is this thing on?

So.

My baby graduated from preschool yesterday. My sweet baby boy, nearly six years old (his birthday will be on the first day of Kindergarten this September), and I am left wondering where the time went.

This was a challenging fall/winter/spring for me. In large part due to the weather, which, let's be honest, really stunk, and all the driving hither and yon to preschool and speech therapy. And also in part due to the transition we are making as a family. My kids are growing by leaps and bounds, after nearly eleven years of marriage some rough edges are showing (nothing dire, just typical stuff), my 24-hours-a-day time as 'provider of all things' is drawing to a close, and I am faced with what my own future holds. I have felt raggedy and cranky a lot so blogging went out the window because who wants to read that?

You hear so much about what is involved with caring for newborns, infants, toddlers, preschoolers...but not much about what comes next (other than the fact that teens are difficult, but duh, we all know that). What I mean is, where does my focus need to be now? How much does my life become about me? Should I immediately go out and try to find work, like most people seem to expect? Do I get a little "time off" to regroup and just sort of rediscover myself? Is that selfish? Shall I volunteer for every activity at my childrens' school now that I can actually be there whenever I want to be? Should I go all out and really increase my etsy business, to see if that is a viable way to make some income for our family?

I have no answers right now, only questions.

Oh, and about a ton of unfinished projects, ideas for projects, supplies for projects...so I will start there, and make these next few months about trying to settle down, untangle the knots, focus, and catch myself up.

kai's shirt

On my weekend hiatus from stole-knitting, I sewed up a shirt for my little guy. I had some really nice plaid shirting left over from a dress I made for Daughter last year - it's almost a seersucker, I guess. Very light and cool to wear. I had enough for another small garment so I made Kai's Shirt from that disaster of a sewing book, Weekend Sewing.

Everything you've read/heard about that book is true. It sucks, unfortunately. The patterns are so, so cute but everything about them is pretty much wrong, from fabric requirements to layout to assembly instructions. As a fairly experienced seamstress I was able to cobble this together but it would be more difficult for a beginner...who uses 1/4" seam allowances for garments? And even that is inconsistent, as the directions switch back and forth from 1/4" to 3/8", and the instructions for hemming the shirt don't work either. You have to kind of know what you are doing. But in the end, you will get a very nice, cute shirt. It's perhaps the best pattern in the whole book. At least the proportions are correct. I made a shirt for myself (also from this book) last year and the sleeves were easily 6" too long.

Yay, one sewing project off the pile! As the weather is about to get too warm for knitting (90? yuck!) I hope to get a few more sewing projects done this weekend.

lace knitting as therapy

Well, the shawl bug has definitely bitten again. I made one last week and I've started another.

First, Evelyn Clark's shetland triangle. Super easy-peasy pattern to work, though I managed to screw it up because I was watching television - that's where hubris gets ya. "Oh, it's so simple I can watch TV while I knit it!" Hahaha...tink.

This is without flash and it's the best I could do. I think my camera needs batteries. 

Here I used the flash so the pattern shows up better. However, you can see many, many, many versions of this shawl on Ravelry. Nearly 4000 of them! 

Mine was knit from about 1 and 2/3 skeins of Knitpicks gloss yarn (fingering weight). Last spring I made the flower basket shawl using this same yarn in a different colorway. This color might be called cocoa, but then again, it might not. It's been marinating in stash since Christmas 2007 after all, so this colorway may not even exist anymore. Like the yarn from the other shawl, this was part of a sock sampler kit, and again I thought there was a better use of wool/silk blend yarn than getting all pilly on my feet as a pair of socks. The silk content makes this yarn so interesting to knit with because it's almost crunchy. But it's still quite soft. Then, once washed and blocked, that crunchiness goes away and it's just drapey and lovely. 

I used a US 6 needle to knit this shawl, which is my favorite for fingering weight. Right now I'm enjoying making lace from fingering weight yarns, as I like the look of more "filled-in" stitches, rather than the really open look you get with lace weight.

The minute I had the brown one pinned out to block, I went searching on Ravelry for the next pattern. Sure, I could use one of the twelve-bazillion books I own, but no. I knew I had some fingering weight wool hanging around from nearly 10 years ago that I really wanted to use, so I searched for shawl patterns by weight and yardage required. 

Again, Evelyn Clark came through for me. The two balls of Nordic Blue Nature Spun fingering weight that I bought for $2 apiece in 2003 are just right for the swallowtail lace shawl. (Look at all the pretty F.O.s - nearly 10,000 of them!)

It's so addictive to knit these triangles. I finish and block them, admire them, and then fold them away in my cedar chest because I have no use for a lace shawl at this stage of my life. But they are just such an enjoyable knit for me. 

But wait, what's that you say? The last time I went on a lace-knitting bender it's because I was super duper stressed out and the obnoxiously detailed patterns kept my mind occupied so I didn't panic over life stuff? Ah yes, it was true then and it is true now. My son's speech therapist informed me that she was given the date for his annual CPSE meeting (committee on preschool special education) and it is in May. Our dear, darling therapist who I love is having a baby right then and will likely be unable to attend. Not cool! Also, we have to make some decisions about what to do regarding preschool and then kindergarten for AJ. 

