Sock advice please!

OK, so since I'm such the sock knitress now, I'm rocking along! So, why not do more? And set myself unrealistic goals? sure, why not? I joined Sock-A-Month, a RELAXED knit-along where you even get in a drawing for PRIZES! oooooohhhhh PRIZES!!! (I'm such a joiner, ah well, it's fun!)

NOW I've got to decide what pair to make this month. I decided it's selfish time, I want a pair for ME. I will make some for the kids as they want some cool socks too, but I'm doing a real pair on the skinny needles, so I'm thinking something ridiculously bright and I've got just the yarn, hand painted funky with yellows and pinks and oranges and reds, something I'd normally never wear in my black/tan/white/khaki wardrobe. ADVICE NEEDED: anybody got a good pattern to recommend for me? I like the ribbed leg, with ribbed top and stockinette bottom of the foot and don't care what kind of toe. I'm more a fan of knitting the top-down version. I KNOW you all are like "I just knit my own version...." crap, but I need some direction until I figure out my own "own version". Help needed!

Still got Knitter's Finger...red line and it's SORE still, I've had to knit with my finger in all these weird angles to find new places for the yarn to rub. Join that with my bowler's thumb (all dry and beat to heck on the sides from the ball). My nails are all broken short and cruddy with hangnails, I'm a freaking vision. Maybe it's manicure time.

Jildo (my very best friend in the world) and I did some damage at Dillard's in Topeka last night! OH it was almost like old times, closing down the mall until they're acutally escorting us (nicely but forcibly) OUT the door. The only thing missing was Daddy's credit card! DAMN I miss being young & stupid sometimes! Ah well. I've now got the PERFECT shade of glossy lipstick (I swear I'm the world's most picky lipsticker EVER) and I still like it today (miracle of miracles). Jildo went home with, I believe SEVEN shades, so she's good to go. Of course we HAD to get the free bag at the Clinique counter as well as goodies from the other counters as well. The world's most sexiest/classiest top ever that I bought at 1 minute to closing is not quite so sexy or classy ON my body, so I'm afraid it's going to have to go back. Good times! I Love you Girl!

OK, I'm feeling a bit silly here, as I completed ONE sock on size 5 dpns for the olympics. One sock. I'm still proud of myself, really I am....just....well, did you SEE what the Yarn Harlot aka Stephanie accomplished? HOLY CRAP! wow. The woman is a knitting fool. I'm sticking at the one-sock kind of goals.

Man, there should be a kniting olympics every year!

SO, who's the most amazingest queen of procrastination??? Moi! That's who!

BAM! Sock #2...started at 8pm Saturday night while trying not to watch the scary parts of that movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose that my boyfriend rented. (I hate scary movies and especially anything having to do with ghosts, spooks or demons and the WORST is any kind of good ol' Catholic Priest fighting for your soul kind of movies. MAN I had some freaky dreams that night!) Apparently I knit quite quickly when freaked out. Finished at 12:12am Sun night/this morning. Though it wasn't before the end of the closing ceremonies, they were being highlighted on a late-night rerun of the news on tv, so that's good enough for me! I included my pointer finger to show the red indention on my finger from the yarn. You can't see it to appreciate it, but the dent was seriously deeper than the wool was wide. It's a good thing I'm not a tight knitter, or I'd have lost the end of my damn finger. 12 hours later today it's still there, but slowly filling in. creepy. Also I'm modeling the socks, but they're a belated valentine's day present for my honey. I think I'm gonna let the finger heal a bit and then start on a pair for myself!

Who IS this woman? THREE completed objects within the last 2 weeks? Are you kidding me? WOW! I amaze myself. Of course, no yarn ends are sewn in yet, but the damn things are OFF the needles! WOO HOO!

OH yeah, yeah, knitlympics, yeah...

Well, I haven't done anything on the olympic sock except for cast on. Nice, huh? Don't I have until the 28th? Anyone know the end of the olympics? I'm totally gonna do it. Good thing it's a fast knit on larger yarn and size 5 needles.

First I had to complete the fingertip-less gloves. Any of you KC area knitters out there remember Hallmark's Kalideoscope? Back when it was GOOD? When you had those hallways full of touchable art and got to make noise on the musical instruments as you wound your way through the maze? Remember Bill Cosby's handprint with 6 fingers? Well, meet my 14 fingered gloves...(ok, there's still only 13 fingers now but the pinky is almost done). I had done the first one without really understanding how to pick up just in the right spot, so it was horrible. Jeff, being a sweet man, said he didn't care that some fingers were kind of in front of the others. I was going to leave it, but the morning after I THOUGHT I was done with them, I wore them. The 2nd glove was WONDERFUL. The crappy glove was making my fingers go numb. seriously. SO, I snipped off the fingers, and frogged down a bit and redid them. I almost gave some lady at Panera's a heart attack the other day as she came running over after I snipped the first one off and said "STOP!" She wanted me to frog them the right way and save work. I thanked her kindly and told her after weaving in those dang ends there was no way on God's green earth I was unsewing them only to have to reknit and REsew them in again. Apparently, you're not supposed to frog by snipping as it wastes yarn and gives die-hard knitters heart trouble. Ah well. DONE. My tubey sweater should be DONE this weekend as well, THEN I'm gonna make my olympic sock.

OH I bought some cotton yarn for that amazing tank top from Interweave knits. 100% cotton, wow, can't you just FEEL the weight on my wrists as I knit that badboy? don't care. gonna do it anyway. Can't let myself cast on and start on it until I finish the sock.

