some progress

Taking care of mildly sick kids for the last week means we've had no trips outside the house except to the doctor (to get a big bottle of pink medicine to treat an ear infection*). There has also been lots of TV time for them, which translates to more knitting time for me than is usual.

I debated for a minute whether to show you this extremely unflattering picture, but what the hey. It's progress:



This is the garter yoke cardigan out of what I'm calling the "orchard wool." I've been zipping right along while watching PBS with the kids (mostly Curious George DVDs, which I can tolerate more easily than other shows like Arthur. Or Clifford. Oy.) You can see in the photo from the way the partially finished sweater clashes with my t-shirt that the yarn isn't quite black, just a very, very dark brown. It also looks like the sweater fits me badly, but that's just the way it's bunched up on the needles at the bottom. I think it will actually fit very nicely and be a good everyday cardigan.

Lately, I've been finding satisfaction in knitting one or two things at a time, rather than starting too many projects at once. I find I'm more likely to finish what I've started that way. Anyway, I would really like to finish this sweater soon so that I can get going on some projects for Afghans for Afghans. They need lots of children's items in early March, and I bet I could crank out a couple chunky sweaters and some thick, warm socks next month. But then, there are also at least half a dozen babies due very soon and a couple of birthdays coming up, all of which deserve some knitterly consideration.

One thing at a time, Susan. One thing at a time.

*ETA: Yes, indeed, the pink medicine is amoxicillin. I think I spent half my childhood drinking large quantities of it from a spoon. Now you get a syringe to measure out the doses exactly right.

bits and pieces

I finished crazy orange sock #1:



It's the teeniest bit snug, so when I get around to finishing the pair, they will probably go to this fine gal, whose feet are slightly smaller than mine. Orange isn't really her favorite color, but I bet she won't mind hiding them under her vegan boots.

Unfortunately, it's hard for me to knit anything with tiny slippery needles at the moment. This is because about a week ago I got in a bit of a tussle with the new cheese grater. The cheese grater won. I'll spare you details, but the injury on my right pinky finger still requires that I wear a small band-aid, right in a spot that is apparently crucial for gripping yarn, because finishing up the orange sock above was a rather slow, aggravating process of constantly dropping my DPNs on the floor and finding new ways to wrap yarn around my fingers for even tension. Who knew pinky fingers were so important? (Kidding, obviously.)

As it turns out, though, knitting thicker, stickier yarn with an injured pinky finger isn't such a big deal. So last night I started something new. You may (or may not) recall that in November, we visited a local orchard for a bunch of the season's last apples, and while there I found myself smitten with a group of Black Welsh Mountain ram lambs. I bought this yarn...



...which comes from Black Welsh Mountain sheep raised at that orchard, and was even milled locally at Blackberry Ridge Mills in Mt. Horeb. To be honest, it's not terrific yarn. It's rustic and a little rough and sheds a bit and the color, a natural black, is sort of dull. But it's cool that it came from sheep raised with love (I talked to the owner quite a while about her sheep), and it's not branded or distributed or anything, so no one will have a sweater like this except me and possibly any other knitter who happens upon the yarn cupboard in the orchard's shop. I had to think about a pattern to use. The yarn is too dark for any kind of stitch pattern show up, and it's too rustic (I know I keep using that word, but it's appropriate, somehow) for anything with distinctive style. In other words, this is no frills yarn and it requires a no frills pattern.

Then yesterday, as I was mulling about what project to knit during the orange sock hiatus, it hit me: the garter yoke cardigan from knit.1 a few issues back. And thanks to my incurable habit of collecting pattern books and magazines, I had it handy!



When this is done, I envision wearing it with faded, worn jeans and big black boots (neither of which I actually own, alas). In fact, I often envision myself exhibiting a better sense of style than in actuality. But that's another topic for another day.

snowy pictures and comfort food

I have not one, but two FOs to show you...eventually. There's a scarf I finished up at least a week ago, and Redhook is all done and I have worn it already, but there is just no way to get a photo session in before the weekend. Stuart's commute to work just got longer, so he leave in the morning before it's completely light outside and he gets home after the sun sets. I could take self-portraits, or take pictures of the items not being worn, or have Stu take pictures inside with a flash at night when the lighting is terrible, or even ask Daniel to take pictures, but none of those options is satisfactory. So we wait.

