November's Unfinished Object

The other day Kid1 was getting something out of my closet when this fell on her head:



(Note: the plan was to get one of those Closet Maid closet organization systems AFTER we painted the room, since the closets were as dismal as the wallpapered version of the room)

"Hey, look, it's a sock!"

"No, it's not. It's a cuff."

"Well, it's almost a sock!"

Sigh, no, when you're knitting cuff-down, you still have miles of knitting to go when you're poised to turn the heel and start slogging through the foot. Especially if it's a sock for a man's foot.

And indeed, this is the Father and Son sock from Fall 2006 Interweave knits. I got to the line that said "In preparation for heel flap..." and decided a) I wasn't sure exactly what the pattern was saying, and b) I was sick of working on it. The problem with being sick of it was the subtle chevron -- I kept losing track of where I was in the pattern.



See the chevrons? Barely? Yeah, me too. Except, you know, when viewing them from above, sort of like you would when someone is wearing the sock. From that angle it's glaringly obvious if there's a mistake. So, mistakes must be corrected. (And, yeah, you might say, "well, I can't see them because the picture's fuzzy, " but that makes us equal, since they look that fuzzy to me since I need to go get glasses. Just sayin'.)

However, I took the sock along to piano lessons -- Mrs. Piano Teacher has a big, comfy chair that gets the autumn sun on it, and the autumn sun shines at such a low angle that it's easy to see the little purl ridges of the sock. And the several-month-hiatus helped me decipher the pattern. Or maybe I've knit enough socks in the meantime that I have a better feel for what needs to happen next.

Of course, I haven't picked it up since piano lessons. So progress hasn't been exactly swift. I need to find a comfy chair in the sunlight in my house, I guess.

October's Unfinished Object

Last year at this time I had the clever idea that I should knit a Klein Bottle Hat for my nephew at Purdue (the nephew that was recipient of the Purdue moebius scarf).

And, lands-a-livin', Knitty even had a pattern! It was fate!

Then I came to my senses. What does a communication major want with a bunch of geeky topological knitting? (Also, I maybe got distracted by something more interesting that came along, and set the hat to one side and forgot about it until I was looking for that set of knitting needles the other day.)



Geriatric Cat is not impressed. It's taking up too much room on her towel (she sleeps on a towel for reasons I hope I don't need to explain given that my life seems to revolve around this particular subject and I'd like to spend at least 30 seconds thinking about something else other than what feline bodily fluids I need to go clean up). Sooooooo...

RIP IT!

Someday I hope to find a UFO around here that I don't end up ripping up. Maybe next month's UFO Resurrection, which I think is lurking in my nightstand.

UFO Resurrection for September

This is my most embarrassing Unfinished Object.

You know, it takes quite a lot to embarrass me when it comes to my knitting. This is possibly because I am delusional about my abilities. Or maybe I've just reached a point where I don't care what other people think.

But this is even beyond my skill at rationalization.

It's the Unifinished Object that is also Forgotten:



And when I say "Forgotten" I mean that I have no idea what this is. I know I knit it. I know that it's some pink Rowan Calmer with a circular needle stuck in it. I know that it looks like it had another circular needle stuck in it which has now been pulled out to be used for something that struck me as more important at the time.

And I know that it was stuck in a bag with a couple of sock patterns. It's obviously not a sock.

No clue. Only a vague clue where any more of this yarn might be. I remember purchasing the yarn in 2006 with the intent of making the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I also remember that I while I was swatching it occurred to me that the sweater would look bad on me, especially in that color. So I cast on ... this ... instead. Hmmmm.

So, rippity rip rip, and we've decluttered another Unfinished Object.

If I Had a Completed Sock for Every Sock I've Knit...

Sheesh, if I actually completed all the socks I knit, I'd have socks for everyone in my family, plus pairs to spare.

Instead, I spend most of my time knitting, ripping, reknitting.

Boilermaker sock, take 1, the fussy, mosaic concept.

Boilermaker sock, take 2, the long, skinny version.