I'm good with the move a little at a time theory. This weekend I'm bringing over extra blankets and sheets to put in the hall closet. I also got some cool underbed tubs for Beth & Joey. I'm moving 2 kids with too much crap into a much smaller room TOGETHER, so we're gonna have to do some organizing! They've actually been wanting to do "sleep-overs" in Beth's room for the last 2 months anyway on her bunkbed, so it should make the conversion a bit easier. We'll see.

PS, I'm delivering the fingertip-less gloves tonight. Today is supposed to get up to 68 degrees and be warm all next week. Last week was probably the last bit of winter and was 12-15 degrees. Nice timing, huh? Ah well. His valentine's sock is the one that's hopefully going to be done by the end of the olympics. At least I'm done with Christmas presents.

PPS, Don't worry that it looks like I made 2 right hands, the pattern was designed so they can be worn either way on either hand. I just saw the picture looked all funky that way. no worries. (wouldn't that just be like me to have made 2 right hands though? MAN that would've sucked!)

A little more sleep, a little more knitting

Wow, after those nice comments, I almost thought of leaving tubey short....almost...but then returned to reality. I compromised, I'm only adding enough to go just past the waist so if I stretch for something, I'll show some tummy. The unbindoff wasn't too bad, at first I pulled out each stitch and tried to catch it on the needle. This was a big ol' pain in the butt. The next time I un-bindoff, I'll need to take pictures as I found a neat way to poke the needle in before pulling out the stitch, kind-of like unknitting stitch by stitch and it went FAST and no stitches were twisted that way. I put on another inch and have one more to go and then another bind-off and sewing in ends. God almighty, I love sewing in ends. Someone could make some serious money around me if they offered to sew in my damn ends. I'd hire them for those cigar gloves I'm finishing up for Jeff. I've almost got the 2nd one done and have 10 ends per glove...love that. Not doing it again. I have to finish them before I wear the tubey or it would look bad. Poor guy was building a cool tv stand for the corner of the living room and kept having to come in from the garage to warm his fingers. He never said anything, but I could see in his eyes the look of "WHY ARE YOU KNITTING A TUBBEY SWEATER INSTEAD OF GLOVES FOR YOUR MAN???" So I quickly switched bags and worked diligently on those fingers....until he had to run to Home Depot, then I HAD to do some more tubey...I'm so close...can't stand it. When the garage door went up, the gloves came back out. I never said I was an unselfish knitter.

SO, help me decide when Jeff & I should do the big MOVING IN TOGETHER!! I was originally thinking summer would be best. Then I thought, maybe we could do Spring Break in March, but I think I'm going to compromise. I think I'll get the roadrunner put in (the boy lives with DIAL-UP *sigh*) and furniture started moving over in March and just bring more crap each weekend and stay over there on weekends. The kids seem to be adjusting pretty well and are excited about setting up their room over there. His kids & my kids don't really seem to care much one way or another. They just want to play and don't care if it's at our house or his. I think the stress is on us adults trying to make sure the kids don't stress. That in itself is quite stressful.

Have you SEEN the new Interweave Knits? OH MY GOD. I realized I have grown as a knitter. I can't actually DO the big stuff, but now I have an actual aching need inside me to make some of this stuff. For me, Knits mag is either horrid or unbelievable. This one is a KEEPER! I think I may have to make the Sunrise Circle Jacket and it may have to be in orange. OH OH OH (the pattern's online!) The trellis scarf in lace is unbelievable, lacy socks adorable, have you SEEN the wobbly circles tote? It's ALMOST amazing enough for me to THINK about trying intarsia...almost... And OH OH OH the Prairie Tunic, I must make this unbelievable thing of beauty. The back side is even more stunning... No worries that I've never made anything with lace or holes (ok with INTENTIONAL holes), that I HATE knitting with cotton (would bamboo work?) or that the entire puppy is made on size 3 needles, nope. not worried. not one little bit. Anyone wanna make this one with me?

Also of note is Amy Singer's (editor of knitty) column with a list of good sock links online

ooooooooohhhhhhweeeeeeeeee!

I wanna blog on someone...someone who is being PETTY and CHILDISH and ROYALLY PISSING ME OFF! AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH But...it wouldn't be the smartest thing I could do, "wouldn't be prudent" as GW #1 would have said. Let's just say NOT EVERYONE loves me as the good hearted gentle soul that I am, damn fricken fracken idiot. Ah, I feel better now. No, not really. Ah well. No biggie, life goes on. Those that matter love me and I love them. Why should life be all happy & roses and butterflies? You need a stinky ol' spider crawling around sucking the blood out of life to appreciate the ladybugs and rainbows and crap like that. I still wouldn't mind squishing said spider, but that could be messy and illegal and all that. Plus, remember, I'm a gentle soul. A palm-reader once told me that. Yeah, the rest of his predictions were full of crap too.

KNITTING RULE #14 (I'm not actually counting, but this SEEMS like something SOMEONE should have told me in this knitting venture thing) NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER count, measure, bind off and cut a project after 1:30 in the morning. EVER.

Isn't she beautiful? My tubey, I thought she was finished. KNITIDIOT LOGIC......"yeah, that looks long enough" Holding a knit sweater up to your body at 1:45am and smooshing it down upon you apparently does NOT give for accurate measuring. Then INSTEAD of taking the flippin 5 minutes to put the thing on waste yarn and try it on, I think, yeah. That's it! I'm done. No, I don't need to wait for DAYLIGHT or a MEASURING TAPE or SLEEP, nope. I'm gonna bind off and cut. Nice. It is a lovely sweater, but see that bit o' skin there? Maybe if I was a young hottie still in my 20's I could carry it off, it could be quite sexy actually. BUT the skin that's showing isn't a sexy flat tummy with a belly button ring, nope, it's showing off a lovely stretch mark. nice. Guess I get to learn how to un-bind off today.

