curating vs. creating

I read a blog post recently that made me stop and think about how I approach my hobbies. I can't recall where it was, so I apologize to the originator of the topic, but it was about "curating" vs. "creating."

I have stashes of both yarn and fabric. Some of it is very, very old. I can point to some stuff that I've had since before I met my husband (10 years ago). What's up with that? Why haven't I used it? And will I ever?

I really got to thinking about what that means. How many of us just buy stuff because it appeals to us at the moment, but it never gets made into anything useful or beautiful? Has this always been a problem for crafters? I mean, who hasn't come across or heard about someone's Grandmother's attic stash of vintage fabrics or trunks of yarn that have been sitting in the corner of a basement or closet for umpteen years?

Is it the norm to do that? I wish I could say I just buy yarn or fabric for a specific project and use everything I spend money on. My mom has always been like that and we've had discussions about why people "build a stash." Mom thinks that having a shoebox-size plastic bin of sock yarn is excessive...and then I showed her my underbed storage box. I have enough sock yarn in there to make at least 15 pairs of adult socks, I bet. And that might be a small stash to some people! I've also been to the fabric store with my mom and picked up a few cuts of calico just because I think they are pretty, and she's always asking "why? What will you use it for?"

I always answer that it's pretty, it's a basic, I could use it for a quilt or a sundress for Daughter or something...some day.

But what it boils down to is I'm a collector. And, sadly, I'm pretty good at it! I can shop a clearance sale like nobody's business. I recently picked through my yarn stash to see what I had for baby sweaters (there's going to be another friends & family baby boom soon), and I came up with a heck of a lot. A shocking amount, really, and some of it has been hanging around far too long. Because while I "stock up" on these "stashbuilders" using sales and coupons, I find I rarely turn to stash when I need to make a gift. Because stash is boring to me. Shopping for new stuff is fun! When someone announces a pregnancy my first thought is toward going out to buy supplies to make a gift.

So while I do knit and sew quite a bit, I am more of a curator than a creator. I curate a collection of yarns, fabrics, embroidery supplies, books...and I get so bored with it, as you would if you looked at the same collection day after day.

I think it also speaks to our rampant consumerism. How many blog entries or ravelry pages have you seen with someone's yarn purchases for the week or fabric stash additions? I've been guilty of it myself...nothing much to write about, nothing created, so instead I show off what I bought. Big deal. Why are we writing about that? And why are we buying so much stuff, anyway? Not that it's wrong to purchase supplies, that isn't what I am saying at all...if you pull fabrics for a quilt or garment and something is missing, by all means buy a yard of something snappy to make the project sing. And if you're fresh out of pink baby yarn but your cousin is having twin girls, of course it is sensible to get what you need.

But to just keep buying stuff...for "some day?" I'm starting to feel a little ridiculous about it, myself. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. That's probably not the right expression. But you get the idea.

It's time to use up some stash, FOR REAL. And I've set up a tasty reward for myself. I received the new and updated version of Aran Knitting for my birthday. If I can wrestle my stash under control by the end of the year, then I plan to buy myself a Christmas gift of lovely yarn to make one of the designs from that book. It's kind of subjective, I guess, because I don't have a particular amount I'm looking to reduce...I'll just kind of know when I feel like I've reached my goal.

Look, I've already started:

We all know this one, yes? A February Baby Sweater, of course. I had 3 balls of Knitpicks Telemark sportweight wool in the carnation colorway. That's 309 yards of yarn. I'm using a US 5 needle and I think it's going to come out just right.

And here are two roughly 0-3 month sweaters, knitted using free patterns from here, each taking one ball of baby sport yarn. The light blue is Bernat Softee Baby (US size 4 needle), the navy is Lion Baby Soft (US size 5 needle). The cream bonnet, which needs blocking quite badly, is from a Leisure Arts layette book and is made from some sort of fingering weight acrylic baby yarn on, I believe, a US size 3 needle.

The only person in my life who is actually pregnant right now is my sister-in-law, who is due at the end of this year. They find out the gender next month and then I'll know what to focus on. But I am pretty sure my sister will have another, my other sister who is getting married this year will surely have one or two, and our good friends are hoping to add to their family soon as well. So having a stash of little sweaters (rather than a stash of baby yarn) will serve me well.

