Hell Hath reached 0 deg C -- NEWS FLASH!

As of 1600 yesterday, I finished my MS3! I am done with her, and she, me. Sadly, right now, she looks like a limp, pink, bead-studded blob. But as soon as I get my blocking wires, I will get 'er all stretched out the way she is supposed to be! I dragged that poor stole all the way home over the Thanksgiving holiday so I could work on it ... yeah, right, like that was going to happen. But still, my heart was in the right place.


Instead of working on my stole, I dragged my mom to The Knitters Mercantile. OH.MY.GOD. It was everything that I imagined, and MORE. I knew that they were the ones behind the Knitters Connection 2007 that was held in Columbus last June, so I had the feeling that they were no slacker store -- but wow, I was just awed. The nicest lady came up to ask if I needed help with anything, and I honestly told her that when I found my words again, I am sure I would have some questions for her. I was speechless. Now, this could be due to the fact that here, in Flatlandia, my main LYS does not have that warm and fuzzy feeling. And the selection, well it is just too hard to find anything. KM actually had Tilli Thomas hanging out that you could touch, and cuddle. I had never seen this yarn in real life. It's like looking at the Koala bear through the glass, compared to actually holding the bear in your arms.

yes. I bought yarn. A good haul too, if you ask me. It is all for the projects to come for the rest of this winter. For now though, to celebrate my project monogamy, I am going to reward myself with a beautiful, mind freeing project; Brooklyntweed's Noro Striped Scarf. I procured some Noro Silk Garden from Little Knits sale a few weeks ago, and I think that the color combination will be fab.


Oops! Oh craptastic ... I forgot to re-orient that photo. Considering how long it took to upload, I guess that is just the way it is going to stay.

2 balls #249 (main background color)
1 ball #246
1 ball #245

I hope that everyone had a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday; I am still coasting from the calories I consumed that night. Now that I am freed from the weight of lace (arrrr arrrr lace weight) I hope to be posting a LOT more often.

Happy Halloween (part 1)

We are completely intrigued with a little gift G'ma & G'pa brought us...
It's a plug in, table top spooky house. It has a little witch on a broom that zooms around and around on the top. Clay says "look, it's mommy witch on Honda broom...". Yes, i had a little bit to do with the "Honda" part, but i think the rest is totally his.

And now for some truly spooky knitting news! I am now on the "Wing" part of my MS3. Yeah, I know ... finally. I really like the way it is looking, so let's keep our fingers crossed that I get this thing done sometime before Christmas. As I am still holding on to my "one project at a time" mindset (I know, why do I torture myself so?), I have been allowing myself to plan the next project i will dive into. I am thinking of embarking on some of Chuck's cabled Socks in the Kauni EV colorway and/or the Leavened Ragland in the Fall 2007 IK. I kind of slid off the proverbial "wagon" last week and accidentally enhanced my stash with some Noro Silk Garden last week (it was on SALE at Little Knits!), and some scrumptious sock yarn. The sock yarn I picked up on Etsy at Fearless Fibers. She has some beautiful stuff!

A moment of silence while we ogle together, please?

Fearless Fibers Superwash Merino
4 oz. / 550 yds.
Marrakesh colorway (left)
Inner Sanctum colorway (right)
(The picture was taken on the one spot of grass I did not kill this summer with the baby pool.)

Ah yes, and both so full of that beautiful squish-bounce feeling. Because of my little indulgences, I will not be purchasing the lovely Fiesta Kokopelli that the Leavened Ragland sweater is shown in - BUT, I will be giving it a go with some stashed Rowan Polar, that I think will have a similar gauge. I won't be sure though until I actually get my hands into the Polar and give it a good swatching.

I feel a small rant coming on...

You know, I have always liked Halloween. Bats, cats, smiling toothy pumpkins - it is all just so much fun! Halloween used to be so simple. A few maimed construction paper cut outs in the window, and a costume consisting of a black ski mask, black leotard with tights and wings made out of garbage bags were all you needed to do it up right. (Halloween also used to mean that it was cold outside, and trick-or-treating was done in the dark, yet, I digress). Recently though, I have been annoyed with the whole over-the-top holiday explosion. It now seems that Halloween has become yet another easy vehicle for stores to enable a frenzy of excessive, seamless, October through December buying, decorating, and waste. It 's like folks suddenly think that the more theme decorations you can cram outside (and inside) for each.and.every.holiday, the MORE you are into the holidays than EVERYONE else. I drive down the street and I am bombarded with yard atrocities that scream "Look at us! LOOK AT US! We have a yard so full of pumpkins and non-hardy mums that we look like we are running a U-Pick it farm! And our concrete geese are dressed in coordinating festive fall wool sweaters! Do we know how to do FALL right, or WHAT?"