WTF?

OK, it's been a long time since I got all politcal here, but WTF? We're SELLING our US PORTS to the MIDDLE EAST???? WTF?

cripes almighty. I think we've found our Democratic motto..."vote for us, we promise not to sell our country to the middle east." I'd vote for that. Is it too late?

the details

OK, so "the talk" apparently went well. I think it's so unbelievably sweet and old-fashioned, I just can't tell you. Jeff said he almost chickened out at the last minute, he stopped by when Dad was home loading up the big ol' pickup for his & mom's trip to their lakehouse. They talked man talk for a while, about Jeff's new wood stove, the weather, etc. Then he said they were both just kind of standing there and he said he wanted to talk with my dad, how he loved me and the kids and he's asked us to move in. He said though he feels like we should get married first, we talked about it and want to move in to make sure everyone is sure, but he'd like to marry me in a little while as well. Dad said he and mom were very supportive of whatever we'd like to do as they think Jeff is a good man. Dad said something about the extra burden Jeff'd be taking on with Joey (my son has C.F., a genetic lung & digestive disease) and Jeff said that he was not worried about that, he thought the burden would be dealing with me. (said as a joke) and my good ol' dad says, "yeah....yeah, that's true, but with Joey it's a terminal illness and ..." Nice Dad, thanks. Love being a burden. Ah well, I guess I have earned that title through the stress I've put on my poor folks. ANYWAY, now we just have to decide when & how and all that.

We spent most of the weekend at Jeff's house doing projects and just hanging out. The dinners went well. Susie, I've heard some good things about that Joy of Cooking, I'm gonna go find one for myself. I made some steak/chicken/spicy fajita-ish thing one night and the world's best philly cheese-steak sandwiches the other. I chickend out on the recipe I really wanted to do, this thing where you put in a little steak & oil & sauce, cook for a couple minutes, take it out, pour in some brandy and light it on FIRE and let it burn out, add butter and then scrape all the goo out onto the steaks. The recipe cracked me up because after it tells you to light the pan on fire with a wooden match, the next step is "stand back". HAH! Even I know that much about cooking. I thought it may be a good idea to not burn down the kitchen I want to move into, so put that fancy one off for a while.

Kathy, bless you for your roaster/broiler tips. I'm going to roast some veggies tomorrow night and will be just rocking right along now that I know what a broiler & roaster are!

Not much knitting was accomplished this weekend, I did two fingers on the last glove, realizing that now I know what I'm doing, I should probably rip out the fingers on the last glove and do them over. I got disgusted with the whole process and worked on my sweater. I'm going to try to finish up the gloves before the weather gets warm again.

the romance novel continues...

OK, here's the newest deal. Jeff, my boyfriend, is going to "speak to" my father. I said, "duh, you talk with him all the time, what's the big deal?" Apparently he means speak with as in ask for permission to ask for my hand in marriage or as he put it "discuss my intentions for his daughter." OH.MY.GOD. I'm 37 years old, twice divorced (although one really shouldn't count as it was a mini-marriage--found out he was crazy fast and got the heck out) and mother of two children. I'm not quite the blushing bride I was long ago, heck, even back then I wasn't quite the blushing bride I should've been, but that's another story entirely. NEITHER of the ex's asked my father for permission or even talked with the man at all. I'm torn between thinking how sweet it is that Jeff is doing this and terrified that my dad will scare the poor boy off. Jeff may stop by this afternoon when Dad's loading up the truck for his & mom's big weekend at the lake if he can schedule it in his day. He's aiming for a time that my dad's by himself as mom's a bit too, um, shall we say strong willed? aka she can be a seriously scary chic sometimes. (I am proud I got a little of that trait from mom too). I'm just trying to ignore it and not think about it. holy crap.

OK, since I apparently love this man, and it's 12 freaking degrees outside, I thought I'd be a good little knitter and finish the fingertip-less gloves for my man. Click the baby pic to see the first fingered glove in its glory. Beautiful, no? I've got the second one ready to start on the index finger. Let me say I learned a few things with this...#1 I am NOT a fan of knitting gloves. #2 I am NOT going to do it again for any amount of love or money. #3 It apparently MATTERS if you don't get the CO 2 as your first stitches to pick up or your fingers go all hinky with some in front of the others. #4 There are too FREAKING many yarn ends to sew in at the end TEN per HAND DAMMIT! Thank goodness I used a multicolored yarn and didn't do the damn stripe detail or there'd be MORE flippin' yarn ends. I've nicknamed these little beauties "Satan's Fingers". Jeff said they'll be his favorite gloves even if the fingers are a little weird. I said, "aw, how sweet. They'd damn well better be as you're not getting any more from me unless I go shopping at wal-mart."

OK, so I'm COOKING all weekend. Somehow this came about since I gave the boy ONE sock for Valentine's Day. I ended up going from ONE vday meal to just cooking the whole damn weekend. I got inspired, bought me some cookbooks (I love Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals). Someone NEEDS to help me please! I thought a roasting pan was that bumpy thing that is usually stored in the drawer of the oven. I have a recipe that says to put some veggies on it, turn the oven up to 500 or something and put the pan on the bottom rack. OK, I can do that. THEN these other recipes call for putting things in the roaster. WTF is a roaster? WTF is a broiler? Do they mean inside the bumpy pan? Is there a whole new pan that I haven't seen?

So far the plan is to make this strange sliced steak with fancy schmancy wine sauce for dinner tomorrow night. Sat. afternoon we're making our OWN chicken nuggets, complete with pounding them, coating in flour & egg and frying them. I'm also doing our own beer-batter onion rings. Don't know what's for dinner tonight, yet. Wish me luck.