And, now, Boilermaker sock, take 3, the chunkier, possibly-could-fit version:



It's been a good week for sock knitting. We had a homeschool class at the zoo, and a homeschool class at the science center (and, yes, we actually made it this time), a Girl Scout meeting, a dance performance, and a piano lesson (by the way, it's been a crappy week for getting actual homeschool-at-home lessons done, as you can imagine). I turned the heel during piano lessons, and now do not have to worry about turning the heel during tomorrow's feis (bonus: the wonky stage assignments for Kid2's hornpipe appear to have been changed, too). All I have to cope with are the gusset decreases. Woohoo! Too bad I've totally lost interest in Irish Dance, and have moved on to a new obsession....

It happened rather abruptly, this loss of interest. Kid1's Girl Scout troop is planning a weekend camping trip for the fall. Kid1 has never been on a trip like this, so we were looking over the packing suggestions together -- it's sort of like gathering a trousseau, for pete's sake, with multiple pairs of underwear, multiple pairs of pants, 2 pairs of pajamas with pants ("hmm, you know, we could sew those"), hat for daytime, stocking cap for sleeping ("fleece or wool would be good for that, since it should be soft and snug"; "Do you think you could knit one in Junior Girl Scout green? With maybe a little pink trim? Wouldn't that be cool!"), multiple pairs of socks ("that's so if you get them wet you can change them; if they were made of wool it'd be really nice, wouldn't it, since wool stays warm even when wet ... wow, would you want me to handknit socks for this?"; "No, I'd rather have the hat"; too bad, I want to make the socks anyway), etc. And, well, before you know it, we're pulling out sewing patterns and knitting patterns, and looking over yarn and fleece and flannel options.

Here's the problem we're having with the packing list: she's outgrown practically all of her clothing. She can use a lot of my clothing on this trip since 1) she is now as tall as I am, and weighs almost as much as I do, and 2) all of my clothing looks like it's spent a few weeks grubbing around a campsite already, so it's not like she's going to ruin it. But we do need to get some items for her (after all, she has no cool weather clothing that fits whatsoever), and why not drive ourselves crazy trying to make it all ourselves? I mean, that's the way we do things around here, after all. And the camping trip gives us a deadline, so we aren't still trying to get around to this, oh, say, next March.

As to whether the Boilermaker socks ever get finished, well, who knows. If I'd knit straight through without ripping I'd already have a pair. As it is, I have half a sock, and a head full of ideas for other things I want to knit (or sew) instead of these.

Note to Self: Turning a Heel and Attending a Feis Simultaneously Doesn't Work

Because I loose my place in both the heel and the feis.

We stayed at the Hyatt in downtown Kansas City. On the one hand, they goofed up our reservation regarding the roll-away bed and how many people would be staying in the room (hotels always goof up the roll-away, so we had brought our own aerobed). On the other hand, they had ESCALATORS! Right there near the check-in desk! So, like, when Mom is checking in, you can run over and ride up and down them several times!

The feis was at the Westin, which is connected to the Hyatt via a walkway. On Friday night we checked into the feis, rode the Westin escalators a few times, and visited the Irish Festival. We watched The Fuchsia Band, who we enjoyed (we spent most of the weekend singing their song Ceili Band ... except the only words we could remember were "we're a Ceili Band", so it was a bit monotonous). Overall, though, the event served to remind us that we really don't like street fairs that much. Oh well. The Hyatt gave out complimentary tickets to the Festival, so it wasn't as though we had spent out money on it. And the Festival did have a knitting contest -- the kids thought I should enter it. I didn't feel like messing with it, though. Maybe another year.

The feis itself was on Saturday, and was fun. I liked the layout -- it was easy to find everything (except the restrooms). The feis didn't charge for spectators, which was nice since many of us had invited Kansas City relatives to come see our kids compete. We were on stage E and stage F, along with all the other First Feis, Beginner 1, Beginner 2 and Novice. The room for stage E was a bit small, considering the number of spectators. I felt like I barely had room to knit



I was working on transforming August's UFO Resurrection sock into something I might actually finish knitting and perhaps even wear. I'm making up the pattern as I go along. So far this hasn't been the easiest project to carry along -- I seem to have lost one of the needles down the side of Mrs. Piano Teacher's chair last week, and making up a heel whilst simultaneously keeping track of where we are in the feis schedule really did. not. work. Of course, it didn't help that the Slip Jig competition went on forever, partially because one of the dancers threw up at the check-in station (I never did hear whether it was just nerves or what, let alone the answer to the primal question of did it get on her dress?).