My sweet boy will be turning 4 in September and is therefore eligible for Universal Pre-K, which would be 5 days/week at no cost to us (it is through the school district). He could continue to receive therapy services through UPK and/or, I think, in our home. (I want some sessions done when and where I can observe them.) The problem is his speech deficit is still such that we don't dare send him out on his own yet. 

Also, while of average height, he is a lightweight and looks younger than some of his peers. If he went to pre-K this fall he would be with kids who are turning 4 right now...some of them would be up to 8 months older than AJ. So we're discussing keeping him out of UPK this fall and sending him to a program on our own a couple mornings a week, then maybe three mornings a week for the second half of the year if it goes well. He would then go to a full pre-K program at age 5 the following year, and start kindergarten at 6. 

Everyone I've asked says this is The Best Idea Ever, even for boys who have no delays or problems but who just have late birthdays. It's what we're leaning toward right now...I think it would be best for him to have some extra time. After all, he spent the first 18 months of his life just learning how to eat. How can we expect him to be ready for everything all at once just because the calendar says he should be?

When we have the CPSE meeting I know they will ask what I am doing for his socialization needs, which up until now has been basically nothing. We have therapy at home 5 mornings a week. It doesn't leave much time for anything else. But our library does have story hour that we can get to, so I bit the bullet and signed up. We went today and he hated it, but we got through it and he will learn to sit still and listen, and to participate with the other kids. He will. It doesn't help that my social anxiety ratchets up to about a hundred in these situations...anyone remember my problem with Daughter's playgroup years ago?

So yeah, I'll just be here obsessively knitting lace shawls to keep my brain from eating itself and to squelch the panic and anxiety that keep creeping up. At least in the end I've made something pretty.

2011 Christmas sweater - F.O.

Hubs has ordered a part for the dryer. Fingers crossed!

This year's Christmas garb for the children is underway. I always try for coordinating, but not matchy-matchy. This year I think I'm going with red, black and white. AJ will wear red:

This is the Knitting Pure and Simple neckdown children's cardigan...again. I wasn't sure about the hood but this Cashsoft Aran yarn is so, so soft and squishy and nice I didn't want to waste any or leave any behind as an oddball in my stash. It's 10% cashmere, people! What a lucky 3 year old.

The colorway is "poppy" which isn't too important to share as the yarn is discontinued (probably why I got it for around $2/ball). I used nearly all 8 balls, which is weird. That's A LOT more yardage than the pattern calls for in the 2-4 year size. I used size 8 and 9 needles. The buttons are a new style I've been loving from Joann's - I used them on my most recent cardi for myself as well. They look just like leather but they are plastic! And therefore much cheaper. And also washable.

The remaining yarn is there in the photo, and I'd say those balls are about the size of clementines. Mission accomplished...8 balls from the stash are knit up and gone. My guilt-o-meter can go down a tad.

thoughts on summer

How do you see summer? Do you still think of it in terms of a big vacation, like when you were a kid and summer meant...doing absolutely nothing, or doing whatever you wanted, and it stretched out before you like an endless path?

As a stay-home mom I think of it like that. I've almost always lived by the school calendar, going from high school to college, then two years after that to graduate school, then on to teaching, and now I have a school-age child. My life is ruled by the school schedule, and I have come to really love and rely on the structure it brings.

Sadly, as a mom, summer is not a vacation, right? Gosh, I do still think of it that way, and long for warm, lazy afternoons sitting in a lawn chair with a good book and a glass of iced tea, or breezy mornings sitting on the patio working some cross stitch or knitting with my coffee. I make all these mental plans for what I'm going to accomplish, like finishing sweaters and starting on Christmas ornaments, creating involved cross-stitches to frame for my home, sewing quilts and garments, and getting a head start on next fall and winter's sewing and knitting.

HA!

My fantasy of my children happily playing in the sandbox or splashing around in the wading pool while I crafted serenely were quickly dashed this year. The children hop around from place to place, declaring the sandbox too hot, the wading pool too cold, and everything else, you guessed it, booooring. AJ mostly wants to follow his big sister like a shadow, so when she hops out of the pool and heads for the back door, he wants to go in too. This inevitably happens moments after I've gathered all the required towels, sunscreen, snacks, etc., and settled into my lawn chair for a few moments of knitting or stitching.

So to sum up, I'm getting absolutely nothing done. I spend my days refereeing the bickering of the children, chauffeuring Daughter to and from her library activities, serving up endless snacks, sweeping up sand and crumbs, and hiding in our air conditioned bedroom (yep, we are caught in the northeast heat wave, though thankfully on the low end with temps in the 90s). If not that, we're sitting in whatever pools we can find, or visiting grandma in her air conditioned house. It's too hot to hold knitting needles, too sticky for stitching, and I can't even turn on my bedside lamp to read at night because it throws too much heat. Yuck!

This too shall pass, I know, I know. In a few short years my children will be far better able to self-entertain. And I'm not complaining, really, about summer and heat. I vastly prefer being able to just run out the door with the kids when we want to go out, rather than bundling into winter gear...I guess I'm just making excuse that I don't have much to write about because this time is not really mine. It's all mommy all the time just now.

summer begins

Oops, did not mean to fall off the face of the planet for 2 weeks. It's been a busy, busy time and I got sick (again) with a sinus infection that traveled downward and settled in my throat, rendering me voiceless over the weekend.

