Finally!

For Kathy, originally uploaded by jmailj.

A big THANK YOU to Sarah, the designer of this wondrous sweater!  And a big thank you to my friend Jami for being the photog that evening.

This is me and Sarah at the Yarn Harlot event in Kansas City, where not only did I get to meet and greet Stephanie, I also got to meet and greet and hug and thank Sarah for her wonderful pattern.  If you’re looking for a really awesome sweater that’s so easy to customize for fit as well as design features you may or may not want to add, let me steer you towards the Stargazer.   Sarah, for reasons unknown to me, is only charging a measly $1.  Yes, a buck.  Even if you never knit it yourself, go now and buy her pattern, download it and print it out.  In the immortal words of Mr. Monk, “You’ll thank me later.”

Turned the corner

Looks like Russell’s going to live.  He actually ate yesterday, and didn’t throw up at all.  He did start whining about his tummy hurting around 5 or so, and went upstairs to lay down.  It dawned on me about a half hour later that he hadn’t come back down, so I went to check on him and he was asleep.  I hadn’t had him take a nap that day since after I got his brothers off to school, he and I went and laid down in my bed and we both passed out until about 10:30 or so.  I guess he was still tired.  I was trying to decide how late to let him sleep.  I didn’t want to wake him up since he’s been sick, but on the other hand, I sure didn’t want him sleeping until 10 and waking up then and not being tired to go back to sleep.  I finally decided to just let him sleep.  He woke up at about 8, had a little applesauce and ginger ale for supper, wound up several balls with my ball winder, and I tucked him back in at 9 and he went right to sleep.  Got up this morning a little after 7 and felt great.  Even wanted oatmeal for breakfast.  I think he’s finally over this stupid thing.

Today, he’ll rest, in between errands.  We’re out of milk, and I lost my driver’s license!  So, we’ll have to go there and get it replaced.  And after that I think I may need a small yarn fix.  That glow in the dark yarn is on sale at Michaels, and I’ve been dying to try it out.  Perhaps today I can finally get to the post office too, to mail off that stuff I was going to mail off last week but didn’t because it kept raining.

On the knitting front, not much is going on there.  I think I did a few rows on the slippers for Dulcie last night while vege-ing, but that’s about it.  She sent my up a silk yarn too, for a hat/scarf combo that looks very interesting.  I’m trying to wait on that until I at least finish a few other wip’s.  I did though, get that sock yarn all separated out for David’s socks.  The gauge I got was 9 1/2 st to the inch, which seems to be really tiny.  The gauge on the band said 7 st to the inch with a size 1, which was what I used.  I’m going to try to re-do his horcrux socks, since he wore a hole in the first pair.  And then grew too fast for the second pair to fit him.  But that second pair didn’t even get done, so that’s ok.  If not, then they may just be plain ribbed socks.  We’ll see.

Had our first frost this morning.  Very brisk outside.  I think I’m going for a walk before Steve leaves for work.

I forgot to title this one, oops!

Just an update so no one thinks I fell off the face of the earth. Russell’s been sick, some kind of flu/stomach/intestinal thing. Poor kid. I was up part of the night with him. In case you’re wondering, sleeping on the floor with a sick 4 year old, waiting for him to whimper that his tummy hurts, which I’ve learned is one of the universal signs to grab the bucket, is not really sleeping. The floor, no matter how many comforters are piled up there, is not real comfy. And, I can’t hear my alarm go off from in there. Someone must have heard it, because when I woke up in a frantic start to find it was 7:20 and David had not yet left for the bus yet, the alarm was turned off. I won’t point any fingers, but someone was sleeping in that bed, and that someone was sleeping, shall we say, more towards my side of the bed than his. Just sayin’.

And, there’s 3 batches of cookies that need to be mixed and baked before Friday for various kid’s school parties. And or reasons I’ll not go into right here and now, while fall is one of my favorite times of the year, the week preceding Halloween has very negative memories attached to it. So, I’m fighting off that. And we have company coming on Sunday, who, according to some people, are somewhat perfectionist when it comes to house cleaning. So, hubby is worried that our house isn’t clean enough, and I’m trying to be understanding and clean things I wouldn’t normally even think to clean, while at the same time attempting to throw away much clutter that has accumulated and taking care of a sick boy, and this morning I found myself trying out some new yarn I had bought to make David some new socks for Christmas. I just did a little swatch, to take the edge off.