Stage F was in a larger room, and blessedly cool. It was also right next to the hotel concessions. Grandma and Grandpa spent most of their time there.

Other thoughts on the feis: My older daughter was mortified that they were to sit in chairs in the waiting area, as she felt it crushed her dress. I liked that they clearly announced when the lunch break would be. I liked how caring the adjudicators were, pausing to publicly congratulate all the First Feis contestants for getting up and dancing (apparently one little boy on stage F was so distraught before dancing that the adjudicator went over to him and spent a few moments soothing him), and generally make sure the Beginners had a chance to have fun and do their best. They still managed to briskly wrap up the competitions we were involved in (in spite of the vomiting incident) by lunch time.

We collected our awards (some of which the sock is wearing in the above picture -- no, the sock didn't win a 2nd and 3rd, but that's part of our collection). I was impressed that the kids placed so well, considering that they had been up late riding escalators rather than practicing and/or getting a good night's sleep.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying downtown Kansas City with some relatives, then swimming in the hotel pool, riding escalators, and watching the Irish Fest fireworks.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel, went to church with relatives, then over to my sister-in-law's house. We headed home later in the afternoon; I spent the ride undoing most of the knitting I'd done at the feis, then re-knitting it.

We were exhausted Monday morning, but had tickets for the Cardinal's game. Well, MrV and I had tickets. The kids went to a relative's house (which has a pool) here in St. Louis. I gotta tell you, these were Amazingly Good Seats, and if I had a camera phone I would've been calling Weaver to show her, since I know she would've been impressed. Mostly, though, I wanted to take a nap, and the game went downhill fast. Gees. You'd think the Cardinals had been up all night riding escalators or something.

So we have now Travelled to a Feis. And we had fun doing it. This puts us in the realm of hardcore Irish Dance families. Or maybe it's just that we like to ride escalators.

UFO Resurrection for August

Frankly, the 105F temperature has sucked away my will to live, let alone my interest in knitting. And my UnFinished Object pile struck me as particularly icky this month; it appeared to me the best thing for it was to pitch the entire pile in the trash bin. Then again, everything has been striking me as particularly icky this month and in need of pitching in the trash -- see above comment about temperature.

But we have reached a moment of crisis -- we are to go to a High School Musical 2 party tonight, and I need some knitting to take along. And I have nothing "current" (as opposed to "icky unfinished object") on the needles.** And heaven forbid I face an evening of watching a movie with nothing to do but sit and watch the movie. That just seems so ... warped.

(Aside: Actually, we had never seen the original High School Musical until last night, when we watched it on the Disney Channel in preparation for tonight's event. We are so out of touch with current popular culture. Sigh.)

(Aside to the above aside: We are so out of touch with current culture that when the kids are playing dolls I overhear the dolls being made to say things like: "I'm calling my boyfriend on my cell phone. My boyfriend is Rafael Nadal. We're secretly engaged." And while I'm impressed that they came up with a male figure who isn't part of Star Trek or Star Wars, I can't help but think that choosing Rafael Nadal over someone a little more mainstream like, say, Zac Efron is a bit odd.

Then again, these are kids who have a mom who's currently panicking about what knitting to take to a movie, so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised. Our family is always on a different page than everybody else. Sometimes we're not even in the same book)

So I dragged out the box of sock yarn to spend some time in quiet contemplation. And I discovered this:



I was making a Caeser's Check mosaic sock out of Lorna's Laces Bee Stripe with Lorna's Laces black for my dad, Purdue fan extraordinaire (Purdue's colors are gold and black, in case any readers are heathen enough to not know the school colors of all the Big 10 schools). The pattern is from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. I really like mosaic knitting, and I think that's a nifty looking sock-start there BUT the black yarn with the black-and-gold yarn was Too Much Black to Knit This Pattern -- I needed high beam lights to keep track of where I was in the mosaic pattern. So I had ripped out the needles and shoved it in the bag.