Around here school starts after Labor Day and doesn't finish up until the end of June, so we've only just begun our summer vacation.

It seems like Kindergarten just started and now it's over! My big girl, on to first grade...

It's only been 4 days but school seems so far away already. Daughter is signed up for crafts and stories at the library, and also lego club which I have to admit sounds like fun. I don't mind paying taxes when these free activities are available to my kids. AJ isn't getting signed up for a specific activity this summer because he still has speech therapy several days each week and I have nowhere for Daughter to go if I'm busy with her brother. So we'll wait till fall.

I say that, but I don't know what the coming school year will bring. We're in the throes of transitioning from Early Intervention to our school district for AJ's speech services, and that means evaluations and testing and reports about our baby boy...which I know are all necessary to get him the help he needs, but it's a horrible process to endure from a mother's perspective. I have to sit there and calmly, quietly watch him be tested, all the while wanting to "translate" his speech because often I do know what he is saying, but the tester has no idea. Thankfully he scored right on target for his age cognitively, meaning he does not qualify for special education (which we pretty much knew), but the speech problem...well, it's pretty severe.

No one knows exactly what is wrong with my kid. As our ENT told me yesterday, he is one-of-a-kind, an interesting case. And you don't really want to be "interesting" in the medical world. Doctors like interesting cases. They want to poke your kid and see what happens. All along I've been hoping and praying things would even out and become easier; that he would succeed and prove that he's really just fine. Now we've been referred to cranio-facial specialists to further investigate the apparent weaknesses in AJ's palette, facial muscles, and eyes.

It all leaves me feeling frazzled and knotted up and confused. I want and need to do what is best for my son (and for my daughter, of course), but it is sometimes hard to know what that is when you're dealing with so many medical disciplines.

So if I disappear for a few days or weeks at a time, it's likely because I just can't sort my thoughts out in a coherent fashion. Through it all there's the endless laundry, the cooking and cleaning, the piles of sand tracked into the house that need sweeping, the potty training and cleaning up of accidents, the bills to be paid, the groceries to shop for, and of course the summer family fun to be had.

Back soon.

over the top?

Still clearing out the WIPs this week...Hubs went to a concert last night so I took the opportunity to finish up another project.

Daughter and I were in Joann's about a month ago when this fabric caught her eye, and we simply had to buy it for AJ. We had to, HAD TO I SAY!

Ok, it's a bit.....loud. But come on, he's 2. It's fine to be this loud when you're little, right? He desperately needed some summer pajamas, too. Serendipity, methinks.

This has become a favorite in my pattern collection. I've made 4 sets for Daughter and now 2 sets for AJ. I'm not so into the fussy collar on a set of pajamas, so I always make the collar-less version. Also, pockets? On pajamas? No thank you. We go simple around here.

Anyway, they're size 2, and use about 1.25 yards of 44" woven fabric, so they are fairly economical. I used 4 bright yellow plastic buttons from my stash o' buttons to save some money and a trip to the store. Also, that shade of green does not exist in any thread collection (trust me, I looked!) so I used up a spool of limey green, which blended in surprisingly well. Ah, it feels good to use something up. Actually, I've used up several spools of old thread lately that kind of matched, rather than buying new spools for new projects as I used to do. Sometimes good enough is good enough!

I can't believe I'm making size 2 pajamas for my son. Looking back at those old posts with projects for my wee Daughter blows my mind. Today was her end-of-kindergarten concert and party! What?!? How can it be?

I'm outta here before I get verklempt.

late night ramblings

My son had his 7th surgical procedure this morning. He received his 3rd set of ear tubes to relieve the pressure from the sticky mucus that has been building up behind his eardrum. Not only is that gunk at risk of becoming infected, it also affects his hearing, his speech, and how comfortable he feels on a daily basis, so it had to be done.

I pray it was lucky number seven - as in, the last one. I don't know how many more times I can take it, truly. And I'm starting to worry about the effect of all this anesthesia on my little boy and his developing body and brain. When we walked in I was able to greet the recovery nurse by name, because our son has woken up with him twice before. He didn't remember us, which I completely understand. For me a day like today is terrifying. For him it's, you know, Friday.

So I've been up since 5 a.m. (we had to be at the hospital at 7, which is when we usually get up), I spent 4 hours at the hospital, I feel like I've barely eaten because since AJ couldn't eat, we didn't either, and I'm just totally out of whack. In fact I just looked at the calendar and was startled to discover it's still Friday.

I'm having a late-night snack of cinnamon toast and tea with lots of sugar and cream. Turns out I was starving. I just finished the top half of a little outfit I'm sewing for a special birthday girl whose party is tomorrow. We're going to the zoo in the morning with my best friend from middle school and her family, then to the birthday in the afternoon. I'll finish up the outfit in between and try to remember to take a photo.

I'm so thankful my kids are ok, and that all our problems have been pretty small problems in the grand scheme of things.

That was pretty random, I guess. Just wanted to get those thoughts out.

life stuff...and a question for you!

Dear Winter,

It is really time for you to go now. No seriously, we have had just about enough. GO AWAY.