Hello, My name is Christine...and I'm a multicolored yarn addict.

You know, I realized I have a serious obsession gone wrong here. TWENTY-TWO count them 1-2-3-4-...oh whatever. I have a lot of freaking hand-painted, variegated, self-patterning, who knows what will turn out YARN! Apparently not everyone shares my love for the adventurous yarn. Those I would knit for want GREY stuff. PINK stuff. BLUE stuff. But not grey and pink or blue and grey stuff. cripes. You take someone down and look through the stash to pick out yarn for the perfect project and hear "...um, can we go to the yarn store to pick out something all the same color?" I thought, oh how bad could it be? You know how when you have your stash in different spots, drawers, chests, tubs, etc, it's not quite so overwhelming as when it's all together? I thought, how bad could it be? Then I got out the stuff.

Clapotis? multi colored Lorna's Laces
Tubey sweater? no stripes, multi colored Lorna's Laces Shepherd worsted instead
Sock and gloves for Jeff? artyarns multi colored merino
14 bumpy scarves made? schaefer hand-painted multi colored in every shade of the rainbow
8 pair of wrist warmers? different artyarns & Lorna's Laces all multicolored
poncho for daughter? ribbon multicolored yarn
ribbon tank from Lion Brand website? frogged multicolored brown/orange ribbon yarn
market bag still on needles? hand-painted multicolored
Felted bags? noro (LOVE that noro) and malabrigo and uruguay stuff
Sock yarn? 12 different skeins of all multi colored stuff (How do I have 12 different color schemes and have only made ONE sock?--always be prepared I guess)
Stash--> 10 groups of skeins sporting yet more variegated, etc. yarn.

I almost go insane when I have to knit same ol' same ol' of one color. I started knitting to introduce some color into my wardrobe. My wardrobe consists of black, black, black, grey, denim, white, OH and 2 red shirts I've just bought in the last few months (my bf's favorite color bought just for him to admire). I think I may have a khaki skirt in there that is too small, but that's about it. Maybe I am overcompensating for my lack of colorness. Yeah, that's it, I'm like a little man (down there) driving a big ol' hummer 4-wheel drive monster suv. Overcompensation. It's not such a bad thing.

The only problem with this particular kind of yarn addiction (besides the financial aspect of having to have MORE MORE MORE yarn) is when you want to wear more than one item at a time. Maybe the grey-wanters have it figured out. I went out this morning looking like a bag lady dumpster-diving outside a yarn shop. First I must state that after a couple of weeks of 50-70 degree weather, it's looking like 20 degrees for the next few days...I had my traditional dark grey coat on with the orange/brown/nature colored clapotis wrapped around my head, schaefer bumpy scarf (in red/orange/yellow mix) around my neck, wrist warmers in a lovely mix of purples and blues, and carrying my clear knitting bag full of green/brown/burgandy mix of glove and sock for Jeff and the purple/red/blue mix of tubey. The only thing missing was wild socks. Give me time. Beth took one look at me and said, "Mom, remember it's open house night tonight." I said "sure." She said, "can you only wear ONE of your knitted things at a time, PLEEEEEEEASE?" nice.

I'm a good mom and I'll be good. I try not to embarrass my children in front of people they know. I must admit I enjoy hopping on the bar of the grocery cart and whooooping it up through the parking lot, making my daughter cover her head with her hands like a convicted criminal dodging the media and my son yelling in fear that I'll crash it (he's usually on the back side hanging on for dear life.)

The mutli colored yarn addiction is either genetic or contaigous, as when Beth went to pick out her own yarn for one of those damn knifty knitter ring things, she picked out a furry yarn in a variegated purple/black/pink color scheme all by herself. That's my girl.

House Hunting with the Honey

Lordy, Lordy, Christine's in LOOOOOOVE! Oh Oh Oh OH! LOVE HIM! Ok, enough of that. sorry.

The boy did VERY well for Vday, gave me a pretty bracelet that's gold on one side and white gold on the other, I think it's a herringbone? I'm not sure, it's one of those thick heavy solid-looking but actualy flexible kind of things. He did raise his eyebrows over the one-sock gift, but I told him he'll get the other one soon and a cooked dinner this weekend as well. He's so sweet, he loved the sock and got a chuckle out of my story on him flipping me off the bed as I'm trying to secretly measure his foot. He did ask about his fingerless gloves, since it's cold outside again, I told him hopefully before it hits 90 degrees he'll have them. Better get busy, but I wanna finish my tubey too! TOO much homework, children's school projects, cooking and other crap keeps getting in my way of KNITTING!

We put in a bid on the strange people's house. I swear, either everyone around me is nuts, or I'm crazy and the whole rest of the world is normal. Either way, it keeps life from being boring. Of COURSE the house is exactly what we want, it's perfect for our little brady-bunch family. And of COURSE the people selling it are nuts. They wouldn't say what they wanted for it, just for us to "make a bid." After explaining that we've NEVER heard of this way of buying a home, with secret bids, no protocol, etc, but they were all "Oh, everyone we know buys houses like this....we've always bought & sold our homes like this, it's JUST like using a realtor..." NO, IT'S NOT!!! I wouldn't let Jeff do much of the talking as the woman in the couple absolutely HATES the boy after his phone call to her the other night, her body language was speaking volumes. The man was pretty cool and finally said they wouldn't take less than the appraised value, so we bid that. We talked about how our children would love to play in the backyard, etc and they said they were wanting a family to move in rather than someone just to use it for rental, so we'll see. They haven't even decided if they WANT to sell the house or not yet!!! WTF? Jeff said, once you decide if you're selling or not, let us know and then we'll talk on the bid. cripes.

