly less frantic pace. Its only recently come to me attention that I'm due for a bit a travel and should dig out some knitting to take on the road. Right now, I'm trying to decide if I should start something new or try to pack one of my current projects. The Town and Country cardigan is still languishing mid-seaming process and is definitely too big to take anywhere.

Day 22--TDF 2010

2010-07-24T20:09:00.002-04:00

Day 22--TDF 2010
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

TDF Update

2010-07-23T09:14:00.004-04:00

In case you were wondering...

By Day 16 I had all the singles spun:

(In the back is the bag of alpaca "waste", and the targhee that I didn't spin because I didn't have alpaca to match it. So the photo includes all the fiber I started with).

Here's this morning's (Day 19) update:

I've found that I can ply one bobbin and towards the end my arms are getting tired and I'm not being as careful as when I started. So, I've been just stopping there. Its anyone's guess if I manage to finish the plying on Sun. Mom's coming into town and bringing the Falcon home with her. I'm not sure if being one kid down is going to be a help or a hinderance.

Also, I've been spinning in front of the kids, but I think plying is pushing my luck with the 2 year old. So, I also started spinning some lace weight alpaca in the day or when I'm done plying for the day. Its a beautiful natural, dark brown top that was a gift from Chelle. Thanks, sweetie! Its spins up just like the chocolate it resembles!

Day 12--TDF 2010

2010-07-16T10:17:00.001-04:00

day 12--TDF 2010
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

These are my results through Day 12 of the Tour de Fleece. I realize its no longer day 12, and I have spun more. The photo does represent the half way point for the singles.

Well, sort of.

It would have been the half way point if I was using a full 8 oz of alpaca. When I decided to comb the alpaca, I generated some waste* which I knew would happen. I'm not quite finished combing, but it looks like I'll end up with more like 6 oz of the alpaca for this project. So, I'm only spin a total of 12 oz of targhee to go with it. Which puts more more like 2/3 of the way through the singles.

*On the waste: I'm saving it. My understanding is that I should be able to card it and use it for something else.

On the extra targhee: No problem. I even have another 4 oz that I bought, but wasn't going to use in the this project. So, it won't go to waste either. Depending on the yardage I generate with the the targhee/alpaca, I'm considering spinning a sister yarn that is all targhee or targhee/silk that I could use as a deep border for a sweater knit with the targhee/alpaca. We'll see. By the time I finish the targhee/alpaca I may be ready for a different colors and fibers.

More on the tour

2010-07-09T08:27:00.002-04:00

Not much else is happening here this week and what is happening sure doesn't seem to be happening very fast.

Day 5

Day 6

The Day 6 photo is my total for the entire tour so far. I'm still working on the bobbin that I started on Day 4 and am hoping to finish it today. I don't know... but I'm starting to think that I might not be able to get all 6 bobbins spun and plyed by the end of the tour... The good news is that I'm loving how its coming out so far.

Spinning away

2010-07-07T07:20:00.002-04:00

Day 1 spinning:

Day 2:

Day 3:

I know that wasn't the most impressive display ever, but I do have to prep the alpaca before I can spin it and that last bit was done while my a/c was broken. Fortunately, I got it fixed yesterday, but I was tired of combing. So, I went ahead and started on the targhee.

Day 4:

I've got another bobbin of alpaca to comb and spin and the most of the targhee. Fortunately, its a long race.

Cheeers!

TDF Day 1-A minor set back

2010-07-04T09:21:00.001-04:00

I decided to comb my alpaca batts
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

When I received my alpaca a couple weeks ago, I tested a piece to make sure that it would be happy doing what I wanted it with it. And I thought all was well. But when I started to spin yesterday, I found that it probably could have used another pass or two through the drum carder. There was a bit more vm than I like and some noils.

So, I decided to comb it first. All will be good, but I wish I would have noticed it last week so that I could have prepped it then.

For the record, the glass is full of ice tea--Don't drink and comb! Those buggers are sharp!

Tour de Fleece challenge

2010-07-01T11:06:00.002-04:00

Tour de Fleece challenge
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

This year I'm in the Stashbusters group for the Tour de Fleece. This is a good thing. The fact that I need to use some of my stash has not been helped by some recent fiber purchases including this alpaca from Hidden View Alpacas (its the softness in the bag) and some Cormo from Juniper Moon Farm that hasn't arrived yet (Its not my fault, the sheep need shade).

Center stage is some Targhee from Hello Yarn in Parrich colorway. My plan for this lot of fiber is a 3-ply--2 strands of Targhee and 1 of the alpaca. I'm hoping to get enough yardage to make a sweater.

I'm going to start with the alpaca and hopefully by the end of the tour I'll have some if not all the yarn finished. Wish me luck!

Not so lazy kates

2010-06-30T08:46:00.002-04:00

More from the MDSW workshop.... Judith Mackenzie McCuin does not recommend using a tensioner on when plying using a lazy kate. Instead she recommends tilting it away from the spinner creating tension through the angle. Will Taylor now even makes one that angles called the Clever Kate, but Judith says tipping a regular one with a book will do. No need to go an purchase new equipment. I'm not finding a clever kate for sale, but here's a link to a picture of one from Ask the Bellwether.

Now, I have a different Will Taylor lazy kate. This one:

I thought that the strands coming up through the tube, being pulled at a 90 degree angle from the bobbin, would already act much like a tipped kate. So initially, I did not take Judith's advice and instead concentrated on holding my hands properly. (She had very specific instructions on how to hold the strands for 3-ply which were new to me). I had a lot of trouble. My singles kept getting tangled and breaking, and Judith came over to help.

What she saw was that the singles were becoming tangled together down in the tube and even sticking together. She said she suspected this was more of a problem than usual because of the fineness of the singles (being more sticky as they get finer apparently). We broke the strands and pulled them out of the tube, then tipped the kate away from the wheel and used it like the other kates with much better success. And bonus—I got to see her method for what to do when a ply breaks. She also speculated that if the strands were kept separated coming up the tube that I wouldn't need to tip the kate (for the same reason that I thought it would have worked initially). So, I decided to find out.

Round 1:

I glued (shudder, sorry Will!) some stitch markers to my the top of my kate like this:

I had considered putting the loops straight up from the bobbin, but a la Alden Amos, I usually push my kate some distance away from me. So, the single are usually coming off the top of the kate angled at roughly this point and I figured the loops should be spaced just enough to keep the strands separated without adding too much additional tension.

It did not work. First problem was that one of my singles was horribly overspun and I would have had problems regardless. Additionally, the loops were close enough together that every time on of the strands had enough slack to coil back on itself, it touched its neighbor and stuck to it. I think I basically moved my original problem to the top of the tube rather than inside it. I ended up abandoning the overspun single entirely and making a 2-ply of the remaining strands using the kate as I had in Judith's workshop.

Round 2:

I moved the loops farther apart, and set-up as before.

This also did not work. My strands became tangled in the loops. I had to pull and yank to get the singles though. It was definitely not smooth and even. Early on, I broke my stands and reverted once again to Judith's method.

As I sat there plying away, periodically moving my kate away from me (it has always tended to slide back towards me as I ply) I began to think of ways to permanently modify the bottom of the kate to give it a nice solid tip. And perhaps, I would also glue a piece of old yoga mat to the bottom so that is nice and sticky. And as I thought on it and plyed away, I would give a little pull with my front hand, and the kate would walk forward a little bit with a small jerk and the bobbins would keep rotating a little bit...not at all like it was really supposed to be doing, but still better than before... and I began to wonder. About this tube that so nicely runs the yarn at a 90 degree angle from the bobbins... I wonder if instead of pushing the kate as far away from me as possible, if instead, I should put that sucker right underneath my back hand so that that the strands come straight up from the tube?

But by then, I was already finished for that day, so Round 3 will have to come another time.

Town and Country Cardigan

2010-06-22T09:58:00.003-04:00

Someone somewhere should be entertained by this one...

When I last posted about the Town and Country cardigan, I was trying to choose the buttons. You might have thought that I was nearly done, and frankly so did I. But, when I went to sew it together, I discovered for certain what I had suspected and denied. The sleeves were too short. I was also nearly out of yarn. Fortunately, Beaverslide Dry goods came through finding some extra in a secret place in the back room. I frogged and reknitted. I read the Yarn Harlot's post about blocking before seaming and was reminded why this was a good thing.

So, when I felt the time had come to do some seaming, I pulled all the pieces out and prepared to drop them in the bath. But, I was missing of the fronts. I've a fiber basket upstairs by the couch where the sleeves were. Not there. It wasn't in the stash cupboard where the back and other front were. It wasn't in any other part of the stash cabinet. Nor on the pile of mending on my dresser. Nor in the place where I keep my spinning wheel. Where? Where?

It was gone for about 6 hours while I tried not to freak out and to convince myself that somehow I hadn't just forgotten to knit it at all. Exibit A: Almost no yarn left--I couldn't have been that far off on my math. What the heck?

I asked Hubby to keep an eye out for it, but I could tell he really had no idea what to look for. The next time we were all downstairs, I pulled out one of the pieces that I had to show Hubby and the Falcon---"Something like this! Look for the Other One!" They tried not to let their eyes glaze over because they could see I was upset. I didn't have much hope that they would look or even notice it if they ran across it.

Then I looked down, and there it was sticking out from underneath the kids' rebounder which sits in front of my stash cabinets. I have no idea how long it was there or exactly how it got there. Maybe it fell on the floor when I pulled the other pieces out and got pushed underneath.

So, I washed my pieces. And, I must tell you they are deliciously soft and I was looking forward to trying it on even though its 95 degrees out. I blocked it. And then, I noticed that I had knit one sleeve a half pattern repeat longer than the other (about 1.5 inches). So thanks, Yarn Harlot for helping catch that before I sewed them in, knitted the neckband (which will include the saddle part of the sleeves) and then discovered I was lop-sided.

But, now I need to figure out which sleeve is "right" and fix the other one. Arrrgghhhhh....

Le Tour de Fleur

2010-06-18T07:54:00.003-04:00

The Falcon's school has what is called the Discovery Garden. I think its one of the big pluses of the school. I've helped out in it a couple times this year, and I'm excited to be a little more involved next year. Yesterday, I had 2 simple little projects for the kindergarden. The first was for the Falcon's class to add some annuals to the butterfly garden, and the second was to get representatives from each of the 3.5 kindergarden classes (long story on the 0.5) to plant pumpkins. Next year's incoming kindergarden class will watch the pumpkins finish growing, harvest and dissect the pumpkins. The K's class loved this year.

So, I had 3 flats of annuals, a toddler, and a desire to use as little gas as I can get away with. And actually, I convinced myself that biking the flowers there is the best idea anyway. The parking lot is not adjacent to the garden, can fill up with cars, and the visitor parking gets blocked in by the buses. (So if you're parked there toward the end of the day, you can't leave until the buses fill and start their routes. I've seen angry parents trapped there because they thought they were picking their kids up 15 minutes early and are now a half hour late for wherever they were trying to go.) With the flowers and Didi on the bike, I could just ride the whole thing around to the garden.

So, I loaded up the bike. At this point, running boards would have been handy since only one of the “flats” was actually flat on the the bottom. Also, I wished for straps instead of bungees (One flat ended up tied on with twine which I probably should have used for all of them). I ended up have to stop a couple times and re-adjust. That was a bit problematic especially since the biggest jolt was taking the bike off the centerstand. Still, I probably made just as good of time getting all the flowers to the garden as if I would have driven to the parking lot and walked them over past the playground with the toddler multiple times.

Planting went good. It's fun to play in the dirt with the kids and Didi really is a champ in these situations. His big gripe is that I don't let him play on the playground with the kindergardeners, but I knew from past experience that towards the end of the day the playground is empty. I figured that by time I watered everything and picked up that the kids would be inside. Not quite. So, we had some snack in the shade. It was neat to see how many kids came on their own to check out how things were growing and a group of sixth graders came by and practiced tai chi in the butterfly garden and another couple kids say in the ampitheater portion reading or drawing in the shade. Didi ate all the snack and complained of hunger, so I picked up our stuff, went around to the front of the school and signed us out.

We had about and hour and a half before school was out and my plan was to ride up to the Dairy Queen not too far away rather than going home. Didi still wanted the playground. “Do you want ice cream or playground?” Playground. “Not ICE CREAM?” Playground!

So, we went back to the playground which was now empty. Didi had a great time playing. Another kindergarden class came up and began to do all kind of activities in the open area nearby. Some teenage girls came by to hang out and gossip.

Later all but one girl left and she was met by her beau. After awhile, I realized they were drinking beer. I was tipped off by the girl periodically pouring out her “soda” into the grass when beau hunk wasn't looking. 2 beers, 2 teens—not a big deal for me. But on school grounds during while school is in session? Seriously? And what's that towel for Beau Hunk? You thinking of getting some action say right as school is dismissed and 500 kids walk outside? I started giving them Mother Stink Eye. They finished their beer. BH wrapped the cans up in his towel and they left. Kudos on the not littering. Make sure to recycle those!

Didi and I wandered down to pick up the Falcon and saw a bunch of parents leaving the end of school parties which I had forgotten about and probably could have crashed. Well, except that I had to go to the playground. We loaded up—the extra flat of flowers, Falcon with extra projects to bring home, Didi who was tired and rode home.

And I had some ice cream while Didi was sleeping and the Falcon was playing outside.

The End.

