The Wiz Has a Hat

        I spent today avoiding real work.

Wiz has been asking for a snowboarder/ear flap hat for his cold ears (his Raynaud's bothers his ears so he wants hats that will cover them), after seeing my hat.  He liked this yarn that was supposed to become mittens or something, so I cast on this morning.  After reading the pattern, I realized that I didn't want to make it the way it was written.  Hats should be knit in the round!  Seams are itchy!  

 So I fudged it.  I did it pretty well, too, and didn't have to rip anything out.  I finished it before he went to bed.  He likes it quite a lot, but wants me to wash it so it's softer.  I think that I can do that.

Game Boy wants one too.  But with shorter strings, please.  I think I can do that too.

(Details for the knitters are found here.)

Stress Knitting

Last week, Wiz had a hematology check up.  Going to hematology is not favorite activity, and it is especially nerve-wracking when the weather isn't great and I'm driving in interesting road conditions.  (This time, the pass was open on the way over, but one needed 4WD to be allowed to go over. When we reached the hotel, the desk clerk asked me if we'd been delayed by the avalanche control.  We hadn't, and I'm very glad, because that takes a long time.)

Anyway, there's a lot of time involved in seeing the hematologist.  I had not much to do in the hotel, so I knitted.  I knitted a two pairs of mini mittens (the pink and green ones) so I'm getting a head start on Christmas this year.  (I know, but this is better than making them all in November.)

While we were in the waiting room, I worked on the purse socks.  We have about an hour wait after Wiz's blood is drawn before we see Dr. S.  I finally finished these socks, which I started in August.  I only worked on them while waiting, so maybe it took me awhile, but really, I just didn't have enough waiting room time.

 I finally finished my Sitcom Chic, which I can't remember when I started it.  I do still need to get a clasp for it, but everything else is finished.  I'll get better pictures once I am finished with it completely.  

So, yeah, for being stressed out?  I did finish a lot of knitting because that's what I do when I'm stressed out. Silver linings and all that.

Pictures

 Curlycues on a hat

Mini-hats

More Finished Objects

I have now knitted 27 hat ornaments.  I have gotten a little bored with plain, so I came up with this type:

 little stranded hats, with an XO pattern.  These two are the best ones.

 I also finished Wiz's piano teacher's fingerless mitts.  These are Monkey Fingerless Mitts, by Michelle Johnson.  It's Dream in Color Rustic sock yarn, in Maple.  These were fun to knit and I might knit a pair for me, too.  (I don't think one can have too many pairs of fingerless mitts.)

Soon I have to pick up Wiz from his piano lesson, and I'll give these to her.  I hope that she likes them!

And I'm Knitting

but mostly I'm working, and going to meetings, and hanging out with the boys when the Collar has a meeting.  I haven't managed to go to knit group (Game Boy now has youth group, and the Collar goes too), so Wiz and I are on our own then.  Maybe next year?

Currently I'm knitting several things:

Sitcom Chic (I'm working on sleeve number one, but haven't knit on it for awhile because I'm doing this instead:

 This is monkey mitt #1 for Wiz's piano teacher.  I have begun the second one, and probably will get to the thumb gusset today.   After that, I'm knitting hats and mittens for her daughters.

I am knitting this year's ornaments.  Hats!  Lots, and lots of hats.  Above are 15 hats and I'll make at least 30.  They are pretty fast knits, but I'm sure I'll be tired of them soon.  They are very cute so far, and I'll still have lots and lots and lots of sock yarn left over.  I don't know what I'll do when I run out of left over sock yarn bits.  (Actually, can that ever happen?)

A Hat, and a Start

I wanted an easy project to take with me while we were on vacation.  The Sockhead hat fit the bill very well.
It's a nice, easy project.  I like the way it looks, but not on me.  It will have to find another home.

The last time I knit the Collar a sweater, it ended in disaster.  (It felted, and I cried.  The Collar might have too, but he never told me.)

So, I'm knitting him a sweater.  This one is a heavily patterned sweater.  I'm working on the back.  I do like the way it's going so far.  It's nice to have something where you can see it change.  Miles of stockinette (such as the hat above) bore me to tears.  Too bad that I like the way stockinette looks in sweaters and hats!

I've also started another sweater for me (red, of course), and I've got a pair of socks.  There is a pair I'm going to rip (again!), but there is one pair that is chugging along quite nicely.

Red Sweater

I knit a little sweater for myself recently.  This is before buttons.

 After I put the buttons on it.  (It's hard to take pictures of yourself in a sweater.)

A view of the lacy pattern on the top.

The pattern is Hey Teach from Knitty.  I made it a little bit longer than called for in the pattern, and it fits if I don't button it.  (Well, I can button it, and it isn't tight, but it gaps on me.  It looks fine open.)  I've worn it a couple of times already, and it's just right for 60 degree days, which are starting to threaten.

It did not take me long to knit this sweater at all.  Even better, I still have about two cones worth of the Lamb's Pride cotton fleece, so I can knit another sweater or two.  I think I'll knit Sitcom Chic  but with long sleeves rather than 3/4 sleeves.

(It doesn't matter that I have four red sweaters.  One--if you are me-- can never have enough red sweaters.)

Keeping Myself Busy

I like to make things.  Some things I make take minutes (ice cream and other frozen stuff), some a few hours, and some days, weeks, or months.  For instance, soon I'll be starting a sweater for the Collar.  It will be heavily patterned, so it will take me months.

Now, I'm knitting a sweater for me.  I started it last week (?), and am one pattern repeat from the neckline on the back.  It's a really fast knit.  I am sure that all the Knitty readers know what it is:

 The yarn is much redder than the pictures.  When it is finished, I'll take some shots outside.