M.I.A.

I have been missing in action lately. My mind has been a lot of ethereal places, just not here. Honestly, it has been hard for me to decide what to write about. I will come up with a topic, wait till the kiddies are in bed, and then the 20 tons of bricks fall into my lap. There I sit there, vegetable-like, on the sofa, staring at yet another episode of Law and Order. I don't even LIKE Law and Order. But there I sit, glazed over - much like the doughnut picture in My Profiles.

I have been quite apprehensive about talking about my knitting, because I just don't know what to say. I have a severe case of knitters block. I feel completely seized up. I try to lunge into a new project, but there is a tangle of UFO's, yarn wants, yarn needs, and knitterly daydreams that hold me back. At the moment, I am just a stagnant, tangled thoughts mess. Just how many entries can I put "STILL doing MS3"? I am on row (gulp) 251. Good GOD. At this rate I will never finish. I love the pattern, I love the yarn, I love how the project is turning out -
I just HATE how little time I seem to have for it at the end of the day. I have been trying hard to keep my "one project at a time" rule going - especially while MS3 is on the needles. But it has been so hard for me! Now that fall is here, the nights are cool and the trees are changing - I have this deep urge to start working on warm, colorful, autumnal things.

I want to pick up some serious stranding, and do me up socks like Mel's, Chuck's Cabled Socks (GORGEOUS!)
I am so totally obsessed with wanting to make these socks. I have the pattern, I am about to purchase the yarn - so what am I waiting for? Well, I also want to make this, and this, and about three things from this. See what I mean? I just don't know where to start. I have all of these ideas, and I am bursting at the seams wanting to start them all, but they are all backed up in the bottleneck created by my beautiful Swan Lake Stole (MS3). I hate to say it, but this whole thing is kind of like being constipated. I want, I need, I HAVE to get it done ... but nothing is happening. I feel so guilty comparing this beautiful lace project to constipation. There has to be someone out there who knows what I am going through with this.

All of this on top of trying to plan knitted baby gifts for the NINE people that are due between October and April. NINE! Nine babies in seven months! That number might go up to eleven any day now (no, not me) but two of my friends. So far, I have finished one baby jacket for the baby due in 2 weeks. I will be photographing it on my youngest little guy later today, and i hope to be posting pictures of it here, and on Ravelry in the next few days.

Gasp. The doorbell ringeth - 'tis the postman!
Does he come bearing gifts of yarn,
knitting books,
non-buggy bread?
Let's go see,
shall we?

Day After Day...

I was driving out to a play group the other morning
and I suddenly could not remember where I was supposed to be going.
This brain fart is brought to you by ... The Violent Femmes.
I think that I am going to blame this particular seize-up on the fact that I was singing along with
The Violent Femmes "Day After Day"...
I was having one of those being-in-college flashbacks
to how every Friday night, our first year, we would have an upperclassmen go buy us beer,
(OR the Sun Country or California Coolers in Peach or mixed berry)
and listen to our V. Femmes tape.
By the time the tape got to the song "Day After Day" we were WELL on our way to getting soused ...
Don't worry, be happy...
And then, we all would go out and party at Delt.

Later on in our second and third year we would have an upperclassmen go buy us beer.
We'd break out the "Grease" tape only after we had finished the beers
and were starting in on the vodka lemon shots ...
Hey SBGH's, these are for you--
"DO me Baby" - BilBivDevoe and "I wanna sex U up" - COlor Me Badd
THEN we all would go out and party at Delt.

Our forth, and last year, we were older, and so much more sophisticated.
We could buy our own booze.
We changed up the routine a bit by filling up our "Use, reuse, recycle" cups with a few shots of Vodka and took them down to the cafeteria with us.
Then we would fill the cups with orange juice at the juice machine.
We'd merrily eat dinner, drink screwdrivers, and then go back to the room to play Roxanne, Red Light ...
Roooooxanne, you don't have to wear that dress tonight!
THEN we would break out the grease tape and drink Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.
THEN we all would go out and party at Delt, and maaaaybe SAE.
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine!"