Things that can be carried on a bike

2010-06-17T16:12:00.003-04:00

Things that can be carried on a bike
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

Inspired by Urban Simplicity's posts, here is my Things that can be carried on bike:

3 flats of annuals
1 spare helmet
1 pesky toddler (not shown)
1 diaper bag with diapers, pumpkin seeds for planting, snacks and water (technically carried by me as I rode the bike).

Full story later--I'm all tired out!

Going to School: Spring Edition

2010-06-10T10:56:00.000-04:00

(Didi's freaking because he thinks the Falcon is going to tip the bike over not because he's going for a ride.)

Yesterday was the spring Walk to School Day at the Falcon's school, so I thought I'd write a bit about how the year has gone with Clyde the Big Blue Bike.

I am so glad I have the bike. Its a lot of fun for me and the kids and it is really useful. We are able to make a lot of trips that we would never do walking and that the Falcon is not quite ready to do on his own bike. As far as school, the Falcon will not be allowed to ride his own bike until second grade and the handful of times we've walked all the way home has taken about 45 minutes of whining.

So, a recap of how the school is set-up: The school is on a main road with no sidewalks across the front. The kids that live in the neighborhood across the street are all bused. The kids that live in the neighborhood behind the school (us) are all “walkers” or “kiss-and-riders”. We're at an outer edge. While we must be within the 1 mile limit as the crow flies, its definitely more than a mile by any path that I have found. Most of the kids that live near us are driven to school and dropped off at the kiss-and-ride in a long line across the front of the school. For those of us walking/cycling from behind the school, there are a series of paved trails for the kids to follow (i.e. there is not access from a street). The trails are a bit narrow—about 2 adults can walk abreast. I think this is probably why biking is restricted for the youngest kids. There is no way to get there without accessing the trails and it is very easy for the cyclists to mow down the pedestrians. With this in mind, I cycle as far as I can by street and then walk the bike through the trail section.

So, my goal was to ride as long as it was not raining and it was above 45 degrees (my lower limit for preschool last year). I did really good in the fall. In fact, I found that the kids actually preferred the bike even at lower temperatures. When it rained, I drove to the start off the trails and then we walked from there rather than going through the car line. And then Snowpacalypse.... There were a couple days after school started when the trails were not accessible, then several more when they were not accessible to me since there was no place to park and only people who lived on that road could walk (the rest of the trails and sidewalks were never shoveled). Eventually, I rode my bike on the street and then parked it before the trail since it was only shoved one person wide. But, that was for pick-up. For drop-off, I finally learned my way through the kiss-and-ride. And became addicted to it.

This spring, I must admit that I still drop off by car. I use the fall system for pick-up, but its just so much easier to throw everyone in the car. I am not a morning person. But everytime I hear news about the spill in the gulf, I know that this kind of indulgence is part of what got us in this situation. So, my goal for the last weeks of school is to bike to school, too. And then to keep the car parked as much as possible over the summer.

Some lace

2010-05-27T11:57:00.003-04:00

This my handspun Wensleydale knit into the Alka Shawl. Its been wet blocked, but the edging still has a bit of curl that should come out with a bit of a steam block. It falls to just above the small of my back and then drapes itself over my shoulders as a good faroese shawl does. I do wish that it was slightly larger which I could have achieved with larger needles, but I was nervous that knitting the handspun on too big of needle would render the fabric too fragile. I do have some yarn left over, too, but not enough to have added a full lace repeat.

This is not enough to make me want to frog it. Actually, it probably a really good size and I'm going to make sure to use it so that I find out how it wears. I'm tall and drawn to large lacy shawls in pictures. This shawl, is about the size of a large shrug or bolero. So, I'd be much less likely to end up dragging it around behind me (with Didi likely dangling of the back). At least that's my theory.

So, it will get some trial runs this summer. I'm thinking it will be great to toss over a sundress or tank top when I come in from the heat and into the A/C.

Some yarn

2010-05-24T12:00:00.002-04:00

This is a stranded 4-ply—2 two plied strands plied together. I was doing the singles before class and during the class Judith briefly showed us what that was and described how to do it. I'd seen pictures and descriptions before, but seeing just the little piece in class caught my interest and her description of how to do it seemed pretty straight forward.

And, it was very uncomplicated to do, if somewhat time consuming. As far as the yarn, I'm frankly fascinated with it. I love how the colors are muted out at a distance, but still distinct up close. I love the feel it in a the skien—it feels a bit elastic and drapey at the same time. I suspect the elastic is from all the plying while the drape is from the sheer weight of it. I spun up 8 oz of corridale into roughly 330 yards of light worsted yarn. Its dense as heck and not as soft as I would like. I think I may have over-spun the singles. Still, I have some hand paint BFL that I could 2-ply with some natural BFL and then 4-ply together. I think it'd make a luscious rust brown marbled yarn that I could knit into the Tea Leaves Cardigan, and wouldn't that be lovely? If I came out with roughly the same number of yards/lb as this batch then I'd need 2 lbs, but I have that....

Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I've started spinning up a 3-ply experiment and by that time that finishes I should have a couple projects off the needles. I'm going to queue up something to knit with this yarn next, so that I can see how it knits up before I get carried away spinning sister yarns. Ideas anyone?

Addicted to Audio

2010-05-20T12:07:00.002-04:00

(The picture has nothing to do with the post. I just like it.)

So a couple months ago I made myself a promise to read more books and less facebook. Its been going better. But, recently I've discovered that I've been doing a lot more listening than reading. I've occasionally listened to audiobooks for sometime. At first, it was something that took practice. I had to learn to stop them playing when my mind wandered and I had to learn how to pick them out. For example, I usually find the ones that were written from a first-person perspective easier to listen to since it just seems more natural read aloud. I also tend to like books from a series since they become familiar voices with familiar characters.

At first, I would listen mainly when Hubby was out of town or I had a quiet moment while he played with them. It might take a really long time for me to get through a novel. When Didi was born, I also started listening to them when I put him down. Yes, strangely mama's iPod is part of the bedtime routine. It boils down to this: at the end of the day, I am often very anxious for the ~~spawn~~ beloved children to drift off to sleep. "Nursing down" never worked with me and Baby Falcon because I would jump up as soon as I thought he was asleep and usually he wasn't. Then he was even less asleep knowing the I was on the verge of jumping up. Eventually, bedtime became Hubby's task. With Baby Didi, I knew needed a way to cope. I could calm myself to not jump up, but I often fell asleep. So, I started listening to music on the iPod (story, mama sings, then quiet snuggles with mama while mama listens to her ipod). Overtime, I started listening to the audiobooks. I'll admit that I've laid there a little extra to finish a chapter.

It wasn't until Spring Break that I got really enthusiastic. We moved a car north on the trip back and I ended up alone in car for a couple hours. I decided to run my audiobook (Kate Morton's Forgotten Garden). I really enjoyed it and listened for a lot longer than I thought I would. I was in the middle and its very long, so I was no where near the end of the book at the end of my solo drive. When I got home, I began to test the edges a bit. I found out that I could listen to the iPod at a volume such that I could hear the Didi playing as I cleaned the house. Also, that I could run it through the kitchen stereo while I prepared dinner (possible because The Forgotten Garden has PG content). And away I went. My listening is outpacing my reading for the first time ever.

I most definitely do not spend the day with my ears plugged to my children. But, I'll admit that this morning while Didi watched an episode of Sesame Street, I cleaned the bathroom and listened to The Golden Compass. And it was much nicer to worry Lyra getting cold on her balloon ride than to bemoan the pee splatter or run through the lists of things that need to be done next. And now the earbuds are out, the tv is off and I'll get off the computer in just one more minute.....

The Spinning Class Report

2010-05-13T10:09:00.002-04:00

Its been another busy couple of weeks, but I still wanted to post a recap of my class at MDSW. I took Sock Exotica with Judith MacKenzie McCuin.

What I thought would happen:
I would learn to spin great sock yarns and then I would come home and spin up all the bumps from my fiber clubs into fabulous sock yarns.

What actually happened:

I fell in love with Judith as a teacher and will take every class of hers that I have access to.
I realized that I wasn't adjusting my wheel so well as I thought.
I developed a fascination with plying and blending.
I've decided that I want to modify my lazy kate (more on that in a later post).

I consider this all to be bonus. While I'm not currently spinning all my stashed fiber into sock yarns, I am totally confident that I could do a much better job of it than I would have prior to taking the class. Its just that I interested in a trying out a couple things that throw that idea off a bit. Nevertheless, I'll probably end up with some sock yarns in the process because socks are a nice small project to spin for.

So, let me explain a couple of my quirks as a spinner. The first is that I don't have an intention to become a well rounded spinner. My goal is to learn to spin the types of yarns that I like to knit and that has a limited range. I knit from cobweb to worsted weight yarns. I don't like knitting bulky yarns or bumpy yarns like boucle and art yarns although I do like looking at them. I just don't like the bumps running through my fingers or using big yarn and big needles. (I don't like using big needles period. US 10 is about my limit and I'm usually happier when I choose project that are around a US 7 or smaller.)

So, taking this class with the emphasis on spinning fine has been a huge help to my spinning since I am almost always spinning fine, or trying to anyway.

My other quirk though is that I hate to waste fiber. In the past, I have tended to ply in one of two ways. The first is to double ply and then if I have a lot of fiber left on one bobbin I wind it into a ball and ply from both ends so as not to waste a single bit. My other favorite has be to navajo ply since that uses up every bit singles. Judith is not fond of either method (at least not for socks, though I think its more a general comment). I have rarely 3-plyed and never 4-plyed or higher. This is something I want to break myself of. I want to convince myself that the goal should be to produce a long wearing yarn rather then use every gram of fiber in the spinning.

So that's what I am going to practice. I suspect that short term my spinning make still be a little too thick and too uneven to make a good 3 or higher plyed fingering weight yarn for socks, but I'm thinking I should be able to get some good mitten, hat, and scarf yarn. Though with practice, I think I know the path for getting to the sock yarn I want—a 3-ply that's knitted on 1's or 0's.

More later... I leave you with the last of the N-plied yarns for the time being.

Spinning Class Pre-report

2010-04-30T10:34:00.001-04:00

Spinning class was awesome. I learned so much I can't even sort it all out yet. I also got to spin some delicious fibers—cashemere, silk, some lovely merinos...

I'm itching to get out my wheel and try to remember it all, but I'm going to have to wait a bit. One of the things and learned was how to spin without cramping my hands. They are totally fine. Its my poor thighs. I don't think it was all those hours of treadling so much as all those hours driving there and back in rush hour traffic. My right leg is definitely worse. Thank goodness I don't have a clutch! Lefty is a bit tired too though.

Today I'm catching up on laundry and housework. Ideally, I'll attempt some restorative yoga, too. Then, before I start to forget, I'm going to get that wheel back out an spinning again. And yes, that really is MDSW for me this year. Even Hubby is shocked though he mentioned that I seemed to have had a much better time than usual.

The spin shower before the storm

2010-04-26T13:05:00.003-04:00

As soon as I found out the I'd gotten into a spinning class at MDSW, I dusted off my wheel and started spinning. I've mentioned it before, but I don't really like to spin during the winter. I much prefer being ensconced on the couch, under a lap quit and lap cat with my knitting. This year, I didn't even bother to pretend that I might spin or try to make myself do it occasionally lest I forget. When it got cold enough, I just put the wheel up and didn't worry about it beyond admiring pretty rovings on the internet.

These are the first off since I've started it back off. The Jacob was in progress during the fall. I had done about 2 and a half bobbins of singles for a 3 ply yarn and I finished it off first. Its about Aran weight and I spun the 3 natural colors of the Jacob in random chunks of color which make for a kind of funky variegated tweed that I intend to use for some man-hats.

Next is a demonstration of how much of a process spinner I really am. This yarn was actually finished this summer except for the final wash and block. I just never got around to winding off the bobbins until now. Its actually quite an art yarn (for me). I took two rovings—Spunky Eclectic's Raisin Wannabe Shetland and Hello Yarn's 5 Plum Pie Faukland and broke them both up by color into purple, pink and green. Next, I divided each pile into 2 and spun singles in the same color progression and plied together. I was shooting for lace weight, but its more of a fingering weight. My plan for this is to knit it into a shawl either a triangle from top down or a circle from the center out.

I've also just finished spinning a roving that's been around for awhile, but I had no plan for. I spun it finely and navajo plied to to make sure that I could still n-ply. That is still unphotographed and on the bobbin. And, I'm working on more singles before Thursday. I'm trying to hit just the right balance of making sure that I remember everything I already know about spinning and not having my hands and fingers be tired before starting the class.

On yoga class

2010-04-19T07:50:00.002-04:00

The biggest difference I noticed in yoga class when moving from the West Coast (CA) to the East Coast (VA) was the way the class sign-ups are done. At the studios that I attended in CA, the classes were on-going. One would sign up for say 10 classes to be taken over a certain period, say 2 or 3 months and could then show-up at any class on the schedule. The greater number of classes you bought at once, the lower the per class rate became and there was often an unlimited class plan. Pretty much everything was on a rolling system as far as payments and updating the studio's schedule.

Here in VA, my experience is that classes come as sessions. One signs up for a particular class at a particular time for say the “Spring session” of 10 weeks with make-up done within the session by going to other classes. There are usually discounts for signing up for multiple classes and for dropping in (rather than making up) if you are enrolled in a class.

For most students and teachers, I think the East Coast Method has advantages. The teachers have an immediate incentive to learn their students names and quirks since they're committed to come to a certain class. Often the classes have themes and are progressive with the teachers building on the lessons each week. For a consistent student, I think this system can be rewarding.

