Annie Knits

More About the Sweater I Shouldn't Be Making

You know, Gisela.  I should be working on birthday presents, baby knitting, and the sweater for the class I'm teaching in September.  Instead, I'm working on a sweater that might or might not fit and that is knit on size 8 needles out of lace weight fiddly yarn.  Seriously.  

First, though a gratuitous dog picture.

Bacon is growing -- nearly 35 pounds from the 11 when we got him Memorial Day.  He's nearly 5 months old today.  He can ring the bell to go out, mind his invisible fence, sit, come, leave it, and lie down.  He loves smooshy beds and cow hoofs.  He barks not all all (yet), but growls when there is any kind of music outside in the neighborhood -- concerts, loud cars, etc.  

He's almost broken of his propensity to jump and "box" you with both of his front paws when he wants something.  I've caught myself using the old saw, "Use your words, Bacon!"  Toddler behavior apparently initiates that response in me regardless of species.

He won't be big like Sophie -- remember Sophie? -- and he likely won't get close even to Monte's 70 pounds.  

The vet thinks between 40 and 50 pounds in the end.  Not a lap dog.  Sorry, buddy.

Gisela's fronts, back, and one sleeve have been blocked to the size indicated in the pattern.  Not even aggressively.  But -- she doesn't drape to those numbers.  She stretches to them.

Hmm...  

I'm soldiering on with the second sleeve and thinking about how to get this sweater to fit as it's supposed to:  as a kind of light jacket.  It doesn't have buttons to hold it closed but what I think I have knit is a fitted cardigan with little or no ease which would need buttons to hold it closed.  Hanging open it would look too small.  

I think I'll have to knit a different shaped placket onto the fronts of the sweater.  Like a short row trapezoid type shape.  Or something.  Maybe just oblong stockinette triangles that will roll, but taper down beneath the bottom of the sweater, like ties.  I'll know better how the thing fits when I seam it.

It's the Luna that's holding the knit shape rather than conforming to the blocked shape, I think.  The pattern calls for a cottony linen yarn that holds no shape at all.  And I knit it in lace weight wool and silk held with a poly/paillette thread.  The wool/silk alone would hold a block I think.  So, in the end, what makes this sweater excellent is also making it maybe not fit.  

I say maybe because I haven't sewn the thing together yet, have I.  It could still fit the way I want it to in the end.  Magical thinking isn't just for politicians, now, is it?

Bacon sees what I did there.

Just Stopping by

As much as anything, I use this blog to record our life events.  When life gets crazy, I tend to get caught up in it rather than sit back, take a deep breath and ponder.  

I'm taking a minute or so this morning to ponder.

The addition is essentially finished.  Dear daughter is home from school and asleep in the dormer on the right.  On the left is the guest room, just about ready for occupancy if any of you are planning a trip to St. Louis any time soon.  Two queen beds and a semi private bathroom -- it's pretty posh.

The great room on the back of the house is just lovely.  Spacious and open and cool in this early summer heat.  As a result of all the trucks and construction traffic, we'll need a new driveway sometime soon, but we knew that going into the project.

From the back yard, you can see that there are still a few things to do.  This week they will pour the patio.

Hopefully they will pour the patio after they get this drain pipe to drain as gravity intended -- that'd be down hill.  Gravity is the law, after all.  Sheesh.

So, we still have one of these in the yard.  Nice.

I have a beautiful new bathroom.  I couldn't make myself document the old one, but suffice to say this is a vast improvement.  The wall paper makes me so happy that I put it in the kitchen as well.

Isn't it rockin'?  I found it on Pinterest and had to order it from England, but it's worth it, don't you think?  Husband kind of shakes his head when I wax lyrical about this paper and its hot greens and gun metal grays.  He's a walls and windows kind of guy.  

And just in case we didn't have enough going on this summer, meet our new fly in the ointment.  

His name is Bacon.  Which I kind of love yelling out the back door.