Ah well, it was very nice to be looking at homes for our future together. We did the whole moving-in talk last night too, so it looks like we'll do it this summer in his home if we haven't found a new place yet. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDD the M word came up too, it looks like that's definately in our future. Holy freaking crap almighty. who'd a-thunk it?

OH, and it's a good thing I get to drop one test score in the good ol' Trig class, cripes. I knew EVERYTHING but one thing on vectors. I thought, what harm could it be, I'll just leave those COUPLE questions blank. yeah. good plan. SIX of the 33 questions were on vectors. crap crap crap. nice. Guess the rest of the program builds on this crap too, so I've gotta call my aunt the math teacher and have her tutor me.

Happy Vday!

Well, it's officially Valentine's Day now. I've already heard from Kenny Rogers, remember him? The sweet older man I dated and always sent big-ass flowers to work all the damn time but who forgot to say he was MARRIED??? And then he wouldn't go away? Remember? I haven't heard from him in a while now, but the cell phone was a-ringing at 8:00am this morning. I thought, aw, my honey's calling to wish me love on Valentine's day. nope. Message from the Ken Man sending his love. nice.

OH being a crafter just saved my butt this morning! I was Little Miss Martha Jr. this Vday, the children made HAND-MADE valentines for their classmates, their grandparents and surprised me with my own. We punched holes in them and stuck tootsie roll pop suckers in them. We were ready last weekend. We were rocking right along....until I realized I forgot the teachers. CRAP! 5 minutes till we leave for school, no time to run to the grocery store, Thank GOODNESS for my stash of completed crap and chocolate addiction!!! In 4.5 minutes, I had three lovely packages full of chocolate reese's pnut butter hearts (PMS attack last week at the grocery store) and hershey's kisses and topped them off with one of my felted crocheted flower pins, wrapped in tissue paper, tied with some crap yarn, Viola! Actually, at 1 minute until we had to leave or be late, I had TWO packages ready and Joey said, "but Mom, what about Miss S?" She's the student teacher. CRAP CRAP CRAP!! 30 seconds more had one more package ready to go. (I bought a LOT of chocolate the other day)

Be good to yourself today. I know it's just a silly over-hyped holiday, but we still get all tied up in the stress of the day. Buy yourself a little chocolate, drink a glass of wine, call a girlfriend, have some fun. I've still got nothing but one sock for my man, but oh well. That's what he's gonna get.

Think the boy will be happy with one sock?

What kind of a crappy valentine's day present is that? ONE sock? Ah well. With my track record for never quite being on time, that boy'd better get used to getting what he gets when he gets it...Christmas presents in January, Vday presents in March, you know. I still haven't done anything on the knit olympics sock other than cast on. I have one finger done on one hand of Jeff's fingerless gloves, so I can either work my butt off on getting the rest of the glove done, or I can just go knit on my tubey sweater and not worry about it. Maybe getting a gift certificate for one of those car washes where they detail the inside of his truck? hmmmm any other suggestions out there? I got nothing. I'm totally wrapping up one sock just to see how the boy handles it.

I must say he was pretty smooth today. He had been stressing over something or other and I told him no matter what happens, I'll be there and support him and believe in him. He was quiet for a moment, I thought I'd been too gushy, but he just said he'd wanted to hear that from a woman all his life and I'd just given him the best Valentine's day present he'd ever had. Did I say this boy is good with words or what?!? awwwww

OH OH OH some news, not really news, but I thought it was kinda-blog-worthy anyway. Jeff found a house he wants me to go look at with him. We've decided we're going to be together for the long haul, but not real sure on the details of how to make all the details work yet (his 2 kids and my 2 kids make for a veritable brady bunch when they're all together). We've talked about finding a place within the next year or so, but this house in the perfect neighborhood opened up and we're going to go look just to see. I'm not getting my hopes up as the lady selling it isn't ACTUALLY selling it. She's got a FSBO sign in the yard, but when we called, she said she's "taking bids". We asked how much does she want for the house and it's "taking bids". We asked how long are you taking those bids and how do we know how much has been offered and she just said "just make a bid" and she's not sure how long she's going to do it. Is that legal? WTF? She MAY be waiting for "a few weeks" to see what she gets and SHE'll let us know how much she's been offered so far. Yeah, that'll be honest. cripes. Anyway, we're going to look at our first prospective home together and I'm all cheesin'.

a full moon at Chuck E Cheese

Lordy, Lordy, what 6 year old boys do when their parents aren't around. Thurs night we had a bday party for one of Joey's friends at the good ol' Chuck E. Cheese (aka kiddie crack central). The bday boy came down with a case of the barfs last Sat. so it moved to Thurs night. You can imagine, 18 six-year olds with LOTS of sugar, pizza and that ding-ding-ding-whoop-whoop-whoop noise going on and TICKETS OH MY GOODNESS TICKETS you can win to go home with worthless CRAP... Yup, hyper city. I'm sitting at the table with the few parents brave enough to stay around for the party and look up to see one of the boys is up next to the mechanical rat and is dancing along without his pants. Yup, 2 nekkid cheeks shaking it in time to the music. cripes. I literally snorted diet coke out my nose. OUT OF MY NOSE. It wasn't pleasant. When the mom came to pick up her boy at the end of the party, she asked "how was my little angel" Swear to God, "angel". The bday mom said he was "entertaining". I only snorted a little on this one and covered it up with a quick cough. Between the floor show I was able to get about another inch done on the body of my tubey sweater. Will this sweater NEVER end?