My problem is that I'm not a consistent student anymore. The last session that I took was Winter 2009 and I was encumbered by a husband who traveled for business and coached youth soccer, a young toddler & preschooler, and a geographical location with weather. Between Hubby's travel, the barfing plagues that hit each family member one-at-a-time, and bad weather, I missed more than half my Thursday night classes. So, make them up right? Its more difficult than it sounds since Saturday and Sunday classes were pretty much eliminated by Coach Mike's games on Sat. and our family decision to attend church on Sunday leaving only a couple of possibilities on weeknights. Between the barfing and the travel all lasting more than one day, and the little one being even more likely to freak out at my absence if I had been gone the day before, well... Nope, I didn't get most of them made-up. Not even close.

So at that point, I decided not to sign-up for a class. The drop-in rate for non-enrolled students is lower than what I ended up paying per class for that last session. I also felt like because I went to yoga weekly, that I was not attending things like MNOs or bookclubs. Maybe I would be happier and have more friends if I practiced yoga at home with the occasional class or workshop?

And sadly, a year later, I have to say the answer is no. I have never attended a drop-in class and my child-free social life is no greater than it was before (less, but largely I think due to the Falcon leaving the co-op preschool for public school rather than from anything to do with yoga). I've noticed that I feel weird and unbalanced if there if there is not at least one child hanging off my body or otherwise touching me.

Hubby still travels and coaches, and this is not going to change anytime soon. But, this kids are getting older and its Spring. So, I signed up for class and had my first one yesterday. It was wonderful. Its on Sunday mornings which means the rest of my family is supposed to go to church without me which feels a bit weird. And, I'm still going to have the make-up class issue since I'm signed up to teach couple sessions of Sunday school (stop laughing) and I'll have family coming into to town. Nevertheless, I'm excited and optimistic.

Home again

2010-04-12T11:52:00.002-04:00

I've been busy, busy. The week before last, we headed off for Florida for spring break. It was great, but tiring. We drove from here in Northern Virginia to the Indian Rocks Beach, Fl where we met my aunt and uncle on their sailboat The Fitzcat. The drives there and back were a bit epic, but we did get to drop in on some family going both directions, and its hard to be the awesomeness of a real life sailboat adventure. I've tons of pictures on Flickr. The kids did pretty great and while I'm not anxious to spend that much time in the car, it was really great to know we are capable. I'm sure it will get easier from here on out.

Last week was largely spent recovering from the previous week by getting groceries and catching up on laundry etc. One piece of super exciting news though—I got my MDSW class!!! I'll be taking Sock Exotica with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. I had to drag out the wheel to celebrate and get back into practice. Then realizing that I am to bring 4 empty bobbins and that the class is only a couple weeks away, I rushed out to buy some more bobbins. This way I shouldn't have to time my training spinning such that my bobbins are empty.

And yes, I'm still planning on only going on Thursday which means there will be no shopping. Of course, I did buy those bobbins, so I spent some money. And, if I run out of wool over the summer (ha...ha) there are several late summer/fall fiber festivals in Virginia as well as the internet.

Arrrghhhh...it be Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-07T18:30:00.001-04:00

Pirate falcon
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

...and I be having a busy week.

I read a book

2010-03-22T08:28:00.004-04:00

The Facebook diet is going well. I'm not totally off it, but I'm not compulsively checking it all day anymore. I think the good weather last week really helped. It was warm and sunny, so the boys and I spent a lot of time out doors. I've been working on adding a second vegetable garden.

I also found that I can read while Didi plays in the backyard. I was never able to do this when the Falcon was his age. The Falcon is a big extrovert and did not like to play in the backyard. Every time he'd hear anything--a UPS or garbage truck, a person walking their dog, someone getting in their car, he'd want to run to the front of the house and see what was happening and talk to whomever was doing it. I spent a lot of time sitting in the driveway trying to keep him from getting run over in the street while the lovely backyard sat untouched. Didi, however, is a more introverted little chap. He's happy to play in the sandbox and roll cars down the slide while I sit on a bench in the sun spot.

So, I read Twilight. LOL. Its not the greatest thing I've ever read in my life, but I can see why its appealing. I'd actually seen the movies, but I saw them in reverse order. A friend of mine really wanted to go see New Moon and kept having people bail on her. I really wanted to get out of the house, so I went. Normally, I would NEVER agree to watch something out of order like that, but Angie filled me in on the basic plots. When Twilight came out on cable, I watched it one night while Hubby was out of town. I have to say, I'm glad I'd had Angie's background information. While I can see the appeal of the books, I really don't think the movies would make any sense at all as stand alones. I expected Twilight the Movie would cover more the ground that Angie had than it did.

In a related note, I've been reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the Falcon who LOVES it despite being more of a Star Wars fan than a Harry Potter movie fan. He's seen the first two movies. So, in a couple more weeks I should be catching up to the rest of pop culture. Or, having just weird dreams about Edward playing Quiddich.

Oh, and P.S. I finally "got" the Forks Baseballs bummer stickers half the Elementary School Moms seem to have.

To Do

2010-03-16T11:28:00.002-04:00

Once upon a time, I had a To Do List. In recent years, I've become much like the guy in Memento. I've been known to reply to Hubby's “Don't you remember....” with “Well, did you see me write that down?!” I have a To Do List, a calendar in 4 colors, grocery lists sorted by store, and a list of things am planning to make for dinner including on which day. Even with these plans, I am often behind and confused. This is frustrating because, while I have never been organized, I often feel slow and stupid whereas I know that I once had higher brain function.

I know that one of my kids is still rather young (28 months old) and his being a light sleeper has left me somewhat sleep deprived. Still... I miss my brain. What I realized when I wrote my post on yoga last week, was that is was not my old flatter tummy and smaller butt that I missed. It was doing something that required more than 30 seconds of concentration.

Its true, what I wrote before. My kids don't interrupt me every 30 seconds. Even Didi can entertain himself for stretches of time. In fact, by nature, he seems more suited to it than his older brother and father. What I've realized that at some point I just stopped doing things that required more concentration or that weren't inherently interrupt-able. As a case in point, I give you my addiction to Facebook whose very nature is information passed in less than 30s chunks. It lets me feel like I'm connecting with adults, but I'm quite sure that I've spent more time reading facebook than anything else in 2010 including Duck in a Truck or the Magic Tree House series.

So, I've come up with a modified yoga plan and a plan to restart my brain. Instead of practicing asana (the physical yoga postures) in the afternoon as I originally intended, I am going to go to my spot, sit with good posture and read Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I will get enough physical exercise biking to school, chasing the kids and doing housework and gardening. When my brain starts to come back and I've established a quiet time for myself then I'll worry about doing asana.

The other thing I am going to do is stop spending so much time on facebook and spend more time on reading real books and blogging. I wouldn't expect to see anything too exciting here for awhile. My main purpose will be to write something that takes more than 30 seconds to process even if it ends up being written in 30 second chunks.

Buttons

2010-03-11T14:28:00.002-05:00

I've finished knitting all the pieces to my Town & Country Cardigan. All I have left is to seam the pieces and knit the button bands and collar. This may take some time since I don't enjoy seaming and am planning a pretty busy March with gardening and travel. So, I've got some time to think about the buttons.

I have the darnedest time photographing this yarn. Its Beaverslide Dry Good's merino in "lichen frost". Its a dull silvery green that I love. Weird I know. But actually, its not really boring-dull in that it has a richness of greens and silvery-ness beyond what its overall color composition is so that is unsaturated-dull and pretty at the same time. My best photo of the yarn is the close-up of the pewter buttons. I may have actually bought the pewter buttons for this sweater and they are my most likely choice.

But, one day while digging through my stash for something else I came across my green ceramic buttons from Briar Rose Fibers. These I most definitely did NOT buy these to go with this sweater. Photography and computer monitors would never have given me a clear idea whether the greens were match. I bought the Briar Rose buttons because I was buying something else and though they might really perk up a neutral colored cardigan (off-white or pale gray maybe). The greens do seem to compliment, but I can't decide if they are too busy for the sweater itself which has a lot of texture.

What do you think?

On Stash, Queues, and MDSW

2010-03-08T10:57:00.003-05:00

Its that time of year again when I plan my Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival strategy. Actually, I've been thinking about it for quite sometime, but it seemed a bit ridiculous to be posting about it at Christmas since the festival isn't until May. I have gone every year since we moved here and to keep my stash under control I set-up my Stash Maintenance Plan. Basically, I try to make sure that I don't buy more fiber than I am using. I've adjusted how I calculate that a couple times, but basically its the weight difference between incoming and outgoing. Since I've been doing the bulk of my fiber shopping at MDSW, I made it MDSW-centric. Right now, I'm at a positive ~700g over what I had after last year's MDSW. I have a large project nearly completed that should knock down most of that and with a couple more months of knitting I could put moratorium on new purchases and definitely be somewhat (if not much) negative by MDSW giving me official License To Shop.

But I am not going to.

I'm not going to admit that my stash is ridiculously large even though it probably is. What I've decided is that my project queue is ridiculously long. So, I'm starting the Great Queue Down. I have many projects in my queue already matched with yarn (or in some cases what Hubby refers to as “pre-yarn”). I also have projects that I would love to knit for which I don't have the right yarn. So, I'm not putting myself on a further stash diet, but will continue with the stash maintenance plan.

I would have a lot of trouble shopping for a specific project or two at MDSW. Last year, I did better than my previous state of overwhelmed-shopping-random-purchase and gave myself a theme of “Fiber for Xmas Presents”. However, searching that whole festival for the perfect yarn for Coraline (Ravelry Link) is well beyond my capabilities. I'm particularly prone to buying beautiful, highly variegated yarns and fibers while being attracted to patterns suitable for semi-solids and solids. Also, I must admit that while there are tons of local yarn shops in my area, I have not been to most of them. It seems time that I at least make a visit.

Does this mean I won't attend MDSW at all? Probably. I am going to try for a class though. Hubby's agreed to take a day off work should I win a spot in the class lotto (and I can't believe this class won't go to a lotto). And therefore, if the gods smile on me, I'll be spinning away days before the vendors open and long gone before the fiber fumes hit.

On yoga

2010-03-04T15:49:00.006-05:00

ETA: The Spawn aren't as evil as they sound. They can both play by themselves separately or together for greater than 10 minutes. They just don't seem to be able to do it either by request or while I'm doing yoga.

Years ago, when the Falcon was small, Manuso Manos gave me the advice to do my home practice with “the door open” to him. All the details are a bit vague now, but I also remember an assertion that he would become bored with my practice and leave me alone. That never played out 100%, but he was absolutely correct in that I was able to have much more of a home practice than if I had tried to wait until he napped or someone else could watch him. ...was able to have... But, at some point I stopped really practicing and especially with the door open. And now it seems we all have to relearn how to do it.

A couple months ago I decided to restart my practice and failed. I carefully thought through my typical day and when a good time would be to plan a regular practice and came up with mid-afternoon. It seems counterintuitive since I have both kids at that time, but I have my reasons. During the school year, the Falcon needs some quiet time when he gets home to decompress. Usually he has a snack and watches a couple cartoons before he recovers and either goes outside to play or moves on to something else. In the summer time, its the hottest part of the day, so everyone is usually inside if we're not at the pool. If I can make it work, I shouldn't have to change my timing seasonally. And, I wouldn't have to try to wake up before the kids as I would if I practiced in the morning or lose time with Hubby if I waited until they went to bed.

For the first couple of attempts, I set the boys up with snacks and a show and went back to my bedroom to practice with the door open. I have a dedicated yoga area in my basement, but this time of year its really cold there and I'd be better able to hear what was going on with the kids if I was upstairs with them. Didi crawled all over me which I expected. What I didn't expect was how irritated it made me when he did it. Yoga is supposed to work on the nervous system in a calming manner and this yoga-interuputus worked on it in exactly the opposite manner. I was far more irritated than warranted and remained irritable for much of the day with what felt like induced PMS.

Another day, I decided to try standing poses with one minute timings. I was interrupted during each pose for the first several minutes before totally losing my temper. Seriously, they needed an intervention more than every 60 seconds. I yelled and yelled some more and then I practiced, well something, to prove my point. I don't think we'll call that yoga.

I was determined. I decided that maybe they just couldn't understand what I was trying to do. I'd go even better than opening the door. I'd invite them into my practice. I pulled out my extra yoga mat and bookmarked a yoga session on the On Demand. After school that day, I invited them to do yoga with me (and Shiva Rea). The Falcon complained. Didi crawled all over me. For some reason, they both wanted to do yoga on the same mat as me. Not my mat, the same mat that I was on at the same time. I got frustrated and spent the rest of the day angry. I stopped trying to practice.

So what to do? I honestly don't know. I still think Manuso is right that I have to find a way to practice with the kids present. (My struggles with going to class is a whole other post.) I miss yoga mentally and physically and I want to find a way to make this work. Previously, I was trying to practice for 30-45 minutes, but maybe I need to ramp up more slowly starting with 10 minutes. But, mainly, I'm going to try to find a way to let go of my expectations—that the tot won't take that time to poop. That no one will decide to stick their fingers up my nose when I'm in headstand or roll their trucks into my face. Or use my hair to pull my head up from a forward bend and yell “There you ARE!!!” That asking for “quiet” means to stop asking me questions rather than to whisper them. They are old enough to learn to let me practice yoga, but I need to understand that I also have to teach them what behavior I want.

Please send calming energy.