(I'm glad I ripped out the needles, else I might be tempted to start knitting it again ... and in about 2 more inches I'd be hating myself.)

Ooooooh, if I rip this up, I could start a pair of socks from the Bee Stripe with black ribbing, toe and heel ... just in time for football season, too. I could make them for me. Or my dad. Or MrV. Or, heck, my mom would probably like a pair of handknit socks.

So, still some details to hammer out, like what pattern, and for whom. And still the perilous journey to the bottomless pit of needles to find appropriate tools. But I think I'll be set to watch Zac Efron tonight; and since Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from Cincinnati, Zac is where it's at for now.

**Sahara is totally knit and blocked. No pic, though, since if I put it on touches my skin, and in this weather I need loose clothing or else I start frantically clawing the offending garment.

Recent Knitting

My UFO Resurrection sweater for July made great progress during the past month:



The sleeveless version of Sahara, knit in Classic Elite's Classic Silk. I found the rest of the yarn I was using, I seem to be knitting it in the same size I had planned. All I have left to do is pick up the stitches for the neck, then block. The problem is that "pick up the stitches for the neck" business, as this requires getting out a longer circular needle than the one I used to pick up and knit around the armholes. And going and getting the correct needle out? Well, let's just say the needle-control situation here is totally lacking. It's overwhelming. It's a mess.

(By the way, I also have fabric for a coordinating skirt, so now I have an entire Unfinished Outfit piled up here!)

So instead of dealing with finding the correct needle, I cast on something else, something using easy-to-locate needles:



A helmet liner. Except now I'm to the point that I need to switch to double points. Which means getting out needles. Which I really, really do not want to have to deal with.

I'd rather go mow the lawn in the 100F heat, then go swimming.

UFO Resurrection for July

It's time to get back to Sahara



One could argue that this didn't really achieve UFO status since I always planned to return to it once I finished the Sockapalooza socks.

But it HAD reached what-a-mess-I'd-like-to-stick-this-in-a-bag-and-forget-about-it status. When I pulled it out to work on it the other day I realized that I had no idea where I was in the pattern, and didn't really recall what size I was making. After about an hour of fiddling around with it yesterday I managed to figure out where I am (I think I'm at the waist, although I wouldn't be surprised to discover otherwise) and the probable size. I even managed to knit a row.

I'd feel better about plunging into this UFO resurrection if I had any inkling where I put the rest of the yarn. Once I finish this skein I may return to the stick-this-in-a-bag-and-forget-about-it method of dealing with this sweater.

Stay tuned.

UFO Resurrection Challenge

A couple of years ago I decided to knit a Prayer Shawl for someone. It was not a good move, and I knew it at the time. I had knit a few other Prayer Shawls for other people, and it was a fine experience, but this was just wrong, for several reasons.

I haven't seen the person I'm knitting this for since about September 2005:



And this past Sunday I walked into the Fellowship Hall at church and saw a friend knitting with almost the exact color of yarn (not Homespun, though, but some other higher end yarn).

"Oh, what's that?"

"A Prayer Shawl."

"Yes, that's what I thought."

I took this as a sign. I decided that she's knitting the dark red Prayer Shawl for the universe, and it would throw the world off balance to have mine languishing on the closet shelf for another 2 years.




New location of the Prayer Shawl I was knitting. Okay, not really -- I already took the trash bag out to the outdoor trash can, and it will soon be on its way to the dump. But you get the picture. Not even its Project-Spectrum-appropriate redness could save it.

And, yes, it occurs to me that my UFO Resurrection projects are tending towards non-resurrection, as several of them end up ripped up (although this is the first one I've out-and-out tossed without even trying to recover the yarn). But, wow, it's a good feeling to dump some of this stuff.

Trip Knitting, UFO Resurrection edition

We're back from our Mother's Day roadtrip, visiting both moms (MrV's and mine) as well as sisters, brothers, and more playgrounds than you can imagine.