This is going to be a great week. If I can just live through it.

Kristi’s mitts at the Kansas State Fair, 2008

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Kristi’s mitts at the Kansas State Fair, 2008, originally uploaded by YarnDork.

I’m taking a chance here, that my sister does not read my blog. Even though she suggested the name a long time ago, I don’t think she comes here.

It all started because I had been knitting and crocheting presents for my nieces and was forgetting what I had made for who and when, birthday or Christmas. I thought, maybe I should start sort of an online journal thing, where I can put pictures of what I made, and write down what pattern I used and what yarn and who it was for and all the important details like that.

So, I started this blog. Then, like a month later, I read about Ravelry.

Nice timing, huh?

Turns out all I wanted already existed, and I didn’t even know it. But, I kept it going anyway, and it’s turned out pretty cool.

These, by the way, are the fingerless mitts I designed for the Cascade contest at the state fair. They are the ones that won 3rd place, and got me the 10 hanks of Cascade Lana D’Oro. Speaking of which, I think I need to go play now.

2, count them, 2 FO’s!!!!

Adorable, huh?  The hat is the grungy one I was writing about earlier, for my sister to get dirty and not mind so much.  I personally don’t even think the dirt would show in that particular colorway.  And I have to comment on this…I have no idea what kind/brand of yarn that is, except to say that if I ever work with it again, I may well just turn into a yarn snob.  Oh my gosh.  I love my Red Heart and acrylics all the same as my alpacas, although for different reasons.  But this stuff, man.

I’ve heard people who claim to be yarn snobs talking about how they can’t knit with acrylic because it makes their hands hurt, or it feels plastic-y.  I had thought enough of them to give them the benefit of the doubt on the hands hurting thing.  I remember last Christmas when I was cranking out those scarves, and working with bulky yarn that I hadn’t worked with for quite some time.  And after doing tons of socks, that bulky stuff actually made my hands cramp up.  I thought, maybe that’s what they meant.  Sort of a crampy thing.  OK, I thought, I’ll go with it and not be judgemental.

But the plastic thing?  I just couldn’t see it.  I know that on a softness scale, Red Heart certainly doesn’t even go near alpaca or merino or angora.  But, feeling like plastic?  I just couldn’t see that.  Or feel it, if you will.

Until this hat.  Maybe it’s because I had been working with some alpaca right before.  Or the wool sock yarn.  Or something else that wasn’t acrylic.  This yarn felt odd.  Stiff.  Made my hands hurt a little.  Almost as though, dare I say, it was plastic-y.

The good thing is, I know my sister’s head won’t mind at all.

And the sweater?  That was the yarn said sister found on clearance for 99 cents a skein.  So, bless her heart, she went through them and found 6 that were all the same dye lot!  Is she not the coolest ever?  (I know, she deserves way more than a plastic hat, but wait, better things are coming, and don’t forget those 2 pair of socks last year.)  I found a pattern that said it needed 6 skeins for a size 8 sweater.  I thought, perfect…Patrick’s a size 6, that way it’ll be a little big on him and will fit him all winter and maybe into next year!  I knit it up, it was a really fast knit, but it fits him almost just rignt!  And it I had to do it again, I’d add some more length to the bottom, as it’s just shy of being too short on him!  I was getting gauge too, so don’t even go there.  Either he’s way tall in the torso, which is entirely possible, or the sweater sizing is off.  But, it’s still very much cute.

Today I’m mailing off those hats for Maureen and some patterns and that hat for Kristi.  In the rain.  Yay.

Well, that sucked

Where the heck did the weekend go?

Friday was my knitting night, yay!  It sure was fun.  The kids had been out of school on Thursday and Friday.