We had this one nice day a few weeks ago, and the kids made the most of it, romping around in the melty snow, playing under the huge pine tree in our yard, and generally soaking in the nice temps. (Also, trashing their clothes almost beyond saving...thank you, Tide Stain Release!)

But since then we've pretty much had snow on the ground. These are tough winters, the ones with no thaw from Thanksgiving straight through till March. We often get a long, late autumn, with no snow up to or even on Christmas, or some nice warmish days in January, up into the 40s or even 50s. BUT NOT THIS YEAR! And it is starting to wear on me, big time. I'm feeling so utterly housebound - it makes me think of the Ingalls family in "The Long Winter" and I wonder how on earth they didn't all go screaming insane.

It's just that when everyone is sick and playdates get cancelled and it is truly too cold to spend much time outside...well, it gets really boring and frustrating for everyone involved. I'm so, so tired of hearing my own voice as I snap at the children (again and again and again): stop it! don't push him! quit pulling her hair! if you can't agree on a video I'm turning the TV off! etc, etc.

We did end up joining the museum, and that's fun on the days we can go. And I've been leaving the house every single day with AJ, even if it is just to drive around a bit and go for a donut and coffee. We go grocery shopping a few times a week, hit the drug stores with our coupons for good sale items, browse Joann's and the other craft stores, and get donuts or bagels together. Sure, it's kind of bad for my pocketbook, but it is better for my sanity. Until we can go outside and wander the neighborhood, or go to the park, or spend the afternoon at the wading pool with lots of other kids, it will have to do. I wish we could do something a bit more...I don't know, educational? Valuable? We'd go to the library to get books or participate in story hour, but my 2.5 year old destructo-bot would unshelve all the books and disrupt the story hour. He's just not quite ready for that yet (maybe in the autumn when he turns 3). For now it's strictly outings where he can be trapped in a cart or the stroller.

Daughter was off school for a week recently and it nearly killed me, trying to keep them both from destroying the house or hurting each other. They are just so bored, and have pent-up energy to spare. Winter kind of sucks for little kids! I know so many people lament the growing up process, and chastise those who "wish childhood away" but good heavens, I have had enough of the toddler years. (And did I mention we are potty training? Aaaargh!)

I know it's just a phase for both of the kids, but right now it's tough. There are very few activities I can come up with that suit both a 6 year-old and a 2.5 year-old. They can paint together...sort of...until AJ uses the same brush for all the paints and wrecks all the colors or Daughter starts hoarding paints so AJ can't reach. If I try to start an activity with Daughter, or play a game with her, AJ will either disappear and get into something dangerous, or try to wreck the game/activity. And if I try to sit down on any piece of furniture in the entire house, my son wants to crawl up and sit directly on top of me. Which wouldn't be so bad if he could sit still. But he writhes and tickles and pulls at my hair and just won't settle.

I'm grasping at anything that will cheer me up these days. That means blowing off my responsibilities (nuggets and potato smiley faces for dinner again, kids!) so I can sew or knit. Making sundresses gives me hope that nice weather is around the corner, hooray! And I find that utterly losing myself in a detailed sewing project (like this somewhat complex dress pictured above) is like a meditation for me. Sometimes I play music or NPR, but often I just sew in silence after everyone has gone to bed, or during naptime when AJ is sound asleep and the house is nice and quiet.

*****

I do have one nice thing to look forward to, and it is this: Hubs and I are planning to take a little vacation together, just the two of us, which we have not done since our honeymoon in 2003. For real. Our marriage could use a little attention (no problems, per se, just a need to reconnect) after these last few troubled years taking care of kid issues, and we're going to head out for, oh, maybe a 5 day weekend journey or something like that. We plan to drive and keep it budget-friendly (because of Hubs' work we can get hotel discounts), and want to do something peaceful and quiet (no big cities). We're thinking sometime in May, and somewhere on the east coast. Where would you go? I'm looking for ideas!

priorities

Sometimes it's so hard to decide what to spend our hard-earned money on. Yesterday I decided I wasn't going to just sit around the house with the kids during the mid-winter break, so I asked my mom if she wanted to go to the science museum today. They have an awesome kid area that's huge and entirely hands-on.

It cost $24 to get in for me, my mom, and my two kids. Now I'm kicking myself for not just spending $50 and getting the full year membership, which would entitle us to get in anytime. Dur. Stupid.

I have trained myself to be so utterly careful about our finances that I sometimes don't allow for frivolity. Not that an explorations lab at the museum is exactly "frivolous" but it's also not a true necessity in life, so I tend to talk myself out of spending the cash.

Depending on who you are, or what your circumstances are, $50 may sound like a lot of money or a drop in the bucket. My problem is that right now I am sitting at my kitchen table and right next to me is my leaky kitchen window. The wood surrounding it is literally rotting, and when the snow melts or it rains hard, water actually drips into the house. It's in terrible shape after 40+ years and it is next on our list to be replaced (we've already done two exterior doors that were in similar shape). So whether you think fifty bucks is a lot or a little, it is still a chunk of that window repair and could go toward a project that really needs doing.