Oh, all right.  He's not a fly in the ointment.  Mostly, he's cute as can be and pretty darned smart.  He's ostensibly a boxer mix (there's been some debate on that point) that Knit Nite Mindy found on a local pet rescue site when I started talking about Dear Son wanting to adopt a puppy this summer.  She linked me up and I forwarded to DS.

 What you should never do unless you are absolutely ready to adopt a puppy is visit one at a rescue agency.  That is what I have to say about that.  

He's not exactly sleeping through the night...

And he can be a little bit recalcitrant when I want him to come back inside after an outing.  

Today I have to put the final touches on the Seminar I'm teaching at Knitorious this Saturday.  It's a class on reverse engineering a drapey cardigan from a regular cardigan that you already own and that fits you just right.  

Like I did here.  I purchased this oatmeal colored Eileen Fischer sweater and I love how it fits.  I got it into my head that I could make something like it and spent some time planning.  

And then I spent quite a bit of time knitting.

I'll blog this process after I've presented it to the class.

I'm loading the presentation onto these personal zip drives so that the participants can knit instead of take notes.  

Squee.  They are so darned cute!

The other think I'm going to do today is organize the new yarn storage cabinet we had built upstairs in what was essentially a hallway.  I can't wait to show it to you.  But then you'll have to kill me...

The Talk of the Town...

...is not some celebrity or some new movie getting filmed in one of the old houses in the neighborhood or the fact that we'll finally have recycling dumpsters.

No, friends, the talk of St. Louis is this.  Two to three inches of ice coat every city side street.  Each day sees a little bit of melting with the sun and each night, when the temps dip back into single or low double digits, acts like a big Zamboni to smooth and slick it all up into a glassy, slippery mess.

The good news?  Every driver, even the dumbest guy with the biggest tires on his monster truck, is driving slowly.  We creep up to stop signs.  We leave several car spaces between ourselves in order to stop without rear-ending anyone sliding into a stop sign.

The bad news?  There are three clear ruts in many of the more well-travelled streets -- a left rut, a right rut, and a center rut.  Driving north you use the right and center rut.  Driving south, you use the left and center rut.  See the problem?  It's a giant game of chicken around here!  Who will run up on the icy berm to get out of the way of the other guy?  Not me!  Sheesh.

It is warming up a little more each day and by the weekend, the temps should be up in the 50's.  Slush is probably better than ice.

For the past several days, I've had to back up into my neighbor's driveway, take a run at ours, careen around this curve, and hope not to mow down the bushes.  So far so good.

Only one member of the family is happy about this ice.

You guessed it.

... As Pigs in Mud

Yes, I know.  Monte looks pitiful there curled up in the new snow we are receiving this morning.  But look again.

This is the view I had of this snow dog after I asked if he wanted to come inside.  It's as good as "talk to the hand," don't you think?  He's still sitting right in this spot, watching the snow fall, happy as a ... well, you know.

Me?  

The February Hello Yarn Club fiber arrived Thursday.  It begged to jump on my new spinning wheel, so I obliged it.  After Adrian's recent blog post about fractal spinning and hand spun knitted socks, how could I resist?

4 ounces prepped fractally (is that a word?) and spun up on 2 bobbins ... ready to ply.  I'm getting more and more about the intentional spinning.  I suppose that happens sooner or later.  As much yarn as I've spun for the sheer joy of spinning it, without any project in mind, I've developed a little more of a sense of planning things.  Sometimes it's hard to find that perfect project for 137 yards of precious hand spun and so it just sits and gets stroked which is ok but has become increasingly dissatisfying.

Before the Hello Yarn Club fiber came, on Monday I received my Dyeabolical February club fiber.  Well, received isn't exactly an honest portrayal of events.  I fetched it.  From Rachel's office.  At the beginning of an ice storm.  Hey, it's BFL Silk, okay?   Now it's 534 yards of light dk weight BFL silk in the Chocolate, Cherries, and Wine colorway and destined to become a Baktus or a Lacy Baktus.  This stuff is yummy.  I'm a bit crazy after all... and I have a new spinning wheel and I have deadline knitting.  Can you think of any better reason to spin up hundreds of yards of club fiber yarn?  I can't.