Still knitting

2010-03-02T16:00:00.002-05:00

No medal for me in the Knitting Olympics this year. I finished my socks as well as the back, both fronts, and one sleeve of my Town and Country which was pretty good. I might have done even better if I wouldn't have been tripped up by a mildly sick tot who require extra snuggles. I tried knitting around him, but he's just too big. The hardest part was not starting anything new after I finished the socks. I typically have two projects on the needles at any given time unless I'm really on a spinning campaign. If I had any shot at finishing the cardigan, I would have to knit only it. Yet, I spent an amazing amount of time figuring out what I would knit next, playing in my Ravelry queue, sorting through my stash and even winding some yarn. But, I did not cast on and still haven't. I'm going to see if I can finish this cardigan first and hope that meanwhile the weather with change to spring and I can start something summery without making myself depressed.

Its supposed to snow again tonight/tomorrow, but not stick to the roads thank goodness.

I did finally wear (and get photographed) and shrug that I finished ages ago. My goal this year is to wear more of my funky knitted objects, but I kept putting off wearing this one. Off-white is not a good color for my life-style. This is the Edwardian Charmer Shrug. I bought the yarn and got the free pattern from Wool Out of Wales at Maryland Sheep and Wool back in 2006. She had a sample shrug in the booth and it was to-die-for. The pattern is a bit wonky though. I think I purchased it the first year she was in business (definitely the first year she was at MDSW) and I remember there being some confusion about getting the pattern. I think she was going to e-mail it originally and decided to print and snail mail to everyone. Anyway, the instructions are a bit confusing largely, I think, because they seem to be formatted so they can fit on one page that can fold into a booklet on the smaller size of European paper. In the process, things seemed to have gotten shifted into a non-intuitive order. There's also no picture of the finished shrug which was a bit disconcerting since I waited so long between trying on the original and knitting mine. I hope she's done a reformat since then because its a cute design. She has instructions to adjust the size based on both height and bust which I also find desirable in a pattern since I'm tall and flat.

And still my lead story...Snow

2010-02-19T13:52:00.002-05:00

There's no new snow, but the Snowpacalypse continues. The temperatures here have been cycling between lows in the 20's and highs in the 40's. So, slowly, slowly the snow is melting. There are still chunks of ice on my road despite its being plowed (twice), and then worked on by a crew consisting of a grader, front loader and plow. Frankly, I'm happy they left some of the ice and hopefully saved some of the asphalt.

Sidewalks and trails are mostly shoveled, but only to a shovel width wide. This is an issue for us since we're “walkers” for school. Our streets are laid out in such way that there is not thru-way to the school without accessing the trail system (or crossing the major street twice and going way around since there are no crosswalks at the school itself ). So, I can't just bike along the streets. And, I can't take the bike on the shoveled trails. I'm not sure we'd be able to fit through them and if we did then we wouldn't be able to pass anyone coming the other way without forcing them to climb up on the+1' deep snow on either side. My stroller definitely won't fit through. I've been doing the kiss-and-ride in the morning. Yesterday, I broke out the baby wrap carrier and toted Didi to pick-up. That was one long walk. I had to go a longer route than normal because of unshoveled paths. And Didi, remembering his baby days napping on my back, fell asleep leaning way back bobbled headed and snoring. Surprisingly, it wasn't my back that suffered from the 2+ mile trek with a 30 lbs toddler—it was my feet which are still sore and bruised on the bottoms.

I'm not sure what I will do today. I have to declare whether I will “walk” or kiss-and-ride in advance since the kindergardeners are taken to different doors. My normal door is the walker door and I didn't change it for today. I'm thinking that I may bike as far as I can and then park it and walk the rest of the way. Alternately, I could try parking along one of the roads behind the school and walking in from there. However, last I saw, there was no place to park . There were cars along the side of the roads when the plows came through forcing them to leave wide swaths of deep snow on both sides of the street. Parking to the left of the snow effectively blocks the lane. We'll muddle through somehow and hopefully it will finish melting soon.

The bigger concern in our area is what happens as the snow on our roofs melt. Its not pretty since our roofs were not made for this. Gutters are getting pushed off by the weight of ice and people are getting melt water running through there houses for a variety of other reasons. So, are we're doing o.k. Hubby picks what ice he can off our roof at least once a day. Fortunately, we live in a split level unlike some of my neighbors, so he can reach a good bit without getting too outrageous with the snow+ladder combo.

This photo was taken with my pocket camera on the way to pick-up yesterday—I didn't have my cell phone with me (and it doesn't have a camera). I would have been tempted to go ahead a call 911 and let them know to be ready. You can't see it very well in the picture, but that guy is standing on a ladder on his snow covered porch roof. When I walked by again later, all was well thank goodness.

I had my camera with me to try to get a picture of the circulated wisdom on the best way to deal with the roof ice. One is supposed to take pantyhose legs, fill them with salt and place them perpendicular to the roofline. I've heard this discussed at length in multiple settings, but I haven't seen the actually pantyhose decorated houses yet. I have, however, seen people leaning out their upper story windows with hair dryers.

Olympic knitting

2010-02-15T09:55:00.004-05:00

Well, I think I can conclusively say that the long slow spell of not much knitting is over at least for the next couple days. There's nothing like being largely housebound to increase the productivity.

I just finished my Cherry Cordial Cardigan from Melissa Werle's Granny Smith Cardigan pattern. LOL, only with Ravelry would I know how long this project was in the works. I first cast on in Feb 2008, but realized I'd miscounted stitches a couple of inches in and had to frog it. I still liked the match of yarn/pattern, so I came back to it this summer. I knew I wouldn't have enough yarn for long sleeves, but I think its just as cute with short ones. The only thing I don't like about the sweater is the buttons. They're just a little too small for my buttonholes which are two layers thick since that's a hemmed edge. Those are just some boring black buttons from my sewing stash though, so I'll just keep my eyes open for some better, slightly bigger ones. I think shank buttons would also be more appropriate to the thickness of the button band.

Additionally, I've almost finished the second sock of Knitter's Brewing Company's Mystery Sock II and I frogged a partially finished Fylindales and re-knit the yarn finishing the entire back of a Town and Country.

Officially, I'm not doing the Knitting Olympics. I didn't want to cast-on a new project just for that. But, I'll admit that I have a long-shot goal--to get my stash weight down to zero. ~800g knit is pretty unlikely, but if I finish both the projects that I have on the needles that would be pretty close. Town and Country is knit from worsted weight yarn which is bulkier than my usual, but its not exactly straight stockinette knitting so it would be quite a challenge. Then again, its supposed to snow again this afternoon.

Cabin Fever

2010-02-12T08:16:00.002-05:00

And yes, there was more snow again since my last post and there's more in the forecast for Monday (but we're ignoring that).

Good news: We never lost power.

Other good news: We got "plowed" between the two storms so our street is passable.

"Plowed"=A bobcat came and moved the snow into giant piles on the sides of the road. Turns out our actual snow plows are capable of handling ~8" max, so the 24"-30" that we actually got is being handled by bulldozers.

The Falcon has been out of school and Hubby from work for the week. This wouldn't have been a big deal if we'd planned for it and explains the unsuccessful attempt to get out of the neighborhood mid-saga to make and emergency trip to the bookstore for childrens' books we had not already read 50 times. Early on, I realized that the Falcon would likely be here for the duration, but its been a bit of a shock that Hubby still is. Turns out that while he very likely could get to work yesterday and today, they're still closed to all but essential employees because they simply haven't been able to get enough of the parking lot cleared.

The Big Snow was actually so deep that it weirded the Falcon out for a day or so. By yesterday, he'd recovered and he and the other neighborhood kids have been back out testing their sleds on the 10' piles the bobcat made and throwing snowballs at each other.

Didi, however, remains firmly against winter requesting car rides (south), music class and when all else fails taking a nap. There's only a diaper under that monkey quilt.

Today, I should get the project blocked that I seemed with the sleeping boy and according to their website the library is open! (Not clear what branch, but nevertheless...)

Still winter

2010-02-07T11:58:00.002-05:00

...and there was more snow since I last posted--small storm and then Snowpacalypse II: Snowmaggedon. At our house, we got right around 2 ft. There is more snow in the forecast for this week. It would be more fun if people weren't loosing power and (industrial) roofs weren't caving in.

The Falcon is having a great time. Its deep enough that he's having trouble getting around though. Didi remains opposed to winter. Heck, the snow is to his shoulder, so I can see his point. He keeps bringing me my purse and insisting we go for a boat ride (our plan for Spring Break). So, while Hubby is getting some good outside play time in, I'm drinking a lot of coffee and getting some knitting done. I've got some seeming to do on my Granny Smith cardigan, have finished one sock of Mystery Sock II from Knitter's Brewing Company, and started the Town and Country Cardigan from A Fine Fleece. All while wearing about every wool object I own. Even though the house is heated, knowing the snow is there is making me cold. Or maybe I'm just jittery from the coffee.

FOs and Snows

2010-02-01T07:59:00.004-05:00

Finished: Ishbel Shawlette and Beret (Ravelry links)

Its been a cold winter here. Most days, whether biking or not, I wait to take a shower until after I've dropped the Falcon off a school. Its nice to have a floppy hat or two to shove my hair into. I went a ahead and made the match shawlette in the smaller size, since a warm scarf is nice, too. I have a bit of regret about that. The shawlette came out roughly the size I intended and works as planned. But, I'm finding that I prefer a more traditionally shaped scarf and I've seen a ton of the full-sized Ishbel shawls that are super-cute. I wouldn't have had enough of the berry yarn to make the full size (I don't think), so maybe I'll go back and knit a big one another time.

This year, I've decided to ahead and wear my strange, lacey knit FO rather than save them for some dressy occasion that never comes. I've found that I had really been enjoying a couple shawls and stoles that have been languishing in the closet. Now I want to knit more.....

About that cold winter.... Usually we get a snow storm or two, usually in early spring, and usually not that much snow. This year—the pre-Christmas snOMG (about 20"), then and smaller snow storm, and again this weekend with snow that we all thought would dodge us (another 5" or so). The good news is that the past two storms have dodged school days (today is a workday, but I think the roads are passable anyway). We used up all our “built-in” snow days with the first storm. Any days off now will need to be made-up. I remember the joys of a surprise day off of school, but I'm still getting over the shorter summer vacation due to the Falcon's move from preschool to kindergarden. Additionally, our schools don't start until after Labor Day. Since that was late this year, the school calendar runs way into June. A couple of typical spring snow storms and we're going to find ourselves still going to school in July.

The Falcon is having a blast with all the snow, but Didi hates it. Last year, we attributed Didi's dislike of the snow to his inability to keep his mittens on or stand up in it. This year, we got him better mittens (which he refuses to wear) and he's better at walking in it. Still hates it. He doesn't like the heavy clothing—preferring to wear short sleeved t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops indoors. And, he doesn't like it when he gets cold. He'll sled for awhile and then demand hot chocolate, following by snuggles in a quilt. Someday, when he's grown, I'm going to enjoy visiting him during the winter since he's sure to live in the tropics.

Catch up #2

2010-01-26T12:12:00.002-05:00

Hopefully, I'll get caught up on December posts before January is over.

Christmas was another quiet holiday. Again, we didn't travel or have visitors. Hubby and the Falcon participated in the church Christmas Eve program as wise men and a great time.

The kids also loved their presents. I was really worried about that. In previous years, the Falcon was either too young to understand exactly what was happening or too innocent to be greedy about gifts. This year, he requested a DS (handheld video game). I do not want him to have one (yet). He really wanted one, his friends have them and he thought he had gone around me by asking Santa. Fortunately, Hubby told him that he needed to ask Santa for 3 things and Santa would try to get him 1 of them. Unfortunately, the other 2 things were additional Pokemon cards and Bakugan (a game with little balls that pop open which he also already had). While he wanted both those things, neither would come anywhere near the excitement of a DS.

The marble track was the big hit of last Christmas, so I bought him some more track and marbles. The extended family was told about his request for legos. And, then, I used my school spying info to pick a toy to splurge on for both boys—Maple Landmarkhttp://www.maplelandmark.com/s “Master builder” set of blocks. They were a big hit. The Falcon and his school buddies play with the school set all the time, but he never thought to ask for any. The magic of Christmas was saved for another year. Between the marbles track, blocks and legos, the Falcon will probably be an architect. And Didi will be the head of the demolition and clean-up crew.

I enjoyed my simple knitting: a scarf from my Acadia handspun yarn. I'd hoped that Hubby would be interested in using this one. So, I knit it into a shortish non-girly scarf. He says he's not overly fond of the other color though. I think that next time I only have this much yardage, I'll go for a cowl instead, but otherwise I love it.

Catch up #1

2010-01-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

Before Xmas....

I finished my Gift Socks:

and a pair for myself:

We also got roughly 20 inches of snow which is pretty major for our region. Fortunately, the men of the neighborhood were able to dig us out of the cul-de-sac and the plows hit the main roads. The kids got in some good sledding. The last 3 days of school before Christmas were cancelled. Overall it was fun. Amazingly there are still piles of snow, nasty dirty snow, left on the sides of the road from this storm.

Wow

2010-01-21T13:40:00.002-05:00

Long time no post, huh? I've started several times, but just not gotten time to finish.

So, just a quick note that I do plan on blogging again, there has been no apocalypse at my house, and I've even finished some projects that I'll try to photograph... But, right now, I've got to change a poopy diaper, start another load of laundry, and figure out if the rain will hold off long enough to pick the Falcon up from school by bike.

See you soon!

Christmas Knitting

2009-12-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

(Didi chooses not to interact with the strange, creepy man in the red suit.)