Only later in my Graduate Career did we discover Boone's Farm Sangria --
we kept a bottle of it "at the ready" in our freezer for special occasions like
"Hey, I passed my dissertation proposal! " or
"Hey, I got my NSF funding for the summer field season!" and the best one
"Hey! I got the Fulbright Scholarship!
waaahooo, let's break out the BOONE'S!
Only the best.

yeah - so that is where my mind was when I suddenly "woke up" on a freeway in central Flatlandia, in a mini van, with two wonderful, chattering, squeaking babies ... and a bag full of a half knitted MS3 stole.

Funny how priorities, and definitions of fun, change.

Change
is
GOOD.

MS3

Yey! I finally got my yarn last Friday, just in time for the 4th clue to be released! We were in the midst of planning the birthday extravaganza, so I was not even able to properly feel on my yarn until Sunday night. Wow. It was SO worth the wait! I was a little upset that it too so long to get here (almost 2 weeks to the day), but I think the lady deserves a little slack, because hey, laceweight wool was in such high demand due to the MS3! I cannot believe that I made was able to sign up for the MS3 before the cutoff date! I am always the last to know things, and how I was lucky enough to get in on this one I will never know. I am loving the pattern! Lovely Melanie at Pink Lemon Twist is the leader and creator of the whole MS3 phenomenon. It is so beyond me how anyone designs beautiful lace things like this! It 's like, trying to understand how astronomers figure out the logistics of landing a rover on a distant planet (that's like, basically predicting the future, right?). Well, to me, it seems that designing lace is kind of the same thing.

I took a picture of my progress so far (I am still on Clue #1), see Slow Bee Badge to the right. Kind of sad that the photo does not do it justice (you can't even really see the beads on it!), but I really dont feel like looking for a good place to take the picture. I am pressed for time already, as it is. I HATE frogging, so because of this, I am SUPER cautious. As you can see, I have stitch markers, and life lines out the wazoo!

Zephyr wool/silk in Cassia, on size 4 (3.5mm) Takumis

The is the first knit-a-long I have participated in, but I am really hoping that Melanie will have a MS4 for next year (hint hint, Melanie)!

Our birthday celebration went really well this weekend! We had a bit of fun with it this year and kept Clay's gifts a total secret. Once he went to bed, we set everything up outside. So, Clay went to bed with the backyard looking like this ....

and woke up to this ....

He was simply ecstatic!

I also tried my hand at making him a cake this year.

He LOVED the cake. Well, let me clarify that ... he loved the TOYS on top of the cake. This is the second year in a row that Clay was not interested in the birthday cake! Last year he sat and stared at it like it was going to rear up and bite him. This year he stared at it like it was some gooey lump getting in the way of him playing with his trucks. Oh well, considering that the cake was not all that tasty, he really did not miss much ;) Let's just say that the decorations rocked...the cake did not.

Where's my two dollars?

Okay, I think the mailman is starting to think that I am stalking him. I am starting to feel like that paperboy in that classic 80's flick "Better Off Dead" .... "Where's my two dollaaaaaars? I want my two dollars!". Where's my yaaaaarn? I know that ALL of the yarn stores have been SWAMPED with orders for laceweight yarn ever since the MS3 KAL started, and I am trying to be patient and understanding. BUT I WANT MY YARN! It's going on 2 weeks since I placed the order.

I got the beads, I got the size 12 (!) crochet hook, and I have all of the charts taped together, marked out and ready to go. I am so ready to start this thing! Personally, I think they should call the crochet hook size a -12, because depending on who sized it, a "regular" size 12 hook is enormous. The hook needed for the MS3 (my -12) is a 1.00 mm hook. The other, more "common" 12 is almost a size L or M which is almost a cm in size.
Needless to say, I was really confused when the directions said to apply the beads to the laceweight yarn using a size 12 crochet hook. I was starting to wonder if the "beads" were supposed to be soda can ring pulls.

Must.not.obsess.over.yarn.
Must.distract.self.

Okay, how about this for distraction?
The Heathen Housewife has a contest going on this week! Let's go check it out!

At some point I am going to have to start photographing my FO's, UFO's and stash. That is going to be quite the undertaking, so I am just going to have to start slow, and post photos of the MS3 as I creep through it . I have not quite decided what this site is going to be about yet, but I suppose that will all come in time.

Well, I am off to go figure out what kind of birthday cake to make for the weekend. I cannot believe that my little boy is already going to be two years old! Perhaps the way I will privately celebrate his birthday for myself is by finally making some time to post his birth story on my Doula's web site. I almost cried at his first birthday because I was remembering how beautiful he was when he was born, and how beautiful that day was for me. I honestly believe that the birthday celebration is not only for the person born on that day, but it is also a small celebration for the mother that brought him/her into the world.