However, after spending the morning with my happy, busy children in a beautiful, enormous, high-ceilinged, bright and airy room filled with station after station of educational and fun toys, I've forced myself to re-evaluate my priorities. I could save the $50 and sit here in the boring house, trying to get my kids to play and stay away from the boob tube, or I could just spend it and take the short drive to the museum anytime we want, 7 days a week, rain or shine. I can be with other parents, my kids can interact with other children. We can have fun and feel engaged in community, which is sorely lacking for us.

It's a leaky window vs. our sanity - kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? The home repairs will wait. There is fun to be had right now.

busywork

No one really tells you, when you become a stay-home mother, that it is pretty much a totally boring job. It's also largely thankless, but we mostly know that, I guess. After nearly 6 years of stay-home-ness, I am bored out of my mind. In the dead of winter in a cold climate, there is little to look forward to each morning...making meals the children will not eat, cleaning up after the children, watching PBS, playing playdoh, painting with watercolors, doing mountains of laundry, listening to the wind rattle the windows, more cleaning up, etc, etc.

I've scheduled many playdates this winter in an effort to combat the cabin fever, but inevitably someone gets sick or something comes up and either I cancel or our friends do. We've all been sick since Christmas, almost non-stop. We were on the upswing for about a week, until Daughter brought home another nasty virus from Kindergarten. AJ just managed to squeak in for his surgery last week, though his nose was stuffy. Another couple of days and he'd have had chest congestion and a fever like his sister. Luckily those symptoms showed up after the surgery day. He is, in fact, sound asleep right now (11:45 a.m.) and has been since 10:30, because he barely slept last night. He was restless and feverish, crying almost constantly. Which means Hubs and I are exhausted as well.

It's just a crappy, crappy time of year. I'm going through the motions but barely getting anything done. It's all too easy to just sit and browse the internet for hours on end. I grab a ball of yarn here and there and work on something, but I'm not feeling inspired. It's all just busywork to pass the time.

Here's the marled sweater I showed a couple weeks back, now finished:

Knitting pure & simple neck-down cardigan, size 2-4. My little boy is getting big! This took nearly a whole skein of lion fishermen's wool. US 9 needles for the body, US 8 needles for the ribbing.

It went really fast and was pretty satisfying, so look what I found in my yarn trunk:

Another orphan skein of fishermen's wool. Another neck down raglan? Sure, why not.

I'm making an attempt to cheer up and look forward to spring:

This yarn has been hanging around since I was pregnant with AJ, waiting to be made into socks for Daughter. I'd better do it now, as her feet are almost too big to squeeze 2 socks out of one skein. I'm hoping to put these in her Easter basket. We try to go really minimal with the Easter candy because no matter how we beg and plead with my in-laws to lay off, they inevitably show up with enormous baskets filled with chocolate and junk. So I go with one very small chocolate figure, some jellybeans and m&ms, and some sort of useful item (like socks) or a book or something.

I'm pleased with myself for actually working through my stash a bit so far this year. I keep most of my yarn in my old college footlocker, and I can now close the lid easily, without sitting on it. That means some yarn is definitely gone. With little else to do and sick/post-surgical children lolling around the house, I might as well keep cranking out the knits, using up all that yarn I've been collecting for so many years.

so much making

There's been a bit of recent sewing around here...the machine never really gets put away for long. I went to Joann's to get a few summer patterns for dresses and tops that I desperately need, and this awesome dinosaur fabric leapt into my cart:

So cute! I mean, really, how often do you find great fabric for little boys? These little dinosaur pants came together in about 20 minutes. I used the pajama pants pattern that I've made a million times before, with no outside seam, just an inner leg seam, crotch seam, hems, and waistband. So, so fast! And now that AJ is getting to be a big boy (2 and 1/2 already!) he is forming opinions about his clothing...but he loves these! So that's kind of awesome.

Here's a bit of a closeup of the fabric. It's from the juvenile prints section at Joann's, and is a nice lightweight twill-type fabric, 100% cotton and washes and dries beautifully. One word of caution: it was printed crookedly so I actually lined up the pattern piece with the print, rather than exactly on the grain. For simple little pull-on toddler pants it made no difference.

Oh, and these pants cost a whopping $3.50! I love it when sewing can actually be economical in this day and age!

But mostly there has been knitting. Please, it is like 5 degrees F here! I can't even bear to sit at the sewing machine, it is so chilly. We keep the heat down during the day to cut down on the dryness and the gas bill, so I tend to gravitate toward the couch and cover myself with afghans.

I showed the yarn for this sweater a few weeks ago. It was a bag of "mill-ends" from AC Moore. I always dig through that bin because there might be a treasure buried beneath all the yucky white acrylic!

I am reminded of why I don't work with variegated yarns. Look at this goofy sweater! Daughter says she will wear it, but frankly I wouldn't blame her if she didn't. The yarn is Paton's classic wool, and knit up into a warm, springy, soft cardigan. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's "EPS" method, which I have come to adore because I need no pattern and can haul the project around anywhere without having to refer to anything. The buttons are jewel tone and I will have Daughter help me choose which to sew on.

Side note: gosh, Daughter is getting big. I totally underestimate her size because she is very slender, but this sweater seemed HUGE when I was knitting it and it just fits.