No last minute frantic knitting for me this year. I didn't finish everything I planned despite starting really early. Back in May, I decided that if I alternated small gifts with other knitting then I would have a full compliment of gifts ready right about now. Instead, I'm so far off its a lost cause. I did finish a “set” of three gifts which is pleasing in a way and so, also early, I just called off the rest for this year. Maybe if I start in January I'll have the other half done for next Christmas.

I have still been having trouble getting much knitting time. Hubby did three business trips in four weeks. It got cold and I don't like to spin then. I have a couple projects on the needles that are at a point where they needed something more done than mindless knitting. I don't like to work on them sporadically. If I only pick up a project now and again, it can take me too much time to figure out what I was doing when I put it down. So, instead of trying to rush some last minute gifts or finish current projects, I occasionally knit on a pair of simple stripey socks. When I'm done with those, I may cast-on for a simple scarf. I'm going to wait until the new year to do and serious crafts.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-01T08:42:00.001-05:00

I keep trying to come up with the word to describe our Thanksgiving: quiet (no), peaceful (ungh ungh), chaos-free (nope!). It was nice though, and it was our normal level of loud, rowdy, chaos. We didn’t go out of town, and no one came to visit. Dinner was yummy and I didn’t set anything on fire preparing it.

On Friday, we went downtown to some museums. First up was Air&Space where we went to the planetarium and the Falcon and I did the flight ride (he’s still too short for the simulator). Then we went to the National Gallery of Art for an exhibit called the Art of Power, which featured some beautiful armor. Hubby had heard that downtown was usually pretty desolate on Black Friday, but that was not the case. It wasn’t slammed with people, but there were a lot of folks there. Again, our trip was pretty stress-free.

The Falcon says his favorite part was seeing A REAL SWORD! Didi loved the planetarium, eventually. He was scared at first and sat on my lap with his head turned sideways, watching through the corner of his eyes. After a couple minutes, he turned to face forwards. Another few minutes and he was pointing and babbling with delight.

So, overall it was just nice. We did house and yard work for much or the rest of the weekend.

Our Christmas plans are pretty much the same. No one is coming to visit and we aren’t traveling. I hope we don’t get too bored. It also feels odd to not go anywhere. I think it will be nice though. Hubby’s been and still doing a lot of travel and it will be nice to spend some time together. I’m hoping we’ll all get some time to relax and play.

Spinning at School

2009-11-21T15:16:00.004-05:00

Despite the Falcon being only in Kindergarden, I somehow volunteered myself to spin for the 4th grade Colonial fair last Friday. I'll admit, I was a bit excited. I'd often thought of volunteering to show my weird crafty skills to the preschool, but had decided that I needed an older group of kids. So, while I got sucked into the fair rather more quickly than I'd expected, I wasn't exactly dragged kicking and screaming.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Its been along time since I was in the 4th grade and here in VA there are a lot of Colonial-type activities. I gathered my things--wool in various states of preparation, hand cards, wheel. I made a couple cheap drop spindles from dowels and wooden toy wheels. My Mom made me a colonial hat and long skirt to wear. I figured everyone would watch it spin a couple times, and then I could teach the couple of kids who weren't bored how to spin on the drop spindles.

It was fun. I arrived early and got to watch them do the Virginia Reel at which point I realized how many 4th graders I knew from the neighborhood. And they seemed just as tickled when they recognized me, too. I had a pretty large group of kids that came and asked all kinds of questions (although no one asked about Sleeping Beauty). They were also pretty interested in touching the wool from A REAL Sheep. So many hands reached for the spindles that I don't think anyone was able to make them work. I needn't have worried that my wheel wasn't period, either. Even many adults were shocked that they were still made. I think the kids enjoyed it and I know I did.

Only downside, I can see from the picture that apparently public speaking makes me break out in a rash. Hubby was surprised I didn't know, so it must happen every time.

Now, I'm back to my house organization. I've got some curtain rods coming this week to finally get curtains for the living room and Hubby's supposed to buy Didi an unfinished dresser for me to paint over the weekend. Didi previously had baskets on a shelf instead of a dresser. But I moved the shelf to the living room, so until we get the dresser he has baskets on the floor. I'm sure those of you with 2 year olds can imagine how well that's going.

Cheers! Happy Thanksgiving!

Confessions

2009-11-08T10:30:00.002-05:00

First Confession: I consider myself to be a Recovering Slob. I’ve never been a candidate for How Clean is Your House. But, except for when my house was for sale, it has never been consistently clean either. I do have sanitation standards, so there is (almost) never anything going on that constitutes a health hazard. However, my house is generally cluttered and messy. Beyond the painting that I seem to feel compelled to do whenever I move, it is also not decorated—ie there are shades, but no curtains. There is not much art work on the walls and there is little organization.

I am enough of a grown-up to be embarrassed by it. As a consequence, I rarely invite people over and have resisted joining playgroups for Didi because I wanted to make sure I was ready to host. When I was putting in a lot of hours at the Falcon’s preschool, that was my excuse. I was going to organize when summer came. And when summer came, I avoided it by playing outside. I was going to organize when school started and I had only one kid during the day. And when school came, I realized that the child that was home was a destructive toddler. I was going to give the spawn to Hubby one weekend, and do it alone in one big push. And then I realized it was soccer season and there would be no free weekends until winter.

Enough excuses already.

Second Confession: I have stopped practicing asana (the physical posture practice of yoga). We all know that a disorganized house is the sign of a disorganized mind. I have decided that rather trying to practice asana and organize the house that I will do my very best to consider the house organization my yoga. This does not always work, but there it is. I’d also like to note that doing yoga amidst the dust bunnies is not really relaxing anyway. I’m hoping this will help to motivate me to finish rather than find excuses.

Third Confession: I have stopped spinning and almost completely stopped knitting. I have been cleaning during the day. In the evenings when I would usually do these things I am tired. I pick the needles up every once in awhile, and I don’t clean hard-core every day. But still, progress is basically non-existent. Just as I hope to resume my yoga practice once a basic order has been established, I will surely resume my nocturnal fiber activities in the future. I am even hopeful that Didi will be old enough for me to be able to do something during the daytime while he entertains himself.

The Goal is not a Good Housekeeping Award. I would like to reach the point in which Everything Has a Place that it can be put away to. Currently there is a lot of shifting of things that seem to have no place to go. Phase Two will be a family effort to put Everything in Its Place by day’s end. In the meantime, I would like to get the fingerprints off the walls for a couple weeks. Some curtains, and artwork would be a nice addition. And then, once we are capable of being tidy, we will practice keeping things tidy (And this is not the royal “we”, I’m demanding assistance). I don’t want to pass on my slob ways to my kids. I want us to have some friends over to play, and I want our house to feel like home rather than a dumping ground.

Wish me luck!

Going to School

2009-10-07T15:29:00.005-04:00

Historically, kids have walked to school from my street--just not in the past 10 years or so. Every so often I begin to feel a bit like might be a little too helicopter-y or something by biking the Falcon to school. He's not providing any of the power after all, but its just me and my coffee. Still, we're outside in the fresh air which it better than the kiss-and-ride.

Yesterday was Walk to School Day, and I decided to stroller Didi while F and I walked. I figured that it would be more social, and the PTA provided coffee (no cup holder for the bike yet). I won't be doing that again any time soon. F whined and complained all the way there walking as slowly as possible. Every time I slowed down, Didi tried to jump out of the stroller. We met up with some neighbors who had driven closer and walked the rest of the way and the Mom pointed out that the Walk to School Day really supported the kids who live very close, but have bus. You see, the kids would live across the road from the school do not have a cross walk. So, even the ones who live directly across the street are bused except for the this one day of the school year in which crossing guards are provided. *sigh* She'd rather they find a more consistent way to support those of us who live on the outer edges of the no bus zone. Good point. (Our house is within a mile radius of the school with no major street crossing earning us a bus-free designation. However, since there is no direct route to school it is greater than a one mile walk/bike/drive.)

Oh, and too late I remember that I don't have a cup holder on my stroller either. The circuit took D and I nearly an hour compared with about 15-20 min by bike. So, Didi and I biked to pick-up and unlike the semi-festival of the morning it was pretty much back to the regular bunch of walkers anyway.

I am enjoying the bike. One of the most surprising things so far, is who its fans are. The other mom's seem to think I have super-human strength and masochistic streak. I think they're impressed in a gee-that-woman-is-strong kind of way not a why-don't-I-do-that kind of way. The little kids think its cool (no surprise here either). The Big Kids are the ones that surprised me. I figured they would think it was weird and uncool, but they love it. They don't yet think of it requiring an unhappy amount of exertion like the adults and I can see them mentally loading it up with whatever stuff their pre-teen hearts can dream up. There's also a couple of middle schoolers that come to collect their sibs that clearly envision using it for the same purpose I d I'm really quite proud to have something different to show them--neither a road bike with a lycra clad cyclist nor a mountain biker, but something all together utilitarian.

Some snaps

2009-10-07T14:28:00.002-04:00

Just adding some snaps, so that I don't have to look at myself at the top of the blog. We're still having the usual fun and games here and are settling into Kindergarden.

Some general cuteness

The Falcon going to goal with his shirt in his mouth

Didi decides he's had enough soccer and is going to take his bag and head to the car (must not leave precious goldfish crackers).

Hubby and the Falcon at a D.C. United game

An FO!

2009-09-24T10:20:00.002-04:00

This is Liesl knit from my handspun corridale. This was my knitting for the car trip to Michigan. It’s an experiment in negative ease. Well, I was actually going for zero ease, but since it has to stretch to button I was either off gauge or mis-measured my boobs. I should re-measure and see what the ease actually is. I think I will call this the limit of as far as how tight I will go in the future. I consider this to almost too small, but not so small that I don’t actually wear it.

This picture was taken before heading off to church and one of the other knitters came over and said, “ooooo, feather and fan…..” LOL. The cult within the cult…

I’ve also finished and blocked my Edwardian shrug. I’ve still got to weave in the ends since I like to do that post blocking. But, I’m quite pleased. Hopefully, I’ll get some photos of that soon.

Meanwhile, not much knitting or spinning is happening. It is another one of those times when the boys aren’t sleeping well. I’m trying to get a hard core clean of the house. So, at the end of the day, I just kind of crash out on the couch.

And if you’re following the saga of my hair—yep, brushed out the dreads and dyed it red.

Boys are Gruesome

2009-09-14T17:43:00.004-04:00

Still working on getting some photos of actual Finished Projects. In the meantime, a story,

Last night, I tucked the Falcon in to bed and sang him his favorite lullaby (the theme song to Scooby Doo). As I gave him a kiss he said smiling,

"Mom, if I got an needle in my eyeBALL, and not a knitting needle but a needle like Nana uses (quilting), I would have to go to the Dr. to get it pulled out. And then he would put a whole lot of that stuff you put on Dad's finger, but more (gauze)... and then he would put tape on in a big X!!!"

I replied something to the effect of it being really cool to have a tape X over his eye, but perhaps it would be better to think of other things as he was falling asleep. Plus, wouldn't the needle part hurt? And he replied,

"Well, instead of needle getting poked in my eyeBALL, maybe it would get poke in my bum and I would have to go to the BUM DOCTOR!!!! Ha ha ha ha..."

And then I went off to think of something else before I went to bed.

School!

2009-09-09T10:51:00.004-04:00

The Falcon started kindergarden yesterday. As predicted, I think it was me and Didi that had the roughest time. The night before, there was just a low level nervousness in the house. It all seemed to come to a focus in poor Didi and neither of us slept all night. The Falcon woke up a bit early, but otherwise seemed happy and excited.

After months of setting up the bicycle and finding a route to school, it rained. We hit the kiss & ride in the car. Parents were instructed to drop kids off the way we intended to do for the rest of the year rather than walk them in. The school would have extra helpers available. So, F knew in advance that he'd be going in solo. Me and Didi would follow a couple minutes later with the big bag o'school supplies.

But, dropping him off and then going park the bike were very different in MY mind than dropping off and going to park the car. For one thing, the second took a lot longer. The school only has parking for staff. So, I'd have to drive away and then walk back. Second, I couldn't wait at the kiss and ride and watch him walk in lest I slow the line. As I was pulling away and heard him say to the helper, "I forgot my room..." But I had to keep driving (he was labeled and know she just read it off to him), and looking my shoulder I saw him still pausing in front of the building not really sure. I sent an urgent psychic message to the army of safety patrol kids "Hello! Kindergardener Alert!!!" The Falcon has tons of self-confidence. I tried not to be too worried. But still that was a long walk back with the tot who want to walk, no be carried. Walk! Quick pick me up! Wait, mom! I need to pet that dog! No pick me up! Why aren't you letting me walk???!!! Arghh, we're inside PICK ME UPPPP!!!

And what did we find? The Falcon in his room playing happily at his table having hugged his teacher hello. He hadn't bothered to find his hook, but just thrown his back pack on the floor in front of the door way. He came home hungry and exhausted and claims he remembers nothing. But he was happy to go back today (on the bike). I hope he's having fun today, too.

Vacation

2009-09-03T09:45:00.005-04:00

Vacation went well! I had the total pessimistic attitude going in. This was the same group of family members that had been so stressful at Christmas time only for longer and coupled with a 12 hour road trip each direction. I think we made some good choices.