For trip knitting I took along my new, improved version of Cable-Down Raglan. Oh, I fell in love with that sweater as soon as I saw it in Interweave Knits. I immediately got some Classic Silk yarn (Classic Elite) in a lavender to make this most-perfect spring sweater.

I swatched it up, and my gauge was a little loose. My gauge is almost always a little loose lately, and I realize that this is because I am just about the only person in the world who knits in proper tension -- everyone else has started knitting way too tightly, and the patterns and ball bands reflect this. Y'all need to relax, for pete's sake, and stop knitting so tightly. Anyway, until that happens, I have to fiddle with gauge.

No problem, I thought -- I'll just forge ahead and knit the sweater according to a different size, and everything will be hunky-dorey. Except, of course, after I had knit into it few inches I realized the error of my logic -- since it is a top-down raglan, and every size casts on the exact same number of stitches, my large gauge made my neckline HUGE.

So, rip it back. Re-swatch. Many, many swatches later I cast on again. Oh, joy of cables! Oh, joy of silk yarn in pretty pretty color! After I had knit the first ball of yarn (that's 135 yards, so I got through the entire first cable repeat) just for fun I measured my gauge ... which was now too tight. Ack! The dreaded gauge-was-spot-on-in-swatch-but-gauge-is wonky-during-project syndrome!

I ripped. I swatched some more. I cast on again. I knit several rows, set down the knitting for a time, totally lost track of where I was in the pattern, and decided what the heck -- I'd just rip it back out and start again (at this point I pretty much had the entire beginning of the sweater memorized).

So, I ripped, started a fourth run on it ... and realized that I had totally missed spring. Spring in St. Louis lasts approximately 10 days. Just 10 short days between shivering in wool and sweltering in as little clothing as possible. We're already thoroughly into Swelter Season here. Cable-Down Raglan had missed its season.

And so, of course, I did the only sensible thing. I ripped it out again, and cast it on again. Only this time without cables. And instead of raglan, it has a provisional cast-on at the shoulder. And a deep V-neck. And little cap sleeves.



Why, yes, that IS a lot like Sahara, now that you mention it. As a matter of fact, it's exactly Sahara. I would be further along, but one of the charms of Sahara is that you can try it on as you knit and thereby customize the fit ... except when you're knitting in a car on an interstate highway, then the "try on as you go" doesn't work quite so well.

Goodbye, Cable-Down Raglan! Perhaps we will meet again in a different season, in a different yarn. For now, you have been resurrected as Sahara.

Finally Warm Enough to Wear the Easter Outfit

Dress is #38 from Ottobre 2/2005 in a linen blend from JoAnn's.

Sweater is from Stefanie Japel's Fitted Knits using some ancient Paton's South Pacific recovered from an old Unfinished Object. Apologies for the poor photo of the sweater -- it didn't occur to me until today that Kid1 had arranged her hair all over the sweater in every single shot.

This shrug looks So Good with this dress. Kid1 just loves the look. If you have any 11 year old girls hanging around the house, consider making this combo. Or just the shrug.

The choker is crocheted out of the South Pacific, and has one of the flower embellishments I had made for the dress (the flowers on the dress are near her right hand). I ended up making several flowers to get 2 that I liked for the dress, having never before entered the wonderful world of Sulky stabilizer plus multiple layers of fabric plus fusible web plus using a sewing machine to embroider (I don't have an actual embroidery machine, so I faked it with the triple-width stitch).

UFO Resurrection, Stealth Edition (Shhhh!)

It's Easter time, which means it's time once again to ask ourselves, "Will the kids actually get the felted sheep this year in their Easter baskets?"

What felted sheep? The ones I blogged about here and here and here. Timeline in brief, in case you don't want to slog through old posts: purchased yarn and pattern in 2005 and started knitting. Moved. Decided to complete sheep for Easter 2006. Discovered that I'd lost part of the pattern in the move. Got pattern from cool folks at Fiber Trends who emailed me the part I was missing. But their heroic efforts were for naught, since I still ended up shoving the unfinished sheep back in the closet for another year.