But, back to the topic at hand.

For me?  Snow falling, hand kit socks, an ipod with a new book on it, a heavily cabled baby sweater (Remix again, Tadpoles and Tiddlers book again -- check Ravelry), and banana muffins in the oven.  

For Hubster?  Home, in his office/mancave/den with a new biography and a cup of coffee.

For the kids?  Still asleep, of course.

We're all as happy as pigs in mud.

You Know it's Summer When...

• You vacuum the family room rug and your eyes swell shut.  Big dog is blowing her coat at the moment, due I'm sure to the heat.   I Furminate (ha, verbed a noun) her twice a week out on the driveway and the next day, you'd swear that I'd done it in the kitchen, there's so much hair on the floor.  Or the hallway.  Or the family room rug.  Add that to the two of them running in and out thru the mud as we water the yard you get one big hairy, muddy mess.

   

• There are more socks scattered over the house than usual.  And t-shirts.  And towels.  And soda cans.  And food wrappers.  Teenagers slough mess like skin cells.

 

• I have a pedicure.  I don't bother in the winter, but in summer?  I rarely wear shoes that cover all of my feet.  Too hot.  I should go and get a real one, but the whole shaving the skin off thing really doesn't appeal to me at all.  

 

• There are no leftovers in the fridge.  We grill most meals in the summertime and for some reason we don't have leftovers when we grill.  This week?  Bison burgers, Bar b Que chicken, grilled summer squash and garlic scapes with orzo and feta and Vivianne dressing (ok, that was killer... we ate 'til we were sick), grilled Tri Tip beef from Trader Joe's with a Bar b Que U. rub (it's a grilling book... get it), grilled beets, onions, mushrooms ... The only thing I didn't grill this week were the blueberries.  

 

• The house is crypt quiet from 6 a.m. to noon or so.  I mean you can hear a pin drop in here.  After noon though, it's on.  W.o.W., Witches of Waverly Place, Glee, the microwave, pop music thumping upstairs, AirSoft bb's rolling over the kitchen floor -- sometimes all at the same time.  Sprinkled in might be, "I'm hungry," or "Can we go to Six Flags?" or "Can (insert name) come over/sleep over/ eat over?" or "I'm bored".  

 

• It's harder to connect with friends -- our routines are off.  One is camping, one is traveling, one's kids are home, one has to work odd days so she can leave over the weekend.  We have to work harder to stay connected even while things seem more laid back.

This week, I hope to drum card my fleece with one friend, meet for coffee with several others, knit before the kids wake up with some -- Wanna play?

 

Multi Tasking

The big dog is in her cool space, on the stone by the front door in the living room.  

 

The little dog, with his summer cut, is waiting alongside the stone, hoping the big dog will relinquish her space at some point this afternoon.  Good luck, little dog ... it's pretty hot outside.

Dear Daughter is upstairs blasting her music, which is fine.  Upstairs is better than downstairs as far as music blasting is concerned.

 

My boys are watching the U.S./Ghana soccer game.  They have snacks and a U.S. jersey for luck.  

 

I'm keeping an eye on the game as well.  What?  I can spin and watch soccer at the same time.  

Oh, goodness... Bill Clinton is yucking it up with Mick Jagger... the ick factor just jumped a few ticks.

Oh, and I'm practicing my Portuguese knitting.  I need to get the hat at least half way finished by Monday so I can demonstrate the technique at the staff meeting.   What?  I can do color work and watch the soccer game at the same time.  

 What green sweater?

More about Me

Bullets today... I'm having trouble stringing it all together.