 This project took about 45 minutes.  The fabric was supposed to be for pajama bottoms for Game Boy.  Surprise!  In the three weeks since I bought it, he grew and I would have needed another 6 inches of fabric to make him shorts in the length he wanted.  He decided he wanted a pillow case instead.  I still owe him a second pair.

The boys jointly picked out fabric for pajama bottoms.  (Periodically, they both decide that they want to have the same clothes--and I'd always said I'd never have my kids wear the same outfit.  Oh well.)  Jungle print (not accurately portrayed) for both boys.  Wiz is modelling his pair.

Then there's the second pair of Wiz's shorts--in all of their planetary goodness.  He loves all things space.  Now the boys have cooler pjs for the rest of the summer.  I just need to drag the Collar to pick out fabric for his pj pants now.  Wiz picked some out for him, but I'm not sure that is a good idea.

Socks Of My Very Own

I have this yarn.  It's yarn that many knitters worldwide stalk as if it is a lion on the Serengheti.  Me?  I lucked into it.  A friend (LittleMy) from Knittyboard sent it to me in a secret pal swap.  I knit a pair of socks out of it and I wear them at least weekly in the winter.  I had a lot left over, so I thought I'd knit another pair of socks.  They needed to be special, so I looked for a pattern.  I didn't find one.  I looked through a stitch dictionary, and found this:

a pattern called lily.  Here it is in yarn with decreases and yarnovers.

 It looks better on my right foot, because that one is wider.  (It's the one I broke back when we lived in Lexington.)  The pattern opens up a little more.

 On the bottom, is the view someone else will see when they look at my feet (hey, I have nerdy friends).  I think it looks like a jelly fish (which is also cool).  On the top, is how they look when I look at my feet. I do that sometimes, especially when I'm wearing hand knit socks.  They make me happy.

I need to make some decisions about these socks.  Do I enter them in the fair?  Should I write up the pattern?  Or shall I keep them mine, and mine alone?

Unmotivated

I'll admit to being unmotivated to write blog entries.  I'm not really sure why, though.  I can't decide what to write.  We've been busy (I always say that) and I've kind of tried to keep Wiz's medical stuff out of the blog this year (because I started a caring bridge page for him), twitter and facebook are faster and easier, and then I've just let two weeks go by and haven't written anything at all.  Enough of that!  I'll let you know what is going on here, now.

 The last day we were in Seattle, Wiz and I went and found the Fremont Troll.  He's large, and pretty neat to climb on.  Wiz said it was fun, but he was not exactly the most fun part of the trip.  That's fair--we did a lot, and we did just see this guy.


 Walla Walla now has a wooden bat league (a place for college students to practice the skills they'll need if they go to the pros someday).  We went to opening night.  Wiz brought a glove, although he seems to think it'll be better if he wears it on his head.

 Game Boy loves baseball.  He's bound and determined to get a ball this year.  We will go pretty often, so he does have a chance.

The Sweets lost, but we had fun watching any way.

 I have been knitting some.  Right now there is a bathmat in the works, three pairs of socks (one will be frogged because it's too small and two which I'm "designing"), and a stranded mitten.  I really want to start a toddler sweater (for a girl--but I don't know why) and another shawl, because I'm wearing my shawls all the time right now.

This is one of the socks I'm designing.  It is left over Wollmeise in Red Hot Chili, so it has a very short leg.  The design isn't showing up terribly well, but it is a lily on the top of the foot of the sock.  I need to start the second one, now.

Finishing

Today is a day for finishing things.

I finished Game Boy's new knucks.

I finished curtains for our bathroom.

I finished this very long trilogy (over 1300 pages of fiction.

And tonight I'll be finishing my 30s. 

Tomorrow is for starting:  new projects, new decades, other new things.

What to do

when concentrating is hard.

The really big clapotis

It covers most of the hammock

 The clapotis (pattern on Knitty.com) I started the day before Wiz's surgery.  I messed it up, though.  I added 6 extra increase repeats.  I had to buy more yarn, and I knit only 9 straight repeats.  It's warm, and huge, and almost a blanket.  It was just complicated enough to be interesting, and not too complicated that I'd mess it up while working on it at the hospital.  I wove in the ends the morning before Wiz went back to school for the first time.  (I used Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Moondance and knitted it with size 7 needles.  Really lovely yarn.)

Swirly socks for the Collar

 On the drive over to Seattle, I finished these socks for the Collar.  I mostly worked on them in waiting rooms.  (Serenity Sock Weight in Picasso Marble--just simple easy stockinette socks.

skinny cozy made with super bulky yarn, so the heavy skinny cozy

 Before we went over, I knit this.  I have no idea why.  I'm not sure it even has much use!  But now, I can concentrate again, so I've started this:

Stranded mitten.  Complicated knitting is available to me again.

Where Was I?

I've been sick and busy. Whee! There's a lot to do to get ready for surgery for a kid. It's amazing how much there is to do. Find things for him to do, find things for his brother, make him new pajamas--so much to do and so little time.

I decided that stranded knitting is probably not the best idea at the moment. I kept messing up the pattern, so I am putting it aside for a bit. I made a giant rectangular thing using super bulky yarn and the Cozy stitch pattern. There isn't a good picture of it yet. I really need to block it better.I sewed a pair of pajama bottoms for each of the boys. Wiz's are monsters (very happy monsters)

and Game Boy's are owls. I have fabric to make each one another pair, but I don't think I have time right now. Today is preparing to go to Seattle for an extended period of time. I won't be updating here much (I'll be using Wiz's carepage for the surgery stuff) but I'll post short updates via twitter and facebook.

(We have a housesitter, so don't worry about the house being empty.)