I did manage to felt the sheep before I stuck them away last spring:



And this week, by golly, I finally stuffed them with wool:


Two years in the making!

Here's how the size compare to a 7 pound cat:


If I were a better mom I'd have embroidered the kids' initials on the sheep. But, alas, I'm a mom who is still trying to finish sewing an Easter dress, finish knitting a shrug to go with the other completed Easter dress, and currently has eggs on the stove to cook and dye today; not to mention I still need to fill a bunch of plastic eggs with stuff for hiding over the weekend, and clean up the sewing mess from the dining room if we're to have any chance of using it as a dining room Sunday. If I had to embroider initials I think I'd end up sticking the sheep back in the closet another year. A plain sheep in the Easter basket is worth 2 embroidered-initial sheep in the closet. Or something like that.

UFO Resurrection Challenge for March

It's taken me awhile to come up with my March UFO Resurrection because I've been trying to coordinate the UFOs with Project Spectrum, and, well, there are so many UFOs around here that coordinate with the current color, and so many of those UFOs that I would rather pretend don't exist. You know, those nasty little UFOs that you keep thinking you'll deal with later, when you're a stronger person, like maybe in 10-20 years.

And so, I present a UFO that comes with a saga that spans decades.

It all began back in ... well, I'm not sure when. Or where. I bought a bag of Paton's South Pacific so I could knit something or other, probably out of Vogue Knitting. This was probably in the early 1990s, and probably in either New Hampshire or Indiana. Who knows. I can't even find any info online about when the yarn was manufactured. A couple of years ago I found it on Wiseneedle.com, but it seems to have been deleted to make way for newer, more interesting yarn.

Then other stuff happened. We moved to Maryland. We moved to Delaware. We moved to Ohio. And the yarn was packed up and moved each time, still in its bag.

Finally, a couple of years ago, I decided to clear it out of my life. I found a great pattern for it in Vintage Knits, a long sleeved ribbed pullover. I cast on and started knitting away on pointy little size 3 bamboo needles. I loved the way it was coming out (even thought the yarn is splitty, and I can see why it's no longer sold). I loved the idea of wearing a white ribbed pullover:



And then one day it occured to me that I had loved the idea of a white long sleeved ribbed pullover so much that I'd gone out and bought one readymade:



Well. That sort of took the oomph out of the knitting, you know, discovering that I was knitting a duplicate of a top I already owned. I set the knitting aside. Eventually I packed it up and moved it to Missouri.

Then, one day recently I wanted to knit Kid1 a shrug to go over her Easter dress. I looked through the stash of white yarn. I knit guage swatches. And the winner was:



Yes, the Paton's South Pacific. So, after sitting around in bags for over a decade, going through multiple household moves, and time knitted up as the back and most of the front of a sweater, I've come up with a purpose for this yarn and I need it done in about 3 days time. It will feel good to get rid of this UFO and yarn, after all this time.

I think I might burn any leftover yarn, except being acrylic it would probably stink. Maybe I'll bury it in the back yard. In any event, it will All. Be. Gone. when this shrug is done, regardless of how much the shrug takes. Pics of a Finished Object will show up around Eastertime, we hope. If not, assume I'm burning or burying the Unfinished Shrug.

UFO Resurrection Challenge

February's UFO is complete!



Pattern from the Blue Blog (she may take this pattern and link away as we come closer to book publication time; I'm glad she hasn't yet, though, since I lost the pattern when I got to the neck).

Yarn is from Dale of Norway, Falk washable. Needles were size 4 US.

Kid1 was very pleased with it. I had her try it on when I finished seaming it. She wanted to continue wearing it, but I made her take it off so I could weave in all the yarn ends that were hanging out (I think having yarn ends dangling out of your finished knitting looks sort of like boogers dangling out of your nose, but apparently Kid1 doesn't share this attitude). Of course, by the time I got the yarn ends all tidied away she had lost all interest in it. By then she was hot from sledding and the hot chocolate we had afterwards. And I was distracted having Kid2 throw up all the hot chocolate into the sink, which then plugged up, so I didn't really care.