Saturday morning was the Kansas City Marathon/Half-Marathon/10k/5k/Kid’s Marathon.  David had run the kid’s part.  How they did it was fairly witty.  For those of you non-versed in marathon-ness, a marathon is 26.2 miles.  Yeah.  So, then the kid’s one was still 26.2 miles, but you could start it anytime before the actual race, and finish 25 miles of it on your own, in your own time.  Steve had put together a schedule for David so he was running 1/2 to 3/4 to 1 mile a day on 3 days a week.  Then on race day, the kids all ran the last 1.2 miles and got their medal.  Cool, huh?

Afterwards, we drove to a Panera for breakfast before Steve had to go to the airport.  He was flying to Chicago for a reunion of a singing group he was in back in college called New Visions.  He had a blast.  Then Sunday morning, he flew down to Tampa to see the Buccaneers play the Seahawks.  Not sure why exactly, but he really wanted to see that game.  Turns out, that was a good weekend to be in Tampa, as the Rays also won the pennant to be in the World Series.  The Buc’s game got over before the Rays game did, and they put it on the big screens in the stadium after the football game was over.

What we did was this…after breakfast at Panera, we drove home and took a nap.  A long nap.  We had supper and played and went to bed.  Sunday morning was church, lunch, and another nap.  I was feeling run down, as I didn’t sleep well at all on Saturday.  Plus, I had started to get a headache, but it was one of those “I know if I just get some sleep I’ll be ok” ones.  That was not the case.  I got some sleep, and woke up feeling worse.  Then I started to feel sick to my stomach.  I did have enough brain power to realize that I was probably getting a migraine.  I popped 3 tylenols.  I usually take 4 when I feel one coming on, and take a nap, but as the kids were all up I didn’t want to risk passing out.  I did lay down and just didn’t move for about 2 hours though.  The kids all behaved, for which I am extremely grateful.  Luckily on Friday I made a big pan of this stuff we call Baked Noodley Stuff.  I’ll have to post the recipe sometime; it’s truly the best fake out meal ever.  So, there was still some left last night, and David scooped it into bowls and heated it up in the microwave and served it up.  It was all I could do to walk downstairs and supervise that.  Then they played some more, I found the tums and ate a couple and before I knew it it was time to start getting them ready for bed.  I was slowly starting to turn the corner and it had been 4 hours since the tylenol, so I took some of Steve’s aleive, and got the kid’s clothes laid out and teeth brushed and kissed and hugged and tucked in bed.  I took a bath and got out around 9 or 9:30, and that’s when I knew I was going to live.

2 whole days when Steve wasn’t here and I could have been knitting/crocheting the entire time.  Gone.  I didn’t even get the sweater seamed up.  I finished knitting it on Friday and started seaming it that night.

I hate migraines.  Sure makes a person grateful to feel normal though.  And today after I took Russ to preschool, instead of driving back home, I parked at this college that’s right near a nature trail, and went for a walk.  The sound of the crunching leaves, the smell of fall, the cool air, all wonderful.  Tonight?  We’re baking the cookies I promised the kid’s we’d do last night.  When I had the migraine.  Bless their hearts, they didn’t even mention it last night.  Banana oatmeal, if anyone’s wondering..

The Yarn Harlot, the Stargazer, and me

What is the coolest part of that picture?  Hard to say.  There’s Stephanie, there’s the Stargazer,  and all the knitters.  And me.  Such a fun evening.

On the knitting front, I have been almost monogamous.  That sweater out of the yarn my sister found is almost done.  I pinned it together with only one sleeve and had Patrick try it on, and it fits.  Odd, because according to the pattern, it’s supposed to be a size 8.  He now wears a 6.  And I’m getting gauge.  So, I think that Patrick will be able to wear it this year and then it’ll have to go to Russ.  I may just start another one quick out of some green yarn I found, and try to do a 6.  It’s worsted weight, so it should end up bigger.  On second thought, I should do the worsted weight in an 8 too.

I finished the karaoke hat for Maureen, and I’m thinking of crocheting a little flower to pin to the side.  I think I’ll take it to knitting tomorrow night and get some other opinions.  Then, hopefully Maureen will answer one of my e-mails and I can get her address and mail off the hats to her.

Plus, I’m itching to start that cable sweater from the Wool-ease.  Great, I hope my startitis isn’t flaring up again.