• Today was cafeteria day at Dear Son's school.  I love being a cafeteria lady there.  Each grade is responsible for getting mother (and father, I guess but I've never seen one) volunteers to staff the school cafeteria for one month of the school year.  It's fun to see the range of boys from little boy 6th graders to big hairy men 12th graders.  All are unfailingly polite and greet the moms working with hellos and howareyous.  They say please and thankyou.  It makes me want to work with teenagers again.  Not as their English teacher, mind you... just as their cafeteria lady.  Dear Son seems to like to greet me when I'm there and his friends like knowing one of the ladies behind the counter and chatting.  So cute.
• My chiropractor was able to move my appointment to accommodate my cafeteria lady duty and so I got my back cracked today.  I'm sore, as usual, but invigorated.  What is it about chiropractic manipulation that works?  I always thought it was voo doo until I went to Deborah's guy out of desperation last year.  My hand kept getting numb -- had a compressed disc in 2002 and did physical therapy.  It would rear its ugly head once in awhile, especially after long evenings at the computer or lots of knitting.  I went to Dr. F one time and had relief.  A year later and I'm still numbness free...  Now the actual neck manipulation is a little ... well ... scary.  Having it done resembles nothing so much as what I imagine it's like to have a huge mercenary soldier in camouflage sneak up behind you and wrench your neck to break it soundlessly so he can gain your position.   
• The shoulder (not something a chiropractor can do anything about) is getting better.  I can put my hair up in a pony tail now without propping my right elbow on the wall to do it.  Unloading the dishwasher is still a challenge.  My kitchen, as it turns out, is a completely right handed kitchen.  I have to turn in semi circles to unload the dishwasher as well as to load it.  All of my much used items seem to be to my right when I'm working in there.  Of course, I organized it that way when I could use my right arm... now, it makes me crabby.  Surprise.
• The hip is improving as well, although I still don't have a certain diagnosis.  I've had x rays, but they didn't show anything wrong.  Perhaps an MRI said the sports medicine guy, but as it's improving with the physical therapy and steroid iontophoresis (just click -- it's kind of like a shot without getting a shot) and having done one of those things recently , I'll have to be suffering more than this to get in that contraption again.  I know.  I'm such a cooperative patient.
• The personal trainer Dear Husband gave me for Christmas is helping too.  She is a Pilates instructor and her gym is here in the neighborhood.  My core is a lot stronger and we work the hip on days when I don't have PT -- God, I never thought I'd be that person who talks about fitness on her blog.  Yuck.
• When I say "personal trainer DH gave me for Christmas", doesn't it make you think I keep her in a box in the spare room? ; )
• I was up early again this morning, so I only have 4 more inches to go on the front of Dear Husband's Portland.  Then sleeve island.  It's time to start thinking about the next project...  Book Author Brother called with good news last week -- he and his dear wife are gestating.  I think there is more baby knitting in the offing.  Hope they'll like a heavily cabled baby sweater.  'Cause that's all I'm in the mood for.
• My dogs both smell like something crawled up in them and died.  Time to call the groomer.  I can't stand to be in the room with either one of them.

There.  Not a rant in the bunch.  Whew. 

  

Hang on.  You all know what this means.  That DH and I ordered Girl Scout Cookies independently of one another.  This tower does not include the 4 boxes of Thin Mints that the family already consumed and the two boxes he took with him on his business trip.  

Diets are hard to stick to in March.

Snow Day!

Well, for me anyway.  Both kids went to school and I would have to say that the driving this morning was a little rough.  No big deal by 10 a.m. though.

Those of you who are familiar with my neighborhood know its urban nature.  That translates to 16 people -- mostly 40 something men-- ringing my door bell today to ask if I needed my sidewalks or driveway shoveled. 

 My standard answer is, "No thank you, that's why I gave birth."  

Such goings on freak my dogs the heck out.  Seriously.  So many strangers at the door and up and down the sidewalks give them absolute fits.  As a result, all day long, they have been either barking their fool heads clean off or glued to my side.  Mostly glued to my side.

I've bumped into them, tripped over them, stepped on them.  I'm ready to toss both of them out into the snow and lock the door.

Here's Monte.  He needs a thought bubble that says, "What?"  

 

Here's Sophie trying to look like she's not following me around the house.  I swear.  

I did sit and work on the Aran Wrap Cardigan in between visitors.  In doing so, I realized that I need to make a clarification concerning my last post:  My knitting math was effed up.  