(This is why I will never have a swanky knitting blog. I start out talking about a nice, neat sweater, and veer into boogers and vomit. That's life with young kids, though. And I'm not even telling y'all about the really weird stuff going on around here.)

The new Interweave Knits arrived right after I finished. Great timing to just curl up and select a new project, right? Except I'm now busy altering skirts. Pleated skirts. With zippers up the side, and elastic in the back, and a slightly trapezoidal shape to the pleats. Ick.

UFO Ressurection, Project Spectrum

Kid1 and I had many discussions about Weasley sweaters. Many, many discussions. Until finally last fall I ordered some Dalegarn Falk, charted a letter for the front, and cast on, around about November.

(I'm skipping the part where she changed her mind about which house's colors she wanted without telling me, and also the part where I got a different yarn for the sweater, swatched it up and realized that it was a really, really bad choice. Let's just focus on the fact that we're both happy with the current yarn and the color.)

I cast on in size Massively, Laughably Huge; it's going to be big enough for ME, for pete's sake, let alone for an 11 year old girl. I wasn't sure about this -- on one hand, the this big size meant huge swathes of stockinette on size 4 needles. On the other hand, it meant that she could wear the sweater for years and years, since, you know, Dalegarn Falk! This sweater will last forever! And, you know, she can layer it this year so it won't look quite so baggy.

I commented that it might not be done for Christmas. I didn't have any Christmas knitting planned, per se, but it's a busy time and I wasn't going to guarantee that I'd be knitting like a mad woman in December, trying to finish up projects. As a matter of fact, I was feeling pretty smug about my lack of holiday knitting -- no pressure to finish anything by the Big Day! Whee! Except then, of course, there were sudden urgent calls for thrum mittens and a black cotton non-chemo-cap. And another project that I cast on, and never mentioned here, and will be a future UFO Resurrection (if I continue to match up UFO Resurrections with Project Spectrum, expect to see it in June/July).

Then after the flurry of the holidays I realized I had an urgent need for a camisole for a party we were going to. And then, after that was finished, I finally had a chance to cast on the Hourglass Sweater I've been meaning to knit for the past 2 years.

So I started swatched up the yarn, then started casting on. Kid1 looked up and asked, "What's that you're working on now?"

Oh, just a sweater for me. Isn't this a nice yarn? Isn't this a pretty color?

"Oh. Another sweater for you."

(Long pause while we all have a chance to contemplate that I have just completed a project for myself and have now immediately plunged into a second.)

"Well," sigh, "I'm just worried that I'm not going to be able to even wear that Weasley by the time you finish it because it'll be too small."

Uurgh...ummm...ah...well. Yes. She has suddenly popped up to being about my height. We're quickly reaching that trading-clothing scenario. So. Yep, better get back to work on that Weasley.

(At this point Kid2 -- who is forever petite -- piped up to assure us, "Don't worry -- I can wear it!" which inspired a huge fight about letters and house colors and whatnot. We'll also skip that part.)

So, here's what I'm carrying around to dance classes and swim classes and piano lessons and choir and Friday night pizza-and-a-DVD-at-home, racing against the growth spurt:



My Project Spectrum blue knitting for February (I really wanted to be knitting something else blue, a specific other item, but we'll also skip that part because linking to the picture of it would just leave me heaving deep sighs for how inutterably cool it would be to knit). One more sleeve and a collar to go!

UFO Resurrection Challenge

I've been in a de-cluttering frenzy all week. As the latest inspiration, I've joined the UFO Resurrection Challenge. I hope to do something with some of these odd little piles of yarn and knitting. I also hope to learn how to spell "resurrection" on the first try, given that I'll be typing the word at least once a month.

January's entry is from the Dulaan sock-making frenzy of last October-Socktoberfest. I made a massive boo-boo in pairing up the yarn and the pattern. So, now you see it:



And now you don't:



I'm not quite sure what to do with this yarn now. It's worsted weight, and I have about 4 ounces. For now it's going in a ziploc and getting stuck down in stashland (also known as "that cedar closet in the basement").