Basking in the glow

The Yarn Harlot was amazing.  I’m still smiling.  She was charming, funny, personable, relatable, and somehow made everyone (I think) in the room feel special.  But then again, we are; we’re knitters.  She has this way of talking that makes you believe that knitting is perhaps, the most important part of your life.

But, even better yet, were the people I got the chance to meet.  I finally got to personally thank Sarah, the designer of my Stargazer, and Jami was kind enough to get a picture of me with her.  She said she’ll e-mail it to me, so that’ll be cool.  Sarah is so nice, and apparently the people she was sitting with had no idea she was so talented a pattern writer.  The one lady asked rather kindly if she could pet my sweater (Pet me?  Of course, it’s angora silly!  I should have worn a sign, “Yes, please pet me, I’m super soft!), and I said to her that she, pointing at Sarah, had written the pattern.  The lady appeared flabbergasted!  She looked at Sarah rather accusingly and said, “You wrote this?”  That made me think I really should have worn the sign, but added onto the bottom, “It’s the Stargazer pattern, go look it up on Ravlelry!”   Seriously, this is the first thing I’ve made other than scarves and hats, that’s wearable.  And really, how do you screw up a hat or a scarf?

I also met a lady Lynn, and that was a rather odd conversation.  She started by admitting that she had been blog-stalking me.  I didn’t even know you could do that.  And if you do, is it a bad thing?  I queue stalk people on Ravelry all the time.  I hope that’s not breaking any cyber-laws.  Don’t think so.  But anyway, she confirmed that my sweater had won 1st place at the Johnson County Fair this year, and I said it had.  Her sweater came in 2nd.  I felt bad.  I mean, I know I had worked hard on this one, but I felt bad to be meeting the person that my sweater had beat.  Would she be mad?  Upset?  I wasn’t sure how to respond.  Then she told me that she had also entered her sweater in the state fair.  I tried hard to remember the sweaters, but couldn’t.  She let me know that she had talked to the judges afterwards, and turns out her sweater came in 4th.  Mine came in 3rd.  Great, now I totally feel like a heel.  I was just about to really apologize when she let a little something slip.  She said she was sorry that her Indian thing had beat out my socks last year.  I was floored.  I thought back.  I know I blogged about that…did I say anything bad?…I hope not…No, I know I didn’t…I just said, Dang, this is why there needs to be more classes. Whew, I’m ok.  She said that she had talked with the fair folks also about getting more specific classes, one for socks and one for shawls.  Amen, sister, amen.

When I finally got done, I worked my way up to where Julie and Elise had been kind enough to save us some seats, and then she was on.  There was much knitting and even more laughter.  There was talk of “dropping the K-bomb” and “Who are you wearing?”  Answer for those of us who were there…Rowan! All in all, it was by far one of the most enjoyable evenings I have had in a long long time.

I did get some great pictures, wait, actually Julie got some great pictures for me, and I’ll put those up later, when the glow starts to fade and the high begins to wear off.

Tonight, tonight, I’ll see the Yarn Harlot tonight!

Sung to the tune of the song from West Side Story.  Yay!

Note…bring yarn.  And her present.  And the magic butt gel for Jamie.  And an umbrella, just in case.

Oh yeah, and I’m totally rocking the angora Stargazer!!!!!!!  Another note…bring camera!

I’m back, Final Installment

I had better get the end of the story down before I forget it all in a haze of “Yeah, that was a wonderful vacation.”

That next morning,the kids were itching to get to the resort’s pool, as we had promised them that due to the fact that we had not taken them to the pool at all on the cruise.   We were still doing butt-loads of laundry, and Steve had the wonderous idea to call his brother who lives about 45 or so minutes away to see if he wanted to come over with his 2 girls.  Oh, and while you’re here, did you want to go ahead and spend the night, since we have an extra bedroom?  That’s when it occurred to Steve that that night was the night when he was going to meet up with the karaoke guy we met on the cruise who lived in Tampa.  This guy was going to, with his lovely wife, drive over to Orlando, and take us to the Swan where they did a great karaoke thing on Friday night.  We thought we’d go, at least for a little while, and since we had the boys with us, we’d of course have to leave at some point.  Then we thought of Brother.  His little girls are only 3 and 1 1/2.  And I don’t think karaoke is his thing.  And they probably wouldn’t want to go anyway.  And since he’d be at the resort room with his girls, it wouldn’t be too much trouble for him to watch the boys too, would it?  It was all going to work out so well.  He would get here with the girls, we’d all go to the pool and have some fun together, then we’d find someplace to go to dinner, and we’d shack up our boys on the sofa sleeper in the living room and let Brother and his girls have the second bedroom.