I am even hoping to pull some coordinating fabrics from my bins to make some little pull-on pants or sundresses or little quilts to go with some of this knitted stuff.

I may still purchase some "supplies" this year. If I need something to finish a project or for a very specific gift, I'll head to Joann's. But I'm excited to stop curating and start creating.

blowin' in the wind

Do you use Pandora? I didn't know what it was for the longest time (one of my husband's favorite ways to tease me is to say "you're so analog") but I finally tried it out. At first I hated it because it never played what I wanted. But then one day I typed in "Peter, Paul and Mary."

I'll also ask you this: is there something that just takes you instantly back to your childhood? A food, a smell, a sight or sound? Well, for me it's 60s-70s folk music that my friends' parents listened to. (Not so much my parents - they were/are pretty straight-laced and were never hippies.) The PP&M Pandora station is so awesomely perfect I can't even describe it. John Denver, James Taylor, CSN (sometimes with Y), Jim Croce, PP&M of course, Cat Stevens...ooh, how I love Cat Stevens. If I'd been a teen in 1976 instead of an infant, I'd have plastered my room with Cat Stevens posters and played his music nonstop on the record player.

It's just such great music...sweet melodies, poetic lyrics, safe for little ears to listen to...and it takes me right back to lying on my stomach on my friend's living room floor in front of their console hi-fi. They had green plush carpet and I thought that was awesome rich-people stuff (we had gold and avocado shag, awwww yeah).

Anyway, I now have a sweet wood-paneled family room with a sectional that needs some sprucing up (we are ripping out that awful paneling as soon as we can afford to, but that will be awhile). So to go along with my awesome hippie music I'm making a little something...a "period piece" if you will.

I love, love, love hippie stuff but I won't go so far as to rock a granny square poncho (or skirt)...though I do have several patterns for them. This will be a blanket for my drab 1966-style family room.

I've made 16 blocks so far, and since I don't have a truly vintage stash of 1960s olefin yarn I'm using the next best thing: Red Heart super saver acrylic. Oh yes. Kinda plastic-y, kinda unpleasant, but the colors are so great. I couldn't help myself and started joining the blocks today (using the join-as-you-go method, which can be easily found by googling).

In order to keep this from sinking into total 70s polyester-ville, I'm joining the blocks with a deep teal color. Back in the day they were always joined with black, right? Gosh, didn't everyone have a granny-square afghan in their house sashed with black? I think they were practically required 4o years ago. I can't wait to see this brightening up my brown, brown family room.

"Country road...take me home..."

to blog or not to blog...

...well, that IS the question.

It's been two months since I put anything new in this space. Why? I'm not sure. I've certainly thought about it a lot in that time. I've completed a few projects and thought maybe I should take some pictures and write about them. We've gone on a few outings that were fun, and I got some good enough photos where you can't see my kids' faces clearly and I could certainly post about that.

But I'm not sure I want to. My kids are pretty big now (Daughter just turned 6 and AJ is over 2 1/2) so I feel very conscious of their privacy. I don't even tell close friends and family all the quirky things they do. And I have pretty minimal crafting time due to a really messy, rambunctious kid blasting around the house all day. When naptime and bedtime come, it's a mad scramble to clean up the kitchen, straighten the house, run that last load of laundry, and then I crash. I still squeeze in knitting and sewing time, but it's not huge, and when I have that precious free time I want to use it to create things, not write about creating things (I think). Life has done a 180 with this little boy of mine...he is nothing like Daughter, who would happily play nearby while I worked on something creative. He's just not a content-to-self-entertain kid, which is perfectly normal and ok, but it limits my time to do what I want.

However! I am also crazy-addicted to my hobbies. I don't know a single person in real life who is as obsessed as I am with making stuff. I am constantly frustrated and disappointed when trying to make new friends (like at birthday parties or school events) when I cannot find one mom who likes doing crafty stuff. I belong to the local chapter of knitting guild because even though it's me and about 200 grannies, at least the meetings are filled to the brim with women who understand what I do and why I love it so. Perhaps something is wrong with me that I haul a knitting project everywhere I go. Maybe it's completely abnormal that I can't seem to pack my sewing machine away for even a few days without feeling twitchy and getting it back out.