First, the ride out was done not only in 2 days, but in 3 segments with an outing. Morning 1: Viginia—Pittsburg Children’s Museum

Evening 1: Pittsburg—Toledo
Morning 2: Toledo to Destination Grand Haven, MI

Next, two days of hanging with the extended family,

followed by “the twist”. On the Tues, my and my sister’s families abandoned ship for Sleeping Bear National Park for overnight camping. Here was the theory: my dad is overwhelmed by a lot of people (see hanging out with extended family.) He also does not like noise, mess or chaos (i.e. staying in the same cottage with his three grandsons and his 7 month old puppy). We all know this, and have know this for years. In the past, there has always been discussion about how he really wants to be with us, how he’s “getting better” and it will be o.k. But, I think this is wishful thinking on everyone’s part and that it is just not in his nature to handle these situations well. So, on my insistence, the camping trip was added to give him and us a break.

I enjoyed it. We got rained on a lot the first day, but the second day was beautiful.

I’m not sure how things went with Mom and Dad left alone at the cottage though. When we returned, they announced they were leaving a day early giving us only one more day with them. Mom says Dad just got anxious to get home and its true that he doesn’t vacation well under the best of conditions. I can’t help but worry that the camping trip upset him, even though I still think it was a good idea. And we did get him to play that last day, taking him to the park and even bowling.

On the way home, we stopped at the Great Wolf Lodge outside of Cleveland to give the kids a chance to burn off some energy. Didi was the cutest. He let him get in the tepid hot tub to warm-up a couple times. He’d say, “Hot!” sinking down a bit lower in the water “hot….mmmmm…..hoooootttttt” dipping in to his shoulders and settling in. That’s my boy, lets hang out here (for the next 5 minutes until I worry you’ll overheat).

So, overall I think it went really great. I got to introduce my tot to my grandfather, kiss up my nephew and see some family that I rarely get to see. I didn't melt down, and if my dad did then he did it mildly and/or when I wasn't around. I do wish I could have spent more time with my mom and feel badly that my sister didn't get to since she lives farther away from mom than me. In the great scheme of things, I think I will try to avoid this situation in the future spending time with my folks and my sister separately since I think this would be less stressful for everyone.

Wordless Wenesday-Spin

2009-09-02T15:29:00.001-04:00

100_0628
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

Ready to Pack

2009-08-20T09:17:00.003-04:00

When we did the first set of tie dyes, the Falcon wanted palm trees on his. I tried to explain the tie dye concept and he ended up pretty happy with what we made. Nevertheless, I had to promise that we would make "beach" shirts for him and Didi. I managed to wiggle out of palm trees since I'm not a good painter. Instead we dyed shirts with sky/ocean/beach and used rubber stamps and fabric paint to finish the theme. Lobsters were a must for F's.

I also managed to get some swatches done and I'm ready to pack some knitting. First up, is Liesl using so of my handspun. I tried this pattern before and it was coming out cute, but I didn't have enough yardage to complete it. This time I think I should be good.

Should I finish that, I'll have the Granny Smith Cardigan. This is also a second attempt. But, in this case, I'll also be using the same yarn as last time. On the first try, I modified the instructions knitting the bottom in one piece (rather than 2 fronts and a back). Only when I got past the armpits and the first front did I realized that I had counted the stitches wrong and not divided them evenly. I'll be more careful next time.

Road Knitting

2009-08-16T11:05:00.003-04:00

A lot of playing is still going on here and not much knitting or spinning. I did finish the last of the yarn I was spinning for the Tour de Fleece, but I haven’t gotten it off the bobbins yet. I’ll do some picture of that…someday…

I also finished knitting a pair of socks that I started on the summer solistice. But, I haven’t gotten around to weaving in the ends and blocking, so again no pictures. And, I’ve completed the first of a pair of Xmas socks for my sister and continue to work on a lace jacket that I’ve been plodding along on for sometime. Which brings me to my current situation…

I’m going on a road trip. In recent years, I’ve had Hubby drive on long trips giving me some knitting time. I usually do socks because they’re small and use bright washable yarn (accidents happen). But, I’ll be seeing my sister, so I don’t want to do the 2nd sock. The next pair of socks that I was going to knit would be a gift for my mom, and I’ll also be seeing her. I could knit some for myself, but I don’t really need any. And, since I haven’t worn socks in a couple months I don’t have a good idea of what color if might want next. So, what to knit in the car?

Plus, I’ll be staying away for a week and have some possible evening knitting. That with the road knitting means that I might be able do more than one project. I considered bring the jacket to finish, but off-white lace is probably not a good idea for a vacation involving small children and dogs.

Ideas anyone? Maybe a hat for myself as car knitting? A second try for Liesl (rav link) using some handspun?

Conversation with one word

2009-08-07T11:10:00.002-04:00

Mama (pointing to muffins just removed from the oven): Hot!

Didi: Hot?

Mama: HOT.

Didi (reaching): Hot?

Mama: HOT!!!

Didi (touching): Hot!

Mama (nodding): Hot.

Didi (pointing): Hot.

And more spinning....

2009-07-24T15:28:00.004-04:00

Actually, I don't have too many pictures of that today. I'm still spinning every day as part of the Tour de Fleece and this is my ringer--a spindle that I bought to make it super easy to get 5 minutes in if nothing else.

The brown is some wool/NZ possum roving from my stash and the skiens are little tiny--probably about 1oz each. Originally, I was going to spin for socks, but decided to practice with this roving first. I think it might make cute, rustic looking scarf whereas I like very consistent yarn for socks. I wish I could have gotten to my new roving for TDF though as it makes a cute write-up. My new spindle is made of zebra wood, and the new roving is Spunky Eclectic Panda roving in the "Monkey farts" colorway. Zebra/Panda/Monkey. Yeah, I've been hanging with the preschool set, too long and am completely tickled by the combo.

In other crafty news, I decided it'd be fun to tie dye some t-shirts with The Falcon. His favorite part of any art project is mixing colors and he has a couple customized shirts that he loves to wear. So, I ordered up some materials from Dharma Trading Co. and some how got talked into doing shirts for some members of my extended family that we'll be staying with in Michigan later this summer. I ended up with 9 shirts.

It was fun! At first... But this was my first time tie-dying in years, and most of the color washed out of our initial dye run. Since most of the recipients are male, I didn't think they'd appreciate the pastels. So, I over dyed them. And most of it washed out. So, I over dyed them a different way and most of it washed out. Finally, I over dyed some of them a different way and these now have some bright spots. I'm calling it done. I know what to do next time (hopefully) to get the colors nice and bright on the first go, but its time to clean up the dye for awhile. The shirts are BLUE and I'm calling it Ocean camo. Its very manly! Trust me.

The Falcon's with some brights:

Didi's all pale Man-shades:

Still spinning,

2009-07-16T15:54:00.001-04:00

but having camera trouble. This isn't all I've spun, but its all the photos at the moment.

Day 5--Progress so far

2009-07-08T15:09:00.002-04:00

Well, Day 4 since I won't spin until tonight for "day 5".

Tour de Fleece

2009-07-05T16:55:00.003-04:00

I decided to join the Tour de Fleece this year. It my first time, and I went ahead and joined Team Lantern Rouge. I know I'm not going to get very many miles of yarn spun compared with other folks, but my goal is to do a lot of spinning and to try to spin every day even if its only for a couple minutes.

Day 1:

I got some plying done. I had the singles for these done ahead of time and was pleased that this happened on July 4 while the big boys were outside with the fireworks and the little boy was asleep. These three consist of a ply of corriedale in "northern lights" color way plied with royal blue coopworth, ruby coopworth, and white romney. Each skien should be about 2.5 oz of worsted weight yarn destined to be mixed an matched for some little boy hats. I'm going to spin two more yarns to got with the set--a two ply ruby and a two-ply royal which I started today.

Day 2

In the meantime, I expect that pretty much all knitting will grind to a halt with the exception of maybe a row or two on my current socks-in-progress.

Summer....

2009-06-25T10:29:00.003-04:00

…is good, but busy.

I’ve been to the pool, the beach, and the parks. I’ve experimented with letting the big boy roam the neighborhood with a pack of similarly-aged kids. I’ve ridden my bike around town. And, I’ve continued into my mission to not brush my hair. (It looks just like one would expect. And also, this is what it would look like if I had bothered to brush it in this humidity, so I’m calling it a win.)

The fiber arts have been going really slowly. I hoped to get a lot of spinning done this summer, but that is not happening. I started out well getting my Crown Mountain fibers corridale spun into some worsted 2-ply and then some of my “boy rovings” spun into singles. Then Hubby started to travel for work*, we went on vacation and now he’s off again. In theory, I’d be getting a lot of knitting done. But, I have a hard time getting the little boy to sleep at night in his bed. When Hubby’s gone, I spend most of the evening trying to get Didi to sleep and usually end up with him on my chest. I do have a couple projects in the works though and I’ll post about that soon.

Right now, I’ve got a day to plan—feeding the kids, going to the pool, selling extra meat to friends (long story….).

*I don’t spin when Hubby’s out of town. If/when Didi wakes up, its pretty much impossible to put the spinning wheel away until morning and I don’t like to leave everything out with the curious young ones unless I’ve planned it.

Birthday

2009-06-08T08:19:00.001-04:00

100_5374
Originally uploaded by knittingyogini

The Falcon turned 5 yesterday. We had a backyard party complete with giant water slide. I think it was a big hit. I feel weird posting pics of other people's kid even if they're not identified, so all you get is the cake. I'm thinking maybe I should consider a cake decorating class if I'm going to continue to make these myself... (This is a small cake for blowing out and I served cupcakes to the masses.)

Last year, it was also in the backyard. I'd planned a bubble theme thinking it would be warm, but not hot. It was really hot and our backyard is full sun. We set-up the slip-in-slide at the last minute and adults practically sat in the bushes looking for some shade before we all moved inside.

This year, I'd meant to have it someplace else--the local park with train or a nature center, but I waited to long to make the reservation. Instead, we got a portable cover for the deck and a big water silde. This time the weather really came through for us. We've been getting a lot of rain and are expecting more. Sunday was one of the few days last week or this week that didn't call for (or get) any rain and it was just warm enough that they kids could play in the the water without the adults melting in the shade. Thank you, gods!

View from the Mad House

2009-06-05T07:47:00.003-04:00

The first week of summer is going pretty well all told. There have been the some mistakes--like my showing up for a play date one week early. And, there hasn't been as much bike riding because things have either been a bit too far or, like today, it has been raining. We did make it to the pool for a bit before they closed it for imaginary thunder. Still I'm having fun and I think the boys are. This has definitely gone better than last year which was a bit of a rough start.

I give you. The Wonder Tot of Destruction:

And, The Falcon recovering:

The story here is that he fell down while dancing and hit the side of his face. He wanted a bandage, but I refused (no blood, no bandaid). So, he went and got the wash cloth, ice and masking tape and asked for this set-up.

On the fiber front, I've finished some spinning some yarn and knitting some socks. But, today its rainy (and 60F ??) and I need to bake some birthday cake. So, I'll update next week.

Wiped out

2009-05-30T08:04:00.000-04:00

Whew, that last week of school was a long one. It wasn’t just school, but other things as well conspiring to make it a very busy and stressful week. I fell asleep at 8pm last night and feel a little better, but I would have liked to sleep in too. Right now, I’m getting the big boy fed so that he can head off to soccer pictures and game.

Summer is looking good if I can get there. I realized that I have something planned for almost every day next week, which I think, will help with the transition. The Falcon’s had the crazies that he seems to get whenever change comes. Didi’s separation anxiety is wearing off as well. It’s nice because I can go to the bathroom by myself, but now he runs away from me when we’re out. Now if only Hubby wasn’t going out of town and we weren’t throwing a birthday party next weekend.

Summertime is coming

2009-05-26T13:59:00.002-04:00

We’re in the last week of preschool here. Last week we had a puppet show one day and performance by the preschoolers another. This morning was the official graduation ceremony for the rising kindergarteners. I’m pretty sure the Didi scored a hit off of somebody’s Starbucks because he was breaking the sound barrier in between sessions of petting his favorite baby. Friday is the last day of school which is celebrated by an all school picnic. Its been fun, but I’m getting tire. Too bad the first official week of summer will be celebrated by Hubby going on a business trip.

No matter. I’m reserving books at the library (time there is limited due to Didi's love of pushing books from one side of the shelf through to the floor on the other aisle), planning art projects, prepping for the Falcons birthday party. I’ve promised myself to be much better about arranging play dates this summer. I think it will be a good one.

Meanwhile, Didi is much slower to speak than the Falcon was, but his words are coming in:
Mama
Dada
Ball
Shoe
Go! (pointing outside)
Stick
Off (pointing to shoe)
Disgusting (yeah, he’s a little brother)

And me, I’ve been doing a bit of spinning and knitting, but I’ve also been trying to felt my head. After years of brushing out windblown tangles, spending afternoons looking like a mess because I went to the pool, and spending money on expensive conditioners I have discovered that I apparently have miracle self-untangling hair. After five weeks of not brushing, not conditioning and purposefully trying to mat it into little rolls, my hair seems to be trying its best to lay silky smooth and straight contrary to everything its done for the past 36 years of my life. Oh well, I’m not giving up yet. I’m going keep not brushing and not conditioning it for the rest of the summer and see what happens. I’m also going to break out the sewing machine and stitch myself some headbands and hair wraps.

The Stash Plan

2009-05-13T15:13:00.000-04:00

I started my Stash Maintenance Plan in Dec. 2006 because I wanted to makes sure that I kept my stash under reasonable control. I felt that it was appropriately sized, but that I was in danger of it getting too big. My method was to make sure the weight of incoming yarn/fiber roughly matched the weight of finished objects from year to year. I felt like this would give me control without “dieting”. By the end of 2007, I was at a negative 1675g and still had ample stash. A lot of this was the result of sending a raw fleece in for processing, but still I think it was a sign that I had actually been in stash denial. I reset my counter to zero and by the end of 2008, I had a positive 660g and a couple large projects on the needles.