It did not go as planned.  You probably guessed that already.  The first few parts did alright.  He got there safe and sound with the girls, we got everyone lubed up with the 50 proof sunscreen and had a lot of fun in the pool.  We came back and changed clothes and went to RainForest Cafe.  That’s when it all started to fall apart.  One daughter got very very tired, and bless her heart, fell asleep on Daddy.  He had the foresight to bring the stroller and Steve set it back up for him, and he put her down to sleep.  The older one was clearly entering the meltdown stage.  It continued during dinner, and into the getting ready for bed stuff.  That’s when Steve and i entertained the thought that our last evening by ourselves would not be going the way we thought it would.

Brother announced that melt-down girl was worse, as we heard, and, worse yet, sleepy child was running a fever.  But, true to his word, he was going to try to stick it out so we could go out.  He had brought with him some sort of video game thing that hooked up to the tv, for the boys and him to play with after he put his girls down.  Everyone was so excited.  We were set to leave around 8:30 or so.

I don’t remember exactly when this happened, but he came into the room with a sad yet panicked look on his face.  He just didn’t know what to do.  Both girls were screaming, although the older one was alternating her screaming with whining and complaining and other noises that weren’t at all conducive to calming down the younger one.  I told him that if he had to leave and go home that we totally understood, and he said it was looking like he was going to have to do just that.  I really felt bad for him.  His wife was on a girl’s weekend in Las Vegas, and he was all alone there.

So, Brother went home (and let us know later on that both girls fell sound asleep on the drive), Steve went to the karaoke thing and had a marvelous time, the 2 younger boys went to sleep back in the other bedroom, David and I played one of the games we got from the Disney folks on the cruise (side note here…the kid’s club people that night that they gave me the sea-calm, also gave us a bag with 2 games in there, saying that we were so nice and all and they wanted to give us a present.  I was so sick at the time, I really thought “Bless his heart, he liked that little slipper so much that he must have hunted around their game stash to give us a present. “  It wasn’t until that very night that I realized that 1. The games were brand new still in their plastic wrap, and 2. There was a certificate in there awarding us as “The Family With The Biggest Hearts”!  I’m still looking for a frame.), and after I got David in bed, I sat up and knit and crocheted and watched Lifetime movies until Steve got back, and even after that.  Stupidly, we ended up staying up until like 4 am.  It ended up being, although not as we planned, a really great evening.  And, best of all, the laundry got done.

The next morning, I had told the kids that even though we had to check out at 11, that we’d still go down to the pool before we drove over to Grandma’s.   I packed everything up, and got them down to the pool while Steve got everything down to the car and us checked out.  We changed clothes and drove over to Grandma’s and I let the boys go swimming over there a bit as well.  We went to bed a little early, if I remember right, since the next day Steve was planning on taking Russell to the football game.

Grandma was doing this big refrigerator switcheroo thing, and she had to clean out hers.  Brother came over with the girls, who by now were feeling great.  Steve and Russell left for the big game, and I had told David and Patrick that they could go swimming as soon as I got rid of this big headache I woke up with.  Unfortunately, it went away right around the same time the girls got  there, and Brother didn’t want them swimming without him.  He was going to be actually moving the fridge out and driving it over and bringing the other one back and was pretty much going to be in and out for a while.  So, I told my boys they’d have to wait.