Well, the computations were technically correct, but they bore no relationship to the directions stated in the pattern.  I was to knit a 32 stitch repeat 10 times, not a 32 row repeat.  HUGE difference.  Like a 95,000 stitch difference.  What makes me laugh is that we all totally accepted my outlandish claim.  Is it because knitting a sweater takes so freaking long that we imagine that 112,000 stitches for the border of a sweater doesn't sound that bad?  

 

As usual, one picture for color, one for stitch definition.  That border across the bottom uses most of a skein of Cascade Eco Wool... for the knitters among you I need say no more.  For the muggles, well, that's a lot of yarn.  I've got about 10 more rows and then I'm done with this puppy!  (Of course, you must not fail to notice where the dog has planted herself in relation to my knitting chair...

Thank goodness Husband is home... now the dogs have someone else's steps to ... well ... dog.

Earthquake! or Dogs Have Awesome Powers Part 2

In case you live under a rock (an iffy place to be around here yesterday morning...) we had quite a shaker yesterday.  It wasn't the big one, but it was certainly disconcerting.  Since everyone else got out of the blocks on this story sooner than I did, I can do some commentary as well as tell my story.

I let the dogs out as usual Thursday night, about 10 or so, and went to bed.  Monte could not settle in.  He had me up at 12, 1, 2 and 3.  He was barking at the windows and doors, whining, and generally making a fat nuisance out of himself.  I was ready to strangle him by 3 a.m. I tell you.  I let him out each time, thinking he may have eaten something bad for him while he was outside earlier in the evening, but to no avail.  He'd sniff around and come right back and jump at the back door.  What was Sophie, the big dog, doing during all this hullabaloo?  She went out the first time, but no more.  She even quit getting out of her chair.  She was not agitated at all -- so I knew there were no bad guys involved.  After the 3 a.m. shuffle, I huffed and puffed at Monte and put in my ear plugs. 

Next thing I know, someone is shaking my bed, waking me up.  Which I did actually do.  Wake up that is.  I can't hear anything though, 'cause I've got in earplugs.  I pull them out, and  daughter is at my bedroom door asking me if I've been in her room shaking her bed.  Huh?  I told her no, I had not been shaking her bed... had she been shaking mine?  It dawned on me then that we were having an earthquake.  But it seemed to be over.  Daughter told me she was going back to sleep, but if we had another earthquake to wake her up... I went back to sleep too (instead of getting up, checking the house, getting my kids the hell out of that death trap!  Um, right... great Mom I am.)

Of course, by 6 a.m. our little quake was all over the news.  The city inspectors were going around checking the safety of roads and bridges.  They, of course, found that my shortcut to Son's school is now unsafe, chunks of concrete having fallen from the underside of the bridge, but that is really the only lasting effect for me.   Oh, and the fact that now, every time Monte whines or cringes (which is like hourly) I've got EARTHQUAKE! in the back of my mind.   It's one of the burdens of owning an Earthquake dog I guess. 

Here's Monte practicing earthquake preparedness -- he's gotten under the heaviest piece of furniture in the room.  Good dog.  Now, go find all of the centipedes in the house.

There is knitting in the house. 

It's Filey from Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Sweaters.  It's out of the Rowan Denim I bought when we were in England.  The pattern repeat is very simple -- memorized after the first few rows -- so it's certainly carry around knitting at this point.  The sticky Starmore Gauge Question?  I'm achieving  her gauge by dropping only two needles sizes down, so it's all good.  I'm doing ribbing on US2s and the body on US3s.  I assume this will be my summer knitting. 

You'll remember that I really don't love knitting with cotton.  And, you'll think, well hoo boy this is cotton.  Twine-ish almost.  And in response, I'll tell you that I carry around a little swatch of this stuff that's been machine washed and dried and boyohboy is it yummy.  All the motivation I need to knit through the pain.

The baby cable jacket is in the seaming process, and will be ready to be gifted soon.  But in another babyish development, I ran into Daughter's beloved basketball coach's newish wife and, well not to be indelicate, but she is as big as a house!  Due in a month.  And sure it's a girl.  So, I'll have to knit some of these, don't you think?