We had a very nice suburban weekend. Let's see, the short version...pick up kids Friday afternoon, skating party (which I must say I still love roller skating. I'm hoping the fact that my daughter LIKES skating around the rink with her mom lasts a few more years), basketball practice & game for Joey, meet up with Jeff & the boys to have a giant sleep-over at our house. Sat. more bday parties, meet up with Jeff & the boys to go see our asian friends for a big ol' family party for Taylor's one year old bday that night. good food, good friends, good times. Sunday pancakes and reading the paper, kids playing with friends, mom studying for math test on Tuesday. Sunday night dinner at Denny's. My kids freaking love Denny's. Good ol' diner food, not too terrible. Everyone's tucked into bed and I'm FINALLY going to start on my sock for the knitlympics. I know everyone else has been going since Friday but I'm a late bloomer.

Big boss owners are in town this week. I do like them, but it's always a titch stressFUL anyway. Last time I was able to keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way. At least I'm almost done hauling stuff up those damn stairs. I wasn't able to help out with the load the fridge and last 10 filing cabinets up the stairs fun that was scheduled on Saturday, so I'm hoping that's all been done without me.

I'm heading back to Jazzercise tomorrow am, figure burning off some stress probably couldn't hurt.

Martha Stewart is still the queen of cool.

How about these as cute hand-made valentines? huh? I'm gonna make some of those CUTE lollipop flowers myself to hand out.

Remember when your entire stash could fit in one bag?

Yeah! Yeah! Me neither. This is the stash of the lovely Miss Amanda, who came over to sit & knit last night! I have to say, it IS a very big bag. I'm so proud of her getting a stash I could just cry. *sob* they grow up so fast *sob*
Miss Amanda is modeling one of her scarves she just completed using LB Thick & Quick Chenille in black and the not-so-Fun fur in fuschia. BEAUTIFUL!!! The needle she is holding is sporting a few rows of 2X2 Ribs that she just learned. Yes, she's a purl girl now! WOO HOO lady, now nothing can stop you! She knits AND she purls AND she's got flippy hair! WOO HOO!

The best part was when I had to get out some extra yarn & needles as I can't teach anything without actually knitting it myself to see just what the heck I'm actually doing...I opened the cedar chest at the foot of my bed and pulled out a skein from the crammed chest. Amanda said, "oh, is that your stash?" No, that's my UPSTAIRS stash. The downstairs stash is, well, downstairs, crammed into a big ol' cedar dresser with absolutely no room left. I've even got yarn crammed into those tiny thin drawers at the top that are supposed to be for your socks. I've got sock yarn in those, so I'm good. Oh, and the crap yarn (which I do love my crap yarn, no offense intended) is in two big ol' plastic tubs under the pool table.

AND Amanda told about her adventures in the Studio wandering around admiring the yarn. She said, "Christine, there's this cool yarn that stripes itself, I think it's called Nore-something..." I almost screamed, "NORO! YES! NORO!" All by herself, in that store that overwhelms fiberlovers with the amazing array of yarns, she finds my very favorite and bestest ever yarn for felting, the sweet noro. This girl is destined to have a life-long addiction to knitting now. YOU GO GIRL!

OOOOps, sorry, yesterday I linked to the blog, but not the pattern of the shrug I must make. Here's the pattern for the lovely victorianesque shrug called Mia Shrug officially. Sorry about that! Now that I'm a sock knitter, I'm getting all cocky and think there's nothing I can't make. It's all just yarn and sticks and knits and purls, right? RIGHT? We'll see.

One in a row, baby..... My first officially COMPLETED sock (poor toe-up sockie got frogged)

Come, tell me how amazing I am, go ahead, tell me! Nah, I've already told myself and any who would listen around here. They have the "smile and nod and she'll go away faster" look figured out. cripes. ANYWAY...I'm happy for me so THERE. Freaking family and non-knitting friends.

click to enjoy in larger view as always...

Details...
Thuja pattern from Knitty
yarn artyarns supermarino
needles dpns size 6

YEAH FOR ME!!!! I'm waiting on the other one to do for my knit-o-lympics starting with the opening ceremonies this Friday night.

OH and have you seen this most amazing and beautiful of all shrugs, OH OH OH OH OH Victorianesque shrug. Just do it.

Sunflower Knitter's Guild

OK, I went to the Monday morning meeting of the Sunflower Knitter's Guild yesterday and had a lovely time! I sat & chat & knitted with some knitters and we all admired and petted each other's projects, AND I got an early schedule for the Knitting in the Heartland knitting weekend with Nicky Epstein!! There's a bunch of classes but I'm SO excited about Epstien's Edgings/Embellishments class (she's the one who wrote the Knitting on the Edge & knitted embellishments books) I'll have a link soon to post here. If you wanna have a fun weekend on Sat & Sunday, April 29-30, 06, come to KC and knit with us! It's going to be at the Radisson Hotel at I-35 & 95th street. I'm thinking I'll have to convince the grandparents that they REALLY want to take my kids that weekend and maybe I'll get a room and just stay and knit all day & night!!! The guild meets at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection at 91st & Mission in Prairie Village, KS at 9:30am on the first Monday of the month and at 6:30pm on the 3rd Monday of the month.

I've decided my big knitting olympics will no longer be a PAIR of socks, nope. I'm doing ONE sock for my goal. How sad is that? I've also started on knitty's cigar fingerless gloves for my honey instead of trying to get the wristwarmers I'd made for him adapted with fingers. I like the wrist warmers, so will keep them for myself and make Jeff new stuff. So far I've got 3" done on the cuff of the first one and one sock with only 1 more inch to go before I start the toes. He'll be in good shape, one sock, one glove. At least half of him will be warm. Hopefully I'll get SOMETHING completed to give the boy for Vday.