This was the day when we entered the black hole.  I wrongly assumed that the whole switcheroo thing would at most take maybe 2 hours.  The person she was switching with only lived about 5 to 10 minutes away.  This was like those things you knit, where you just knit and knit and knit and knit, knowing that eventually you’ll get to the measurement you need, and you measure, and it’s like 4 inches and you need to get up to 10, so you knit and knit and knit some more until it looks like you’ve at least doubled your previous measurement, so you measure again, and it’s 4 1/2 inches.  It just goes on and on and on.  That was the day.  The boys were so patient, only asking me if they could go in the pool now about 4 or 5 times, and finally understood that they couldn’t until the girls went home.  Then they switched to asking when the girls would be going home.

Both of them were into EVERYTHING.  I was trying to re-pack everything, and get things organized for the trip home the next day.  I wanted to this time pack an overnight bag just in case we weren’t able to make it from Tampa all the way to Kansas City in one day.  Learned my lesson from the trip down.  Plus, I figured, if I go through the effort of packing one, then we won’t need it.  Like when you go on a trip, don’t you always bring the tylenol and cold medicine and motrin and band-aids and neosporin and stuff like that, so that the kids can not have headaches or fevers or get scratches or anything that you planned for but instead find the only poison ivy in the entire state since you didn’t pack any anti-itch stuff.  I thought, no, I knew, if I did this, it would pretty much insure that we’d make it.  While I packed and thought stuff out, and re-packed and remembered to leave out what the kids would be wearing the next day and that night, David and Patrick tried to entertain the girls.  Which wasn’t easy, since, due to my smashing headache that morning, I had neglected to get ANY of the toys out of the minivan before Steve and Russell drove off to the game.  You would not believe all the things I had in there pre-packed for that very instance, and all for nothing.  I was slightly angry at myself, for getting the headache, for not being able to let the boys go in the pool, for the whole thing taking WAY longer than any of us thought it would.  Steve’s mom had even had a plan of her own, thinking that this would only take up a small part of the afternoon.  She had thought we could leave the 2 older boys in the care of Grandpa and she and I would sneak off to the movie theater.  Do you know how long it’s been since I went to the movies?  To see a grown-up movie?  I don’t either, it’s been that long.

We never got to go.  I finally told the boys, that if Uncle Les, that’s the girls’ dad, wasn’t back by 5 pm, yes, 5, that they could just go ahead and get in anyway, that I’d take care of the girls whining why couldn’t they go in and all that.  So, 5 rolls around, and no Uncle Les.  Guess when he got back?

5:15.  Yep.  Guess when Daddy and Russell got back?  5:20.  They wanted to go to dinner at this local hang-out called Dice’s.  Hot dogs and ice cream.  The boys had just gotten in, and now we were going to get them out.  Plus, I realized, the minivan was a mess.  Since Steve had had it all day, I hadn’t had the chance to clean it out from the previous week.  And it needed it before we were going to leave the next morning.

We compromised.  Steve watched the boys in the pool, and I cleaned out the car, and Steve’s mom proceeded to clean and wash out the “new” fridge, since the person she was switching with hadn’t bothered to clean it.  Ewww.  I actually got the car cleaned out and stuff re-packed in there, not the suitcases, quicker than I thought, and Steve got the boys out of the pool and re-dressed and we went to Dice’s.

We moved away from there in, let me think, 2005?  Maybe 2004, wait, I can figure this out.  Russell was not 2 yet, and he was born in 2003, so he would have turned 1 in 2004, so we moved in 2005.  Wow, that hurt my brain.  What that was leading up to is that Dice’s prices have not changed.  Their shakes and dogs are the EXACT same prices as when we left.  We fed 5 people 5 hotdogs, well, actually 3 corn dogs, 2 chili dogs, and 1 mega slaw dog, and got 1 kid’s cone, 1 child’s cone (slightly larger than the kid’s one), one small chocolate malt, one large chocolate malt, and one large chocolate caramel malt.  And one pop.  Guess how much?  Barely over $25.  Can’t beat that.

We went back to Grandma’s and put everyone to bed and Steve loaded up the car and we went to bed too.  Next morning, we got up at o’crap o’clock and managed to sleepwalk the kids into the car and then they and I passed out until Georgia.  Nice.  The drive back was fairly uneventful, thankfully, and I got pretty much no knitting done then either, and we got in just after 11:30 pm.

The End.  Whew.