So, where is now? I finished the UFOs and went shopping at MDSW. I’m happy to report that the difference between the Dec. 2007 weight and now is -75g (about one and a half skeins down). I suspected that I would be over this number after shopping, and had worried about staying within my monetary budget rather than a weight allotment. I’m satisfied with my purchases and I’m more than satisfied with my choices when I go digging for a new project. I’m going to call this good.

However, what I am going to change is my stash calendar year. Instead of resetting on Jan. 1, I am going to reset at MDSW. So, I’m going to call this 2009 post MDSW weight my zero point, and track the changes in and out until that first weekend in May. Then, next year, I’ll use my balance as a judge for how much fiber it is reasonable to purchase at MDSW (assuming I’d run out of weight before I’d run out of money).

Some year, I really will diet down and save some money. I’d love to have a trip to the festival when I can just go nuts. In the meantime, playing with my little ones slows down then knitting and spinning. The yarn budget is finite. But, I’m happy just the same.

MDSW 2009

2009-05-04T15:09:00.002-04:00

This is the first time I ever went on a Sun. For the past 3 years, I’ve been in the line of cars parking at 9am Sat. This year, not only did I wait until the second day, but is was a cool rainy day.

I was still there right at 9am worried that if things were too slow that some vendors would start pulling out early. There were almost no cars lined up at the light for the turn in, and I got a nice parking spot. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad about that honestly. The non-crowd was a bit disturbing even if there was still a line at The Fold.

It was good for me. I got to see everything I wanted. I didn’t have to wait long to potty. I shopped. One of the vendors even told me she was having a better day than Sat. She felt that it had been so crowded that people couldn’t browse properly. I browsed, snacked in the rain, and when completely wet, cold and had blisters I went home content. My only regret is that this was at 11:45am and I didn’t make it to the Ravelry meet-up. I was really too uncomfortable to enjoy it at that point.

I think I spent about as much money as previous years, but I enjoyed the process more even though I missed having a friend with me. I knew what to expect to be there, knew what I wanted and also really got a change to relax and look around more than in the past. I think I’m going to make Sun. Shopping Day in the future and someday I hope to take some classes as well.

Here’s the haul (sorry for the bad lighting its supposed to keep raining for the rest of the week):
Boy Rovings: The red and blue are Coopworth from the breeder association booth and the variegated is a Corriedale roving in Northern Lights from Misty Mountain Spinnery. My plan is to make several different yarns plying these with each other and possibly bits of another roving in the stash. Then, I’ll have a set of bright yarns for making hats for the various little boys in my life.

“Man roving”: This one is so much overly for men as the boy rovings are. It is some naturally colored Jacob roving. Since its in shades of gray and could be spun tweedy, I’ve justified this a being suitable for making some man hats, scarves or whatever.

Other grown up yarns:
Some sock yarn, Dizzie Lizzie, for socks and some Alpaca lace weight for a lacey scarf, some naturally colored Leicester longwool for a pullover.

I’ll work out the results of the great Stash Maintenance Plan for another post. I haven’t run the numbers yet.

My weekend

2009-04-28T10:57:00.001-04:00

On Sat., the big boys headed off to their soccer game.

Didi and I stayed home and played in the water.

Sun. was busy, but boring to write about. But next weekend…. MDSW!!!

I almost got thrown off track by the offer of a sailboat ride. And, given my stash, I have to say that if it came down to MDSW versus a day on a sailboat then I’d go for the boat ride. But the boat ride has been pushed back for a bit, and I’m free for Sun. shopping. I don’t have much of a plan this year. I’m going to follow my earlier idea—I’m going to shop for fiber for gift projects. Some sock yarns in friend colors, some worsted yarn in smaller quantity kid colors for hats and mittens, and some fiber to spin for adult hats and scarves. We’ll see how it goes!

Well...

2009-04-23T11:58:00.000-04:00

What did you think would happen when the weather warmed up and the bike got put together? I’ve been riding around in the sunshine and catching up on chores during the spring rains.

Here’s version 1.0 of Clyde:

Bobike maxi for Didi
Sissy bar for the Falcon. We leave the camp seat folded, but it makes a nice pad.
Footpegs which need to be adjusted because one is behind the
basket for carrying stuff.

I decided not to bother with a stoker bar for the Falcon. He either holds on to Didi’s seat, or shouts “Mom! I’m not holding on!” I’ve seen him do this on rides with Hubby and he still looks pretty sure secure, so I’m ignoring it.

I couple small spinning/knitting projects have also been completed. I turned this roving

Into this yarn

Into this hat.

And finally, I am on the last (for me) big push for preschool volunteer work. Now back to radio silence.

Clyde in progress

2009-04-08T08:16:00.002-04:00

Didi’s seat arrived on Friday and was mounted:

Next, figuring out what to do for the Falcon was a bit tricky. As a first trial, I have decided to go with a variation of Sheree’s idea and mount a camping seat. So, I made plexiglass deck and bolted a seat on. I also mounted some plexiglass to the sides of the rack where the Falcons feet are so he can’t get them into the spokes. I’m planning to complete the set-up by giving him some kind of handle (besides Didi’s seat) and some foot pegs.

So far, I’ve found that it is very difficult for the Falcon to get on the bike with the camp seat open. As shown in the picture, he seems much more comfortable just sitting on top of it and using it as a cushion. I think the big thing that will increase his comfort will be the foot pegs. Hubby continues to recommend a backrest, and I may go back and add one if it seems needed. I think I will try it without for a while. I don’t have any dramatic hills to climb. I’m thinking that if the Falcon is sitting upright with his feet on the pegs then he won’t be tempted to slouch and squirm, but rather he will need balance himself a bit. I can see where this might get tiring for him a on long ride, but I’m still talking about going on rather short trips. Anyway, no law preventing me from changing the whole thing later once we’ve got some miles on and I have a better idea what is needed.

This short ride was nice. With the boys stacked neatly over the wheels, I knew I was pedaling some weight, but I did not feel like I was dragging dead weight. They seemed to be having a good time, too despite the fact that it was quite chilly and we had just run out for a quick test ride without getting fully coated. I'm hoping it will warm up a bit in the next couple days and we can do some more testing without getting too cold.

Meet Clyde

2009-04-01T11:59:00.002-04:00

Hubby says that he can’t believe that I haven’t done the bike post. I’m just trying to make sure that I am streaming my grown-up self rather than my inner 4 year old. So, let me just state for the record that I’m really just in process here. And while I think some communications could have been better, I do not think I have been mistreated. In fact, I’m still pleased and excited about the project. I just wanted it back in Oct, had to wait for the right time to buy, and I want it ready NOW!

So, with that here’s Clyde:

He’s a Yuba Mundo 6-speed. In theory, he’s a 2009, but I have suspicions that he is really a 2008. I had read on the internets that the 2009 rack would have a re-design so John from Bikes@Vienna ordered me one rather than selling me his in-stock 2008. I didn’t see them side-by-side, but I can’t tell that my bike is different. When asked, John said that he didn’t notice any differences either. Now I’m o.k. with a 2008 if the 2009s just aren’t available yet, but I could have taken the in-stock bike 2 weeks ago. I don't need the new car smell or whatever. Actually, I should just say I’m good with this bike whatever it is because I’m moving on to modifications and not swapping it out for another. Clyde is mine regardless of his vintage.

So, this big guy is obviously not ready for child transport yet. The Yuba child seats won’t be available until May. Actually the guy I spoke to said, “May???” in exactly the tone of voice I use when repeating information reported to me as fact that I don’t believe. So, I went ahead and ordered a Bobike Maxi carrier for Didi. (Again, why didn’t anyone tell me this 2 weeks ago so it could be here already?) The internets say this carrier can be mounted and Flickr pictures support this assertion. Plans have been made for the Falcon’s seating arrangements as well, but we’re waiting to mount the baby seat before making the final plans. Don’t worry there will be many pictures...

I’m really hoping to get this together this weekend or early next week. It will be spring break, so I think that will be a fine time for some test rides. I can try out some routes and get a feel for how long things that and how quickly my legs wear out without actually needing to be anywhere on time.

Hubby’s Gansey Finished

2009-03-30T08:58:00.001-04:00

Its been finished for a while but I haven’t had a chance to blog about it until now. This is Liz Lovick’s design (Northern Lace) rather than one of my own as I had originally intended. It was harder to design for a man than I had thought. I kept coming up with designs that would have been great for me but I was uncertain how that would look on a larger scale with a different dimensions.

I enjoyed the pattern. It’s knit from bottom up in the round to the arms holes. Front and back are then knit separately and joined at the shoulders. Stitches for are picked up for the sleeve to be knit in the round from top down. I like the lack of joining. She also included the arm gussets. So the sweater is rather tight in the body, quite tight in the arms (more than I expected, but Hubby seems to like them), and his arms are still very mobile.

He says he likes it. It is getting a bit warm for him to get much wear out of it this year. I’m curious to see what he does with it next year. He does not wear sweaters to work (wool + expensive electronics + commercial heating= static electricity at a potentially tragic level). So, I made him a “play” sweater. He was then shocked that I wanted him to wear it to the petting zoo because it might get dirty. I would be upset if he used to for yard work or something like that, but I fully expect that a sweater for playing with the kids will get dirty at somepoint. Otherwise, I’m not quite sure when he thinks he’s going to wear it.

According to my Ravelry project page this took about 6 months to knit, but that must be starting from Liz’s pattern. The orginal yarn is documented in this blog post from Feb. 2007 making it almost an even 2 years from start to finish.

Coming soon: more bike posts.

Spinning

2009-03-20T16:55:00.002-04:00

I got the spinning wheel moving again a couple weeks ago. The first thing I did was re-ply my Acadia singles (Spunky Ecletic fiber club from Sept. 2008). I had been shocked the first time to find myself plying the wrong direction as I finished. I put the wheel away for a couple of months and was shocked again on the re-plying. I unplyed/replyed for about half a bobbin when suddenly everything was o.k. again and I just had to wind it on. Apparently, I had not only switched direction midstream, but managed to do so without having my previous work unwind. ??? All I know is that I during the first attempt I was tired because the kids were sick, but I wanted to finish. Note to self: Next time, just chill out and take a break.

Next, I spun up some fiber I bought from The Dyeing Arts. She sells "duos" of two rovings to spin and ply together, and I bought that along with some silk in a colorway to match one of the duo rovings for a 3-ply. I wasn't really sure about this when I saw it. 2 hanks of burgundies/blue with a lime green/yellow/turqoise? I did it anyway. I must say, I loved watching this ply together. It was pretty. I haven't pulled it off the bobbins yet though and I'm not sure that I'll like the yarn knit up. I'm curious to see what the hanks and swatches look like when its all done.

Bike Quest: Waiting

2009-03-16T12:19:00.001-04:00

A (probable) decision has been made, but bike acquisition is a bit slower than anticipated. I did decide to go with a longtail bike—specifically the Yuba Mundo.

When I first rode this, I felt that it was too heavy. However, that was a cold day in January. We had gone to the shop to kill time, I wasn’t planning on test riding that day and I hadn’t ridden a bike in a couple months. The bike felt heavy and sluggish as did the rest of me. I couldn’t help coming back to the picture and the specs though. I like the geometry of it better than the lighter Al-framed Kona Ute. It has runners on the sides that the kids can use to climb up and larger passengers can use as footrests. The lack of wood deck is also appealing since I’m planning on attaching things to the top—it seems easier to make and attach directly to the frame rather than drill through. When we went back to test ride on a warmer day couple weeks ago, the bike handled well and didn’t feel as heavy as it had. Hubby guesses that the tires may have been at a higher pressure due to the higher temperature and I think that knowing what to expect made a difference, too.

So where is the bike? In theory, it is traveling here from CA. The bike that we test rode is a 2008 model which wouldn’t be a big deal except the internets tell me that the rear rack of the 2009 has been redesigned specifically with child toting in mind. They are supposed to have made it more compatible with child carriers,a little more narrow and a little lighter weight. Also, when I went back to reevaluate the Yuba, I saw that they are selling a child carrier that appears to mount directly to the rack. I don’t know if this was there the whole time or new for 2009. Two can be mounted, but while the Falcon is well within the weight limit, I think I will only get one putting F on the back with a handle bar and foot rests.

So, John at Bikes@Vienna has order the 2009 for me to test ride, but I’m pretty sure this will be the bike. He was told that the child seat is back ordered. I’m hoping they’ll be getting spring shipments in soon and that in the meantime perhaps Didi’s current child seat will be mountable.

So that’s all the bike news there is to have at the moment. I’m hoping for smooth shipping and trying to figure out how I’m going to get it home when it arrives. It’s a bit far and unbike-friendly to ride it home.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

2009-03-06T10:40:00.003-05:00

Except it’s not as funny when I write it.

End of last week: The Falcon gets the vomit plague.
Weekend: We get freezing rain.
Beginning of the week: Hubby gets the vomit plague and we get 6 inches of snow. Didi was not amused. Last time, it was much less. This time, it was deep enough to trip him. I never got a pair of mittens to stay on him, so then his hands would get wet. The combo of getting tipped over and cold, wet hands was unacceptable.

Didi refused to play. The Falcon on the other hand was happy as a clam even though it was frigid. I actually got to let him go out and play with my watching from the window. He was good about staying within his boundaries (it helped that there were other kids playing right there). He stayed out for a remarkable amount to time and had a lot of fun even when the cold winds blew.
Next, as soon has Hubby recovers and is determined to return to work, I get the vomit plague.
Last night, on my (hopeful) recovery from the vomit plague. Both boys get fevers. The Falcon is missing his special class treat for extra good behavior. I’m praying they both recover quickly and hoping it’s a good thing that they are going simultaneously instead of sequentially so that it can be over. ...cross fingers, knock on wood, salt over shoulder...