There's nothing like a little startitis to start your month, huh? On the needles:
*Tubey sweater, about 6 inches done on the body, I may finish this in time for summer. nice.
*ONE sock with the toes to go
*ONE glove with only cuff completed
*about 18 inches of a knitted afghan for my bro's wedding present for LAST JULY
*crocheted poncho for friend's little girl with bday THIS SATURDAY
*French market bag (with yarn from my SP) that got put on hold for all the Xmas presents
*Just completed gauge swatch for Ribbon Xback Tank as the Moda Dea Ticker Tape ribbon yarn is on sale at Michael's for $2.49 instead of $7.99/skein, so I thought if it worked, I'd stock up.

OH and my first test in Trig is next Tues, yes Valentine's day. crap. Last night I THOUGHT about studying, but then cast on for the gloves. Priorities, huh?

foot measuring success!

SO, Jeff is somehow all tuckered out and falls asleep BEFORE me Friday night. I pull the measuring tape out of the knitting bag and go to work, slowly lifting a foot out of the covers, trying not to breathe. I now know the fate of the world is in good hands with me NOT in charge of anything needing steady hands and quiet. nope. Whenever I try to be quiet, I may as well just start bashing cymbals together, it's pathetic. I get one foot out of the covers, start measuring the ankle. He stirs, I flop on the bed, like I just happen to be sleeping down by his feet. smooooth. He rolls over, sticks his foot back under the covers and goes back to sleep. Try, try again... I get the foot back out in the cold air, he's still sleeping, I get the length measurement, put the foot back, go to write it down, and can't remember what it was. crap crap crap! Get through the whole thing again, write it down on the paper before putting his foot back, he rolls over, knocks me out of bed onto the floor with a BOOM. (combination of my balancing on the edge of the bed leaning over to get the measurement and my lack of any sense of balance.) He wakes up said, "what the heck are you doing?" I said, "nothing honey, it's just about knitting" and he said "I don't EVEN want to know what you're putting in that blog thing about this" and goes back to sleep.

Sat. morning I check the comments and find I should've just measured his damn socks. I did that while he was in the shower, and yup, same measurement. mission accomplished. Hopefully my honey's socks will fit and he'll like his v-day present. I think I'd better bake him something as well.

We ended up having lots and lots of cousins come to town for a cousin's wife's baby shower Sat. night, so Jeff got to go to dinner and meet a bunch of them. On the way out to our cars my wild cousin Joan whispered that she liked Jeff very much. I told her I liked him too! We went to the Macaroni Grill and it must have been a sweetheart dance night or something as even WITH a reservation, we waited OVER AN HOUR and got to see all the girls with sparkly dresses and big hair and high heels and sweating boys doing the flirty thing. We decided it was a cross between the two Seinfeld episodes...the one at the Chinese restaurant where they waited and waited and WAITED and the one with the rental car reservation..."you know how to TAKE the reservation, but apparently don't know how to HOLD the reservation..." Once we got seated, we had good food and soon the tables around us seemed to clear out, so we got to hang out and chat. Good times.

OK, I gotta do a superbowl comment or two. I'm a closet Steelers fan, so was glad for them. BUT OH LORDY did the stones look a bit old? I am all for older people shaking it, but PLEASE LEAVE THE CLOTHING ON!!! Anyone else get concerned that with each song, another shirt came off? Beth asked "isn't that guy as old as Grandpa? and is he wearing leather pants?" yes, yes he is. She commented "man, I'm glad MY grandpa doesn't wear leather pants." we are all dear. We all are.

6 yr old Basketball update from Bitchy McKnitpants

My apologies for plagarizing the Yarn Harlot's Stitchy McYarnpants, but I couldn't help myself. I became Bitchy McKnitpants tonight while sitting quietly knitting away on my tubey sweater, minding my own business at my son's basketball game.

We had quite a night at the old basketball court tonight. First of all, I'm NOT a good little soccer/bb/tball mom. I picked out this very program at a local gym instead of the county or city or school programs because I am lazy. I know that may be a shock to some of you, but seriously, I HATE that whole hour-long-practice at an ungodly late time during the week AND hour-long games at all different times on Saturdays and Sundays that last for an entire season. I picked the 6 week prgoram on Friday nights from 5-6pm. Practice first 1/2 hour, game second 1/2 hour. It is a very laid-back relaxed atmosphere with not much pressure on the kids other than "GO THAT WAY...THE OTHER BASKET IS YOUR TEAM'S..." I know I'll have to go over to the darkside of official sportsdom and do the whole living-in-the-minivan thing, but am putting that off as long as possible.

ANYWAY, back to the action. We play 3 on 3 kids, and they're at the level of parents shouting "DRIBBLE....BOUNCE THE BALL....SHOOT...THAT MEANS THROW THE BALL INTO THE BASKET..." get the picture? We're not the best athletes, but we're happy. EXCEPT for the ONE team that we played tonight. All the teams wear tshirts with little borrowed scrimmage tops put on top. THIS team has their own official bb jerseys bought by one of the moms. That's fine. THIS team also IMPORTED 3 players from the inner city, I swear by all that is holy. (I couldn't help it, I went and asked the moms of these kids what school they went to and was thinking DAMN!--rough school) THIS team also is coached by a junior college bb team. It's leader looks like a younger version of Vanilla Ice. Most of us moms show up in mom-attire...you know, tshirts, jeans, sweat pants, whatever. Once in a while one will come in office clothes, no biggie. THESE moms are quite their own little bunch. High spiky heels, big ol' hair do's and all sporting big-ass diamonds. The ringleader got on my badside tonight when she asked what I was doing (I was knitting) and SNORTED at me. SNORTED. In a totally ladylike fashion, which pissed me off even more.