I've seen a lot of bootie patterns in my time, but these are among the cutest.   I've read through them (straight forward directions and lots of pictures)  and I have the yarn.  So.  I'll get right on this.

And for friends and family?  The renovations are all but complete.  Yay, me!

The hallway is the first picture, and yes, that wall is orange.  The rest of that space is beige.  The dining area in the second picture has walls the same color as the fireplace area in the third -- just a bad picture.  The family room adjacent to these rooms is a leaf green that doesn't photograph well today...  Area rugs, drapes, and furniture to come in a few weeks.  Again, yay me.   

Dogs Have Awesome Powers...

Is what Dear Son said when I told him this story this morning.  Um.  Right.

It's been awhile since I've talked about Monte, hasn't it?  He's 10 months old now, about 50 or so pounds, perfect on his electronic collar but not so perfect when it comes to chewing furniture... 

At 12:30 this morning, Monte began to bark.  Sophie trotted out to check the front window for goings on, and I followed her.  Monte scrambled through the kitchen to the back door (as only dogs can do, claws trying to grab linoleum) barked some more and whined.  Sophie and I followed.  I couldn't see any problems and Sophie seemed supremely unconcerned, so we began to make our way back to bed.

When we all got to the doorway to the living room, it's pitch dark remember, Monte froze.  He backed away, whined, and then stretched himself to sniff the air as far as he could without actually stepping foot into the living room itself.  Hmm.

Sophie had passed us and was standing in the hall,  looking over her shoulder at me as if to say, "I'm going back to bed, are you coming?" 

So all must be well, right?  I mean, there couldn't be a bad guy in the living room, hiding behind the couch if Sophie was willing to go back to sleep.  But Monte's body language said different.

Realize now that this dog is really just a chicken in a dog suit.  He's very tentative and easily spooked.  In fact he rarely does something, be it chase a squirrel, meet a new dog, chew a new toy even, unless Sophie does it first.   

So, I flipped on the lights.  Sophie sighed (no really, she sounded completely exasperated), circled the room as if I'd asked her to do just that, and climbed up into her day-sleeping chair.  She circled in the chair once, let out another long-suffering groan and plopped down, her head on her paws, watching Monte and me.  I'm now absolutely reassured that there is no bad guy in here hiding and waiting to pounce.  Monte, however, is not. 

He's willing to set foot in the room now, but he's still stretching his nose toward the big chair in the corner -- clearly something there has him upset.  Other than my knitting of course.  Which is piled on the arm of said chair, where I left it earlier in the evening.  Did I mention that it was o'dark thirty?!  I try to reassure him, and to coax him over to the chair, but he won't come.  He sniffing madly at the Kauni Cardigan and her yarn from like 3 feet away.  What the heck, dog?

I move the knitting, and under one ball of yarn, on the arm of the chair is a 3 inch long centipede.  Yeeeuuuucccckkk!  I hate those things.  The legs keep right on kicking even after you've squished them.  And my bug guy was just here this afternoon!  (Fall is spider season in MO.)  Probably why this guy was off the floor, looking for a hiding place.  I squished him. 

Monte sniffed and sniffed at the spot, at the paper towel, at the yarn, reassuring himself I guess that the monster was really gone.  And I wondered... how the heck did that dog know that a house centipede was under my knitting on the arm of my chair in a pitch black room?!  Can dogs hear centipedes?  Can dogs smell them?  Do centipede legs make little skittering  noises when they walk across the room... on carpet? 

Did the centipede somehow awaken Little Dog, and then hide causing the barking to begin with?  And how, pray tell, does a centipede, no matter how big, wake up a sleeping dog? 

Maybe Monte wasn't sleeping.  Maybe he was guarding my knitting.   Ok.  The chair leg incident is forgiven...  'Cause if I had picked up that cardigan this morning and this had crawled out onto my hand, I'd be dead of a heart-attack right now.  Seriously.

Good doggie.