And that's where blogs and the internet come in. I can't find my people here in my real life, so I find them out there, in cyberspace. When I stumble upon a new blog I like the first thing I do is search their "about" page to see if they live geographically nearby. Nope, never happens. So I keep going back and absorbing all I can from these amazingly crafty women I'll never meet.

Now, there are some downsides to this, for me at least. The very best blogs, or I should say the blogs I enjoy the most, are the ones where the writer posts photos of her family, her home, her projects, herself - the really open ones that tell the whole story. I love this! But I'm not willing to do that myself. So sometimes I feel like I can't hang, you know? I feel I cannot truly participate in the world of craft blogging or mom blogging without being more free with my life. I'm sure it is boring to simply look at photos of kid sweaters or mittens or sundresses with no context, really. Right? Or no? I guess I can only say what I prefer, and that's the "whole story."

Also, I don't have the latest and greatest camera, not by a long shot. So many bloggers take such amazing photos with their Nikon XXX12345 camera or their Canon blah-blah-blah with the super special lens and here I am with my 10 year-old Canon Sure Shot A40, a camera so old and outdated you can't even get the drivers without doing an extensive internet search. It's like being in high school again and not having the cool sneakers or a trapper keeper when everyone else does. I also cannot afford to create with the same high-end supplies many crafters use. $10/yard quilting fabric is simply not in my budget, nor is $20/skein yarn, and I do get jealous sometimes when people show their stash.

Aaaaaaaaaand, along those same lines, there's some real nastiness showing up in the entire blog community of late. People are having a real hard time keeping their comments kind, often showering bloggers with judgmental wrath. Sure, I judge people - really, who doesn't at one time or another? But I don't feel the need to blast someone in blog comments (or on my own blog) who chooses to live differently than I do. No one is making me read these blogs, so if I don't care for someone's page, I simply click away and remove it from my bookmarks. Easy as pie and no feelings get hurt.

So, you see, I have a real love/hate thing going on here. My life has done a huge series of flip-flops since I started my little blog as a young newlywed with a 6 month-old baby. There are days when my PTSD from losing a child and going through what I went through with my son takes hold and I have nothing good to say to anyone. There are days when I browse my blog list and just feel angry and sad that my life "doesn't measure up." Then there are days of great inspiration when I love all the projects I see and feel I am part of an awesome group of creative, obsessive, loving, busy, intense moms who I really, really wish could come over to my house for a sewing/knitting/crocheting/embroidering playdate with their adorable kids.

Um, so...yeah. Where does that leave me? I'm not sure. I know that at the very least, I've enjoyed having a place where all my projects are catalogued. I don't want to keep a crappy blog, that's for sure, but I don't know if I have it in me to create an awesome one.

What to do...what to do...

let's hear it for COLOR!

There's a kids' album that I swear no one else has ever heard of except for me - it's called "Start Dreaming" by a fellow called Mr. Ray. And my favorite song on it is "Roy G. Biv." The rest of the album is super excellent, too, and I highly recommend it if you're bored with whatever kid music you've been listening to. You can preview the songs using the Amazon link I posted, or buy the songs individually for 99 cents. But you should buy the album. Seriously, it's really good. I tell everyone about it and I always just get weird looks...no one ever knows this music and it's a shame because it's done in a grown-up style, so it's very tolerable for repeated listening.

So I've been singing that song about the colors of the rainbow non-stop since starting my rad drying mat:

And check it out! It's finished! Just what I was hoping for...super bright, very easy, and quick to crochet. I finished last night just after dinner, trimmed the threads and voila! I think it's so pretty that I didn't even want to put dishes on top of it. But I did, obviously, and it works great.