Moving on...it's not like AJ needs another new sweater right now or anything, but I desperately need to keep busy and also use up some orphan skeins of yarn. So he's getting a Knitting Pure & Simple neck-down cardigan, in the 2-4 year size, made from this skein of Lion Fisherman's Wool.

I'm not loving it, but I'm not hating it either. Anyway, it's going fast and makes for excellent mindless knitting while I hunker down under seventeen blankets to watch movies at night.

Finally for today, a bit of stashbusting. We knitters tend to have a stash of yarn, and some of us (me) tend to buy without thinking at times. We see a clearance sticker and take temporary leave of our senses. Then we blog about it, lamenting the fact that we have so much yarn and need to make use of it. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but this year truly needs to be a stashbusting year for me. We've had lots and lots of medical bills piling up because every year our health coverage gets worse and worse. So whereas my son used to have surgery and it hardly cost us anything, it's now climbing into the thousands. Yep, thousands. I have newfound empathy and deep pity for the uninsured these days...but that is another post.

So in light of that, I went diving to see what needs to be used. I found this:

One full skein plus dribs and drabs of Cotton-Ease in the looooooong discontinued blueberry colorway. I got these on clearance at Joann's when Daughter was a wee baby, for half off the clearance price if I recall correctly. I made myself a Sitcom Chic cardigan with this yarn, probably about 4 years ago? I can't even remember exactly when. And this is the remains.

There's probably just enough here to squeak out a toddler sweater for AJ. But I was not excited at the prospect of making another plain blue sweater with this yarn. I left it sitting on my dresser for two weeks, where it stared at me and made me feel guilty every time I went in my bedroom.

Then I saw a really cute little quarter-zip pullover at Target. Maybe you saw it too - it was royal blue with lime green striping in the cuffs and hem, and a little lime green robot on the chest. I waited and waited for it to be marked down, but by the time it was, AJ's size was gone.

But I was inspired.

I sacrificed $3 of my precious birthday gift card for Joann's to purchase this single skein of Cotton-Ease in lime. That gift card is supposed to go toward making myself summer clothes, but this seemed a worthy use too. Now the blueberry yarn will find a use after all these years, my son will have a new sweater, and I will feel quite satisfied with myself. Ha! Look at me rationalize.

So that's the crafty update from over here on the frozen tundra! What are you making during this deep freeze?

humbug

I'm feeling decidedly un-Christmassy today. Not that I am anti-Christmas, no no, that's not what I mean. I just mean I'm not feeling it, that's all.

I took AJ to see his surgeon this morning because the site where his G-tube used to be is not healing on its own. I took the tube out at the end of October (shhhh...we told them it fell out) and it has closed down to a pindot, but still leaks just enough to irritate the skin and require pretty heavy bandaging. AJ has sensitive skin like his daddy, and the bandages do almost as much damage as the leaking stomach acid. He has a 3" square area of totally wrecked skin on his abdomen and while he is not very verbal, he can clearly say "itchy, ma! itchy!"

The surgeon says he'll have to operate on my son to remove the scar tissue tunnel formed by the original tube placement, stitch the stomach, the muscles, and the skin, which will leave my sweet boy with just a little 1 cm scar on his belly. But it means another torturous day in the hospital for us.

When the surgeon told me this, I smiled and joked with him and nodded a lot; very agreeable I was. We scheduled the surgery, smiling smiling, and said happy holidays, smiling smiling. We bundled up in hats and coats and mittens, smiling all the while. And when we got to the car my body just collapsed into itself. I sat in the driver's seat as all my muscles assumed their "stressed" position, which my body now knows so well. Within moments I ached all over and my head buzzed.

It's not even that big a deal - none of his surgeries since the first have been big deals. But this will be, I think, the 6th time in the OR for my boy. The 6th time a nurse will take him away down a long hallway, away from us, put a mask on his face, and hook him to a machine that will breathe for him. It will be the 6th time we've sat waiting, fidgeting, drinking coffee, watching the clock, wondering what's happening to our boy. The 6th time I will be brought back to recovery to see him as he wakes up, the 6th time the tears will flow as I see his tiny body in the big bed, tethered to monitors and IVs.

One at a time these are no big deal, these operations. Ear tubes, a small hernia, more ear tubes, this next minor repair...

But collectively, over 2 years time, they are really hard to bear. And I know, we are SO LUCKY because so many people have it so much worse. SO, SO MUCH WORSE. But I've decided that just because other people are suffering more, that does not reduce my own pain. I am allowed to hate this, and I really, really do. Even while I am thankful for the wonderful doctors we have helping our son, even while I am so happy with the wonderful progress my son has made...all the while I still seethe inside when we have to take him back and hand him over for yet another procedure.

It feels quite unfair. Quite unfair, indeed.

more EZ knitting

I thought I had blogged this sweater, but a quick browse through the minimal posts I've put up in the past few months shows me that I did not.

High on the success of my first two Zimmerman sweaters, I was anxious to whip up another one, this time in cotton. I got a great price on some Lion Cotton Ease from fabric.com (they have a small but nice yarn selection), due to an order snafu + a coupon they sent me, so I got two skeins of hazelnut for AJ, and 3 skeins of blossom for Daughter. In the end, with shipping, I think both sweaters cost maybe $20? Pretty sweet (though that doesn't include the buttons for Daughter's, nor the extra yarn I had to buy for AJ's...it's coming).