Here are a couple kid shots to distract you, though. Daniel sledding yesterday with his buddy Ben:




Daniel and Anya all dressed up (in clothes they chose themselves, obviously - Daniel's wearing 2 layers of PJs and Anya has 2 shades of blue going on) and ready to go out in their winter gear. And sunglasses:



And last, here is what we ate for dinner last night:



Lately, this is one of my favorite winter comfort foods: a skillet of fried potatoes with cabbage, onions, leftover sausage (local, of course) and a diced apple, seasoned with something called "tasty salt" that I bought at a Russian market. The kids won't eat this, of course, but they will eat the applesauce and cottage cheese and fresh bread we had on the side.

tagged! (and another double post)

I just posted this on Madtown Mama, and since some of it is knitting-relevant, I'm putting it up here, too. Because I'm lazy. And because it's Friday and I am knitting a crazy orange sock that I want you all to see.

Jessi just tagged me for an award/meme thing. I'm so honored! Thanks, Jess. Anyway, here's the scoop:

1) List 10 things that make you happy, and try to do at least one of them today.
2) Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.
3) If you are one of those 10 lucky (happy) bloggers who get the award, link back to my blog and create your happy list!

Things that Make me Happy
1. my 3 morning espressos, without which I am kind of a zombie (check)
2. Daniel's big grin when he runs into his preschool class (check)
3. starting a new knitting project (I began a new sock last night in crazy orange colors, so check)



4. playing really good music, even if it's stressing me out because it's bloody difficult and I only had a week to learn it for someone's audition (check)
5. making and eating really good food
6. Daniel's new enthusiasm for helping me cook dinner. He likes to dump the ingredients and stir and turn on the stove, and he can put together the food processor all by himself, once I get all the parts down from the cupboard.
7. Anya's new words, which can only be transcribed with double exclamation points: "Pants!! No help!! No, Mama!! Daniel!! Naked!!"
8. a beer at 5:00
9. new yarn (I bought some with birthday cash a few weeks ago)
10. a clean house, but that never happens

Bloggers Who Brighten My Day
1. Sweet Water Journal (I don't care if you haven't posted in months)
2. Knitting to Stay Sane (Glenna C and I have never met, but I bet we have a lot in common)
3. Stinkbumps (Jenn has astounding courage and fortitude, and also, a really good sense of humor)
4. happy.stuff. (whose creativity always inspires me)
5. Lifescapes (another blogger named Susan who writes deliciously fun mystery novels and homesteads in Texas Hill Country)
6. whitknits (grad student, knitter, need I say more?)
7. Making Progress (a guy who knits, and his wife does too! Also, they apparently can cook good Indian food...)
8. Caffeine Girl (fellow Madisonian and knitter. If I ever join the local knitting guild, we'll get to meet in person)
9. Notes from a Scattered Mind (is it okay that I linked back to Jessi?)
10. gaysknits (this lady is just cool)

So y'all can consider yourself tagged or not. I know not everyone likes to be tagged, so if that's you, I won't be offended if you ignore this.

haiti

It's stunning how much damage one earthquake can do, especially to a country ill-equipped to handle it. My heart is heavy with the news of the disaster in Haiti yesterday. If you can spare anything, even a few dollars, consider donating to a worthy cause, like Doctors Without Borders, an excellent organization whose hospital(s) in Port au Prince were badly damaged.

Once I finish my current sweater, I may devote next month's knitting to projects for Afghans for Afghans, so I don't feel so helpless in the face of disaster in the world.

ten pictures

I was going to do that "12 of 12" thing yesterday. I think I first read about it on Knitting to Stay Sane. You take 12 pictures throughout your day on the 12th of the month. Anyway, I remembered it in the middle of the morning, and by the time the evening rolled around I was too preoccupied with practicing piano to take more pictures. So the long and short of it is that I have 10 pictures, not 12, and they're not even great. But hey, it was a chance to play with my new point-and-shoot camera (Christmas present from Stuart!), and since I haven't had a good chance to take nice pictures of the knitting I've been doing, this will have to do for a blog post. So here we go!

1. Kids playing with the marble set they got for Christmas. This thing keeps Daniel occupied for a good chunk of the day. I think I took this picture around 7:30 in the morning (we'd already been up for 2 hours.)



2. Redhook. I started this in August, put it down, never blogged it, and now it's almost done. I hope to pick out some buttons when I meet my friends at an LYS this morning.