Now lets talk of other things shall we? Not bikes today, because the plagues and weather have been foiling my plans. How about Maryland Sheep and Wool?

I am planning on going this year, but I think that I will wait and go on Sunday rather than Sat. I’m hoping to avoid some of the crowds that way . I’ve even got a plan for what I will shop for. This year I’m planning on knitting Xmas gifts for folks who have appreciated past knitted gifts. I’m thinking of hats, scarves, sock sized presents and yes, this will only work if I do my supply shopping the first weekend in May and start knitting/spinning ASAP.

Here’s the thing, the Stash Maintanence Plan doesn’t really support this idea. It will drop significantly once I finish Hubby’s gansey (as soon as the plagues pass), and there’s a frogging mishap that I don’t want to talk about and haven’t decided what to do with. Still, at this rate, its not likely to loose more weight than what I’m planning on buying. According to my current stash rules, this is ok. The idea is to have it near zero on Jan. 1. It can go positive or negative in between.

However, I’m wanting to change that. I plan my whole buying year around what I want to do or did at MDSW. I think it makes sense to adjust the Stash Plan to reflect this. So, what I’m considering doing this one time…. is resetting the stash weight to zero AFTER MDSW. This wouldn’t be a license to go crazy—I have finite space and money. But at least 95% of the current stash is yarn for projects for me (ie. not suitable for little boys, men, or in my favorite ladies favorite colors). This would be my big chance to correct that, and I would shop with that intent this year. Then, next year, the negative weight of my stash would be an indicator of how much it is reasonable to shop. (I don’t know what I’d do if it was positive because complete abstention is unlikely. Maybe I’d be restricted to fair foods and a ball of yarn?) Does this sound too much like cheating?

On hold

2009-03-01T11:33:00.002-05:00

Not much to blog about here.

Bike Quest: The current plan is to return to Bikes@Vienna and have another look at both the BPDB and the Yuba Mundo. We were going to do that this weekend. Yesterday was cold and overcast with chance of sleet. Today, it is snowing with chance of a massive dump tonight. The roads are passable and we could go. But, I want to test ride in weather I would actually ride in. Despite the daily pics out of Copenhagen, I'm still not planning on riding in this condition.

Hubby's gansey: I've started the second sleeve! There may be an end in sight. Surely, as soon as I finish it the temperature will leap so that he won't get a chance to wear if for 6 months. I'm going to knit as fast as possible to make that happen.

Spinning: I did break out the wheel the other day. Someday I may actually have some finished yarn to show for myself.

Until then, I'm just holing up with some hot tea and hoping that we really do get 6 inches of snow tonight because that would be fun! (Especially since its supposed to be 50F on Thurs. and it won't be here for long.)

Early Thurs morning

2009-02-27T07:40:00.003-05:00

2am, I am awakened by strange cough coming from the Falcon's room.

M: F, are you o.k.?

F: Yes....but, there's an emergency... I threw up.

So, I give Didi (who was sleeping on my face) to Hubby, direct F to the bathroom and begin clean up. F finishes up and crawls into my bed. I snuggle in mumbling something about no school.

F: I don't need to throw up anymore. I can go to school. (Unfortunately, this is not to be the case.)

M: If you throw up in the night time, you're not supposed to go to school the next day.

..... more barfing......

F: I'm all done throwing up now. (Wishful thinking)

M: I'm glad!

F: Do you have D's phone number? (D lives behind us and is home schooled.)

M: ???

F: Can he come over tomorrow since I'm not going to school?

M: Sorry, I don't have his phone number. You're not supposed to invite friends over if you're sick.

F: But, I'm all done throwing up now!

....more barfing.....

Cue the sound of Hubby's patience snapping.

2009-02-23T14:24:00.007-05:00

In last week’s episode of Bike Quest, I had it narrowed down to two: the Kona Ute, and the Batavus Personal Delivery Bike (BPDB). I was strongly leaning toward the BPDB admiring photos out of one Amesterdam intersection, and Copenhagen both in snow and dressed up in the snow. I like the ascetic. Hubby told me that I had all the information, not to think about it for a day and let my back brain decide.

It totally backfired. I became less certain rather than more. I do not have all the information. The closest that the US seems to have to a cycling culture is Portand: Bike Portland. American families seem to go for longtails when they have more than one (and the Dutch and the Danes got for the box bikes). As much as I love the BPDB, I am worried that it may not be the right bike for the project.

Here are the main problems:

In order to mount a front carrier, the front rack probably has to be removed. Probably. O.k., well somebody told me it would have to be removed, but we think it might be possible to remove the footrests on the carrier and let Didi put his feet on the rack. There are pictures out of Europe of bikes with front racks and front carriers. However, they have a much wider selection than I do and I’ve not seen one with exactly the bike and carrier I would get.
Without the front rack, I’m not sure where all our crap would go. I’m thinking of when I drop the big one off at school with his bag and head to baby swim class with our suits and towels. Or this summer, when the three of us go to the pool. I could get panniers for the back, and possibly even have some storage behind the Falcon since the rear rack is longer than typical. I just don’t know.

Without looking at the bike again, ideally with the front carrier, I can’t really tell. Also, in the original idea, I was going to tote a possible third child* there’s really no way to get 3 kids plus gear onto that BPDB. So, instead of deciding between the two, I went backwards and reconsidered everything I had eliminated. What about the Madsen that I could just throw everybody and everything in a big bucket? What about an Xtracycle that has more options than the Ute? Hey, what about that Yuba Mundo that seemed SO BIG the first time I saw it? Sorry everyone, we’re back to like about square 1.5.

*About that third kid: If I join a carpool next year, I would like to be able to bike when its my turn. However, the candidate that I had in mind for that is probably going to a different school. Most of the other kids I know are already in carpools, but I have no idea how fixed these are from year to year. As far as the bike goes, I have 3rd child seating as preferred, but not required.

PS. Hubby, however, HAS decided on what he feels is the appropriate bike for me. I’m half expecting it to show up as a gift this week..

Still dreaming of bikes

2009-02-17T21:19:00.005-05:00

I did get the stitches picked up on the gansey sleeve, but its not that exciting.

This is the bike I think I would get if I could have anything:

A Pack-Max Duo. I have ideas of where I could get my hands on one—Dutch Bikes Chicago seem to have a picture on their webpage although its identified as a custom build. Bucketbike.com also seems to have them in a wide variety of colors and lists a price of $1700. They have a southern California telephone number, but all their locations (except Tokyo) are in Europe. Its unclear if the $1700 includes the child seats. Nice though. So, if I when the lotto, I can either swing up to Chicago, buy a bike and then slide up the lake to visit my sister. Or, I can fly to CA, visit Chelle and get a bike. Or, if I win big, I'll just fly us all to Copenhagen for a week and buy bikes for all three of us and our 5 kids.

This seems to be an American version made from an Xtracycle named Sylvie. Those are DIY seats. Awesome, no? I don’t think hubby has quite that skill (or rather patience). I really must learn how to use his power tools someday.

So, I’m still thinking through my two main contenders. The Kona Ute could get a treatment much like that X. I'd probably start by modifying the current child seat we have for Didi and bolting it to the deck. Not so pretty, but I think he needs the harness for a couple more years if only to keep him from deciding to jump off. The Falcon could either get a seat or a cushion and a stoker bar.

Or the Dutch delivery bike…

We think the rear rack is too short for two seats, but not by much. It was designed to be capable of carrying a significant amount of weight. So, I’m wondering if it would be possible to someday get a custom extended rack made for it. The idea would be to start Didi in the front and the Falcon in the back, move to both in back for some period of time, followed by Didi only on back. And, finally, because these bikes last a really long time, I could ride it alone (or with a dog in a basket on front).

Meanwhile, X is having a rolling Febuary Love Sale giving me conniptions. And still no word from Madsen on whether there’s one anywhere around here that I could see. But check out the Mom using it: http://blog.madsencycles.com/cargo/2008/11/cute-mom-on-a-m.html

Biking to school

2009-02-11T13:53:00.003-05:00

I am unable to pick-up the stitches for the arms in Hubby’s gansey. There is no apparent reason, no actual problem, I just can’t seem to come up with the right number. Tonight I have a preschool meeting, tomorrow night I have yoga class, and Friday night Hubby has a soccer meeting. In theory, I could try again on Fri. almost guaranteeing interruptions from a restless baby. Instead, I have thrown up my hands and cast-on a sock. I can take it with me tonight and wait for the planets to come into a more perfect alignment before working on those sleeves.

So, I thought I’d blog about biking some more.

My obsession began with two things colliding—Sheree getting an Xtracycle, and neighborhood discussion of the elementary school kiss-and-ride. Here is what I know about school next year:

We do not get bus, but most of the school gets bus. If the kids would have to walk more than a certain distance (I’m not sure what) or cross a major intersection, then they get a bus. I think its really the intersection thing that gets most kids their bus since the school is located on a main road. My neighborhood backs up to the school and my street is about as far back as one can go without hitting a major street. I once held out hope they would extend bus service to us. But given the state of the school system budget, I think I’ll just let that go.
Almost all of the neighborhood does a kiss-in-ride. There are strict rules for this. People violating the rules are stoned. Innocent dads have tried to drop off on an off-day and experienced the wrath of the angry kiss-and-ride mob. The heads moms that do not conform to the rules are placed on stakes at the front of the line as a warning to other that might dare opening the car door for their kid.
The walk is a bit long for a little one—I’ve covered that before.

Now the mysterious part is the policy on bicycles. I could clear this up with a simple phone call, but where’s the fun in that? Plus I feel weird calling (the principal?) about something like this which I could find out at orientation. The people on my street believe biking is not allowed. I’ve heard this both from current parents who believe is it related to bike theft and from people whose children, now my age, were not allowed to ride to school as kids got too rowdy on the trail system. But one day, Hubby was looking at the parent handbook (on-line) and noticed one line: “Students may ride their bicycles to school.” There is no further explanation or clarification. So, the other day, I polled a mom from the street behind us. What did she think the policy was? Turns out, her kids had ridden to school. The first time, they went with their dad and when they got there—no bike rack. The dad asks what to do and is instructed to “put them somewhere”. He followed up and got them to purchase a bike rack. Thanks back neighbor dad!

So what does this mean for the child-toting bike obsession? Just that I will not plan on toting the big kid to school through 6th grade—for which I’m sure he will be very happy. I still think that I will want to haul him for at least the first part of next year. 4 half days of PreK pretty much wipes him out, and I’m guessing 4.5 full days of K will do the same. So, I’d still like to be able haul both kids to school this year and next as well as places like the pool and library. After that, I'll still have several years of hauling the little one.

And now I’m off to play outside.

The Bike Quest Continues

2009-02-09T13:31:00.003-05:00

This weekend we were plague-free with beautiful weather, so I got to test ride a Kona Ute. This longtail bike does not seem to be favored by the internets. The Kona has an aluminum frame unlike the Xtracycle Radish & Big Dummy or the Yuba Mundo which are steel. Therefore the Ute's rear weight capacity is only 200lbs. Yuba Mundo lists 400 lbs. The X would depend on the build, but it carries a lot. Searching flickr and the internet, you can find tons of pictures of people carrying massive quantities of stuff. Think multiple kegs of beer, lumber, groceries for a family of 6 for a week—possibly all at once. So what about this wimpy Kona? Is it worth having a look? Hubby reminds me—I am unlikely to carry more than the 2 boys, some books and maybe the occasional extra kid or dog. I have no intention of giving up my (compact) minivan at this point. So, off to Oasis Bike shop to look at the Ute.

This is not a bad bike. The 2009 model has a center stand which I’ve decided is a requirement if I'm going to be loading 2 kids (especially if one is on the front and the other on the back). It is MUCH lighter weight than the Yuba. The bike shop guy (I didn’t get his name) accurately described it as like driving a pick-up truck. It doesn’t turn super tight corners, but wasn’t appreciably heavier than a regular bike like the Yuba was. The long tail part was quite nice as well. I can even see putting Didi in a rear mounted baby seat and having the Falcon ride behind as opposed to putting D in a front carrier. So far, this bike is probably the most suited to my needs—I could carry multiple kids and their school stuff with very little modification. Still, I find myself day dreaming about riding around on that orange delivery bike with a warm spring breeze in a sundress and flipflops (it comes with guards to keep a skirt out of the spokes—gotta love the Dutch).

The only thing I haven’t test driven yet is the X. I did go back to The Bike Lane and get another look at the owner’s Big Dummy. I was offered a chance to ride it, but I’m not sure that’s useful. (I couldn't do it at that time as I was the solo adult with both boys.) At +$2k, that bike is right out of my price range. I’d be more likely to buy a frame and attach X's FreeRadical, and I’m sure the result would be very dependent on what frame I chose. Since most of the frames I would choose are Al, its almost like recreating the Kona anyway... I need to think about it some more, but I may be narrowed down to:

Kona Ute, rear baby seat, stoker bar/foot pegs/seat pad for F
Personal Delivery Bike, front baby seat, stoker bar/foot pegs/seat pad for F on rear
Batavus Diva, front baby seat, rear child seat (I haven’t discussed this option because it involves ordering everything from the distributor in Canada. Also, it is pretty much a variation on option 2 just going for a little more “girly” look.)