THIS chic was not only sporting the normal HIGH spiky heels tonight and a glitter spandex tank top showing off a fabulous body (which pissed me off even more, why can't rich bitchy women be fat?) BUT she had jeans which had rhinestones across the back pockets. These jeans were so tight that I got a wedgie just looking at her. She has been christened "Glitter Butt" for all of eternity. Glitter Butt's mom comes out each week and is called "Corpse Nails" (Last week Jeff whispered, look honey, that lady has those corpse nails you dont' like) and is an older, prettier version but also sports tight jeans and tops and high heels.

Somehow our little uncoordinated boys hung tough and WON the game a whole 16 to 14. This is the league that "scores don't matter" and "everyone's a winner" but they still keep score with big ol' flip cards. Go figure. The imported hot-shots were so busy showing off that the team got beat. Glitter Butt's kid (who I don't think has EVER been told "no" in his entire life) was crying and yelling at his mom afterwards, they were all mad and pissy. Our kids were running around jumping on each other like they'd won the NBA finals game or something. Of course, we do that even when we lose 12 to zero, we just have fun.

I need to work on developing my own ladylike snort.

I'm gonna do some espionage tonight...wish me luck

OK, so Jeffyboy had previously mentioned he would like a pair of socks knit by the woman he loves with her own lovely hands. Yes, he can crank out the lines like nobody's business, but I love that man anyway. SO this was a while back. Now I've got almost one sock done from Knitty's thuja pattern. I'm just doing the regular sizing for men but need to know how long to make them. Jeff's coming to the house and going to stay over, so I'm thinking I'll try to get his feet measured while he's sleeping. BUT he's a light sleeper, so it could be interesting. I want to make the socks a surprise, so wish me luck.

OH wanna hear something funny? My cousin Kelly was in McD's eating lunch with her 2 cute little redheaded children (age 3 1/2 and 1 1/2) and overheard some ladies talking near her today. One woman said to the other one, "Wow, I've never seen anyone do THAT in a drive thru before..." so of course Kelly looked over to see something scandalous. She saw ME knitting in the drivethru! She said she & the kids were waving and hollering and I just sat there knitting and ignoring the world. too funny!

I'm TIRED of walking up and down the 23 steps of the old work's building hauling HEAVY crap up and out to trucks, dumpsters, more trucks and the like. tired tired tired tired TIRED!!! Being the only one in the area without a bad back or bad knee, I'm the manual labor. Too bad having a bad attitude doesn't get you out of hauling filing cabinets, desks, chairs, tables and boxes of HEAVY ASS CRAP up and out of there. At least we should be all done with the stuff by the end of the month. ugh. I'm earning the right to work at home now, baby.

the daily knitter free online 'zine

Here's another neat site, with TONS of really cute patterns FREE. I signed up for the daily knitting newsletter so we'll see if I get innundated with lots of crappy emails or if it's a good deal. I'll let you know. Go check out the patterns, I thought there were some cute things.

Look at what I've got so far on knitty's Thuja men's socks that may or may not be part of Jeff's Valentine's day present. The may is if they turn out ok and are sized anywhere close to a man's foot for me. The may-not is if they turn out funky. So far I've had entirely too much fun. They're going really fast as they're being knit with artyarns yarn and size 6 dpns. I'm a freaking dpn queen, baby. Did I say I've only actually completed one sock? And frogged it as it was about 3 inches too long? Oh and a sock puppet for my son out of a way too big spiral kids' sock pattern. Nothing like a challenge...

OK, so I'm totally cheesing here

OH I'm so excited! A blog reader sent me a link to KnitNet online magazine. I'm gonna have to subscribe ($12/year for 6 issues). You can click to see a sample edition but have to subsribe to get the patterns. My blog is listed on the Newbie Knitters column on Knitting on the Internet for the most recent issue. "Knitting Virgin is the irreverent site of Christine, an enthusiastic knitter and mom."

I like being labeled as irreverent.

I need some tubey help. I'm posting on the KAL site so hopefully someone will come through, but if anyone else has an idea, I'm all ready for it. The first time I went to do the pick up stitches, I ended up with the seam on the outside so pulled that out and picked them up backwards and was ready to go. I joined and started the k3p1 ribbing. I got about an inch done and realized I'm somehow going backwards. Instead of the k3 sticking out and the p1 going backwards as a rib, it has this little skinny row of knits sticking out of the p3 background. It's really really odd. I'm not sure how to fix it, so I just sat there and looked at it. Looking and deep thinking apparently doesn't fix it. cursing didn't help so much either. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm working on a pair of socks with a seed stitch rib. When I knit 3 and purl 1, the knits stick out like they're supposed to. I just don't know what I did. Maybe if I go back and repick up stitches it'll be different...????? who the heck knows.

Somehow I'm knitting backwards, inside out. arrrrrgggghhhhh It's gonna be frog-city soon. wish me luck. Hey, I wanted to learn things and stretch my knit-abilities this year, so guess I'm gonna learn something whether I wanted to or not.

I went down to the sudio (lys) and said "WTH is wrong with me?" (aka what the HECK which is much more appropriate than WTF which I said last time without realizing it and offended the F out of another shopper. I didn't EVEN say the WORD FUXX I actually said "what the F" ah well.. ANYWAY back to the story)...It appears that I am, in fact, an idiot. Mark this tip down as another thing you'd THINK I'd have figured out but didn't...just like the DAK Tip #1-->make sure the ball from the yarn is always attached to the RIGHT hand needle so you don't knit backwards and screw up your sweater. DAK Tip #2 (dumb ass knitter tip #2) --> When picking up stitches, make sure to have the RIGHT side of the piece facing you. Poke your needle in from the right side to the wrong side, not the other way around or your knitting will be backwards. If knitting in the round, it will be insideout and bassackwards.

good to know. Frogged and restarted the body. Much better now.