I knit up the cotton version with exactly the same numbers as the green wool version I'd previously knit. Rather than ribbing, I knit seed stitch for this version. But I guess it didn't occur to me that this cotton yarn would knit up to a different gauge than the wool. Wool has some give, and allows for a tighter gauge than this rather unforgiving cotton. So the sweater was coming out really boxy. But I didn't mind, because it was intended to go over other layers.

The problem became...yarn famine. Every knitter's nightmare! As I knit faster and faster toward the neckline (because somehow knitters believe if we just knit faster there will be enough yarn), it became sadly apparent that I would be quite literally just a few yards short for casting off.

Several 4-letter words later, I dug up a Joann's coupon and headed off to find more yarn. Of course the store does not carry the hazelnut colorway (at this point I would have accepted differing dye lots), so I had to go with the charcoal colorway as a complimentary color. That meant ripping the hazelnut neckline that I'd already knit, and reknitting it in the charcoal.

In the end, I like it a lot! I'd like to make another in cotton, as it's a great layer for autumn and spring. I would chop about an inch off the sleeves and add it to the body, but otherwise it's a winner.

spring wips

False alarm! The camera is ok, it was the memory card that was shot! WOOT! Viva la camera!

Now I can continue to take crappy pictures in all but the best light for who knows how long!

The last few weeks have seen me being a really frustrated Mommy, what with the moody almost-5-year-old and the Very Busy Toddler who refuses to eat more than a few bites of food and drinks almost nothing. So I stepped back from blogging to keep it from becoming a bunch of repetitive whining. But, thank God, Spring is arriving as it always does, and we are able to get out in the sunshine, generate some vitamin D, play, breathe fresh air, and start to climb out of our winter rut.

I meant to get photos yesterday, but couldn't, so a quick idea of what we've been up to:

• Flashy light-up Disney princess sneakers for Daughter in a really big size (major growth spurt this winter!). I truly hate light-up princess sneakers, but I truly love my kid, so we got them.
• A new-to-us scooter for Daughter was procured (handed down from some cousins). We are planning to buy her a new one as this old one is in rough shape, but we had to make sure she could do it and like it before we spent the money.
• Plans are being made for purchase of Daughter's first bicycle. She still rides her trike but is practically giving herself two black eyes as her knees come up so high when she pedals. Also, she needs a new helmet because the one she got at 2 years old just isn't cutting it anymore.
• SHOES on AJ for the first time! (He is not a fan.)
• AJ playing outside for the first time! (He is a BIG fan.)
• Knitting and sewing (obviously).

As we wait for the playgrounds to dry out - which could be awhile, this is Buffalo and we are probably going to get a few more inches of snow before Spring is officially here - we are hanging close to home. So I'm still knitting and doing a little sewing. I'd like to increase the sewing but the Very Busy Toddler doesn't allow me much time.

After finishing up some baby gifts for a dear friend, I got busy with:

This dress for Daughter was originally going to be a size 2. I cut it out at the end of summer '08 when I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant with AJ. It never got stitched together (in fact, the pattern pieces were still pinned to the fabric). I wanted to salvage it because the fabric is pretty, so I cut a new bodice in a size 4 and used the existing size 2 skirt. I had originally cut the skirt to the size 4 length anyway. It still needs sleeve hems and buttons/buttonholes. She can wear it, but the problem is the length...even the size 4 length is far too short. I can't lengthen the actual dress (nor do I want to, it would look funny because it's open all the way down the back, plus it is already hemmed), so what are my options? I had the thought of making a slip with a wide band of the dress fabric at the bottom, designed to extend below the hem by about 5 or 6 inches, kind of like an old-fashioned underskirt. Lame? Ideas?

On to the knitting! I can't believe I have never made one of these before. Do I even need to say what it is? I finally made a "February Baby Sweater!" I checked The Knitter's Almanac out from the library during the summer of '08 and paged through it while Daughter played at the playground, but like everything else during that long, hot summer of anxious pregnancy, it didn't go real far. I thought it was kind of interesting, but I was in no shape to do math or otherwise use my brain.

Holy cow, what a great pattern. Elizabeth Zimmermann was a genius. I have since gotten my hands on all her books and I'll be doing more posts involving her stuff very soon. I am obsessed.

Anyway, this FBS was made with some soft sort-of putty color Patons Grace I got in a clearance bin at Michael's last year. Two skeins at $0.99 apiece, plus a card of gorgeous vintage buttons, and I have a very frugal little baby gift for a new cousin (born, ironically enough, in February). I think this came out to about a 6-month size, using size 5 needles. I've since purchased additional sport weight yarn to make another and see what happens with the sizing. EZ! You are fascinating! I'm also eager to try this using a different stitch for the body (maybe to make it more boyish?) as I think that's really the spirit of the pattern as it was written...to use it as a springboard and make it your own.

And finally, newborn soakers have been selling well all winter, so I'm working up a few in random leftovers to sell at a reduced price. I know some people balk at paying even $18 for a newborn diaper cover, so these will be 'knitter's choice' colors and will probably list for about $15 (including shipping). I think that's fair.