3. Anya holding an empty snack bowl and waiting for Daniel outside the unisex bathroom at the car dealership, where we went to get the oil changed.



4. Daniel with his camera, which he had to go and grab when he saw me taking pictures. His shirt is off because he wanted to take a picture of it lying on the floor.



5. Anya sleeping on the couch. She doesn't nap anymore unless we need to be somewhere. She crashed about half an hour before I was supposed to take the kids to a sitter so I could practice. She was Not Happy when I woke her up. Let's hope that goes better today.



6. Redhook again. Did I really take two pictures of this? Sheesh. I got some work done on the massive shawl collar while the kids watched a little bit of Curious George.



7. Anya all bundled up to play outside. She's wearing a Koolhaas hat I made while I was pregnant with her. That hat was supposed to be for me but I screwed it up in so many ways, the most significant being that I left out a repeat of the pattern, so it's too small for an adult head. (I just noticed that this is the second Brooklyn Tweed knit featured in this post. Can you tell he's one of my favorite designers currently?)



8. Daniel working on his snow fort, which is basically just placing hunks of snow on the large pile created by the snow plows at the end of our driveway.



9. Anya pulling a sled. She likes to pull it up and down the street. Not ride it, mind you. Pull it.



10. My boot-clad feet next to the bright orange sled. It just seemed like a cool picture.



So that's that. I'll try and do a little better next month!

fighting the winter doldrums

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a bear and just sleep through the whole winter. It's a wistful fantasy, the thought of finding a cozy, dark cave and just hunkering down until the cold and snow and long dark nights are over. I'm having a case of the winter doldrums - not actual depression or anything that you or I need to seriously worry about, mind you - just the blahs. It doesn't help that whatever virus I caught over a week ago is still sitting in my ears and making it hard to hear anything other than my own heartbeat thumping inside my head. My friend Pat apparently had/has the same thing, because when we met this morning over coffee and scones at the café in Lakeside Fibers, we had to sit real close and talk loud and repeat everything. (I'm sure that wasn't annoying to anyone else at all.)

One bright spot this week was that last night was the first meeting of a knitting group I've been organizing with a couple other women at the church I [sometimes, not very regularly] attend. Only six of us showed up, but I'm sure there would have been more had the roads been better. We got six inches of snow yesterday, and the roads were still a mess when I left in the evening. I had to be there, though, because I volunteered to teach sock knitting to anyone interested in learning. Sure enough, three of last night's attendees were ready and raring to go. I have to admit I was pretty stoked about it. I'm a teacher by nature and by heritage (just about everyone in my extended family teaches, farms, or both, though there are a few engineers sprinkled in as well), so I came prepared with sample socks and sample sock yarn to pass around, a half-knit mini-sock for demonstrations, and a handout with a practice sock pattern I wrote up myself. All three of the newbie sock knitters, as it turns out, were also new to using DPNs and knitting in the round, so I took some time to familiarize everyone with those techniques. I learned to knit when I was 8 years old, and I learned to knit socks from my friend and colleague in 2002; last night was a reminder that what feels like second nature to me is very awkward the first time for someone else. We did all right, though, and got as far as beginning the heel flap before it was time to go home.

And, just so I don't have two picture-less posts in a row, here's a little preview of what I've been knitting over the past week or so. It's almost done, so there will be an FO post soon!

new skills

Stuart and I don't really "do" New Year's Resolutions, for the same reason anyone else wouldn't, I suppose: the inevitable disappointment when, by January 10, you have broken or forgotten or stopped caring about any resolutions you've made. Still, a new year has invigorated both of us with the energy to try some new things. I want to cook some new food, maybe master a curry or two. I should try sourdough; I bake our own bread all the time, so I don't see why sourdough should be that difficult. I'm going to take a beginning photography class at a local camera store so I can use our DSLR properly. I'd like to sew something for myself that actually fits. I want to knit something with steeks.

2009 was all about holding steady and riding the storm, thanking our stars we didn't suffer job loss or home foreclosure like so many others, treading the waters of parenting as new challenges presented themselves, and getting through Stuart's last two semesters of Comp Sci courses. Now that he's done with that and "merely" working a full-time job, he's going to learn some new things, too, starting with the faucet in the kitchen sink. He's going to replace it. Solo. Wish him luck, would you?