Oh, and a really special treat for me and Hubs:

It turns out we got the new, larger memory card for our camera just after Daughter was born. This is one of the photos we found on the old, original card when Hubs popped it back into the camera yesterday. Here's Daughter, 5 days old and all of 5.5 pounds, being cuddled by Hubs' grandmother. Impossible to believe that one month from now she will turn 5 years old.

first F.O. of the new year

Oh, how I wanted to start this year off right. I wanted to get up early, get showered, make the coffee, and be ready to greet my children with a smile. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, the road to hell, etc. My good intentions were not enough, and I barely dragged myself out of bed before the children were hopping around like jumping beans, my son trying to fling himself down every available staircase (and in a split level, there are many), and Daughter informing me of the time quite literally every single minute as she played with an old digital watch she found somewhere in the house.

The house is a mess, as usual. Hubs gave it a good straightening before he went to bed last night (I had fallen asleep much earlier), so it's not a COMPLETE disaster, but the floors are dusty and covered with...bits. Of what, I don't know, but I can see them. Ugh. AJ's occupational therapist is coming in just over an hour, and I either have to go clean the powder room or pray really hard that she doesn't have to pee when she gets here.

I guess I could have taken care of all that over the weekend but I was too busy obsessing over this:



I know the photo looks really wonky, but in real life the blanket is somewhat square. I am so, so, so pleased with it! I finished the borders last night, then sewed all the little ends in and gave it a swish in the washer with Eucalan (some of these wools are quite old and who knows where the balls have been?), then laid it out on a towel overnight. Our house is dry as the desert right now so it dried quickly. The squares opened up nicely (I crochet like I knit...tightly!) and it feels so soft now.

It measures about 2X3 feet, so will be a wee crib blanket for AJ. It's made of mostly Paton's Classic Merino, with lots of Lion Fisherman Wool (all squares are joined with that, in the oatmeal colorway). There are also a few other yarns in there, like Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, some Ella Rae Classic, and possibly scraps of Lion Wool, I'm not sure. I used a size H crochet hook (5mm, or I guess the equivalent of a size 8 knitting needle, for comparison).

I'd forgotten how much crochet totally hogs yarn. I blew through most of a huge 400+ yard skein crocheting around each square and putting on a couple borders in that oatmeal color. I'd also forgotten how much it hurts my hands. Booooo. But it was a great little project for using up scraps, engaging in meditative thought, and feeling a sense of satisfaction in getting done quickly (I started it Christmas eve and finished yesterday).

Back to knitting for a bit...but there is more crochet in my future!

bleh

Ugh, we are sick AGAIN. Head colds for me & the kids this time around. If this keeps happening it's gonna be a loooooong winter.

Time to watch Tinkerbell for the seventy-hundredth time and try to catch a cat nap while the kids are otherwise occupied!

the best vest

I am so excited about this.



SO CUTE!

SO PREPPY!

My son will be sporting this wee vest for the Thanksgiving holiday. I love it, love it, love it.

Size 18 months, Patons Classic Merino in dark gray mix and cognac heather, US 7 needles. The pattern called for some kind of weird ribbing pattern, so I modified it to regular 2X2.

Did I mention that I love it??

just what i needed

It's amazing how bad a day can be, and then how equally good another can turn out.

Today I am basking in the glow of watching Daughter at her last swimming lesson, and being told by the teacher that she can move up to the next level after the holidays.

My to-do list got mostly accomplished over the weekend, and my family actually thanked me for scrubbing the bathroom.

Two nice, respectful, efficient men came to my house this morning and replaced our old, beat up, drafty, hollow-core wooden door that leads to the garage with a brand new, tight-fitting, fire-safe steel door in an hour and a half. My gosh, it looks gorgeous.

I took AJ for his second flu shot, and asked that he be quickly weighed. Turns out he is gaining steadily at about 1 lb/month, which is above average, even as we play around with his tube-feed calories to try and get him eating orally. Yes!

I am still reveling in thankfulness that the washing machine was not actually broken and did not require a several-hundred-dollar service call.

And the best, best, best thing - the mailman brought back the package containing two wool soakers I knit for an Etsy.com order and mailed over two weeks ago. The recipient moved and the forward didn't work for some reason. I thought the package got lost and I would have to reknit the items and mail them again at my cost. For some reason I was totally beside myself about it, and just about fell to my knees with relief and gratitude when the package showed up today. I will be re-sending the package priority mail with tracking this time!

Now I can make some tea, relax with the Christmas music playing on the radio, and work on the other knitting projects in the queue, while AJ naps and Daughter plays with play doh. Dinner is all ready (pulled bbq pork, defrosting, from a huge batch I made a few weeks back). The house is...well, it is clean enough! And there are no current laundry emergencies.

As you all know, I really, really, really needed a good day. And I am so thankful to be having one.

it smells like vanilla barf

So far we have had a pretty nice day. Some friends came by for a quick playdate this morning, then mom stopped by after lunch so we could give her a little birthday present (she is 60 today! wow!), and now Daughter is painting while I scurry around tidying up.

But dammit, if my son's feeding tubes come apart in his crib ONE MORE TIME, you will hear me screaming wherever you are.