To recap:

6 balls of Sugar & Cream yarn (2.5 oz size), purchased at Michael's for $1.25 each

Size K crochet hook

Chain 46, then work back across 45 stitches using single crochet

I think I worked maybe 12 rows of each color? I'm not sure, I just made sure each segment was the same width before changing colors. It seems I used about 1/3 or so of each ball, maybe a bit more.

Now I'm blowing off today's chores to start the coordinating dishcloths. Kind of a bad idea...you should see my house after ignoring work in favor of crochet all day yesterday. No wait, you shouldn't see it. No one should. It's pretty disastrous in here. I suppose I could at least fold the huge pile of clean laundry that I removed from the recliner (so I could sit and crochet) and dumped on the sofa. Yes, fine, ok, I'll do that much.

But then it's back to the rainbow. :)

ps: I guess I am on a crochet kick because I really want to make one of these for every kid I know right now:

(picture from Lion Brand website)

making my own cheer

Thanks for the great vacation suggestions! I've done a lot of NE travel and we are thinking of heading south a little bit...maybe Colonial Williamsburg? Any thoughts on neat places to see in PA as we drive? Please keep the ideas coming!

It's soooooooo dark right now, and cold! You can sense the seasons struggling to change, but Old Man Winter is desperate to hang on. Now we've got a rain/snow mix thing happening, though the temps are more moderate. AJ was able to play outside today, pushing wheeled toys up and down the driveway. He got a skuut-type bike for Christmas from my in-laws, which needs to be assembled, but when I looked in the box today, there are no instructions. Par for the course with my in-laws. They rip the tags off everything, never give a gift receipt, and I'm guessing they opened the box with the balance bike and somehow managed to misplace the assembly instructions. I guess Hubs and I will have to spend an evening trying to figure it out ourselves.

Anyway! As I was working on the endless laundry yesterday I noticed that a) I wash a lot of dishtowels, and b) our towels and kitchen cloths are starting to look a little...rough. This thought popped into my head: gee, wouldn't it be neat to have a dedicated drying mat next to the sink, so I don't have to keep using regular dishtowels?

And the uncontrollably impulsive side of my brain answered, ABSOLUTELY! You should make something bright and fun!

So AJ and I went to Michael's, where Sugar & Cream yarn is on sale for $1.25.

Oh my gosh, isn't that just about the happiest thing you can imagine right now? After reading all these Waldorf-y blogs over the years, the idea of making rainbow stuff has taken strong hold in my brain.

The plan is to crochet (FAST!) a drying mat for the kitchen counter, and then use the leftovers of each color to make coordinating washrags (and turn the current collection into dustrags, as they are seriously discolored, faded, and gross).

And because I veer from impulsive to overthinking, I started pondering color order:

Traditional ROYGBV?

Or something different, a little out-of-order?

OMG, seriously, do I have an off switch? 'Cause I could really use one. I annoy myself.

A traditional rainbow it is. I started this just before lunchtime, and it is 2:00 as I write this (and I have fed a toddler, taken him to the potty, and read naptime stories). So obviously it's quick. The yarn calls for a J hook, but I am using a K because I tend to crochet quite tightly and I don't want this to curl up. It's 45 chains wide, and I'm working about 3" of each color, which should give me approximately an 18" long mat.

I always feel like I'm getting away with something when I crochet. It's just so fast and uncomplicated. I really do like it and should do it more often as a break from knitting. Plus I can more easily keep and eye on (and interact with) the children when working a simple single-crochet project like this.

And the colors! Good fun on this dreary day.

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!

chapeau

Just in time for Spring...I finished a hat for myself!

Haha, Spring my foot, it's sure to be freezing and snowy here for many weeks to come. This hat came off my needles yesterday morning and has already been put to good use. It's the basic cabled hat from Cables Untangled. I used less than one skein of Patons Classic Wool in jade heather (it is really a bit more green than this photo shows). Doesn't look like much sitting on the table, but when it is worn and the cables and rib open up, it looks nice (in my opinion). Oh, and I did knit the cables and decreases correctly at the crown. This picture makes the top look terrible but really it looks pretty good, I promise.

It is telling that as soon as I finished the hat, my son grabbed it from my hands and pulled it on his own head. I guess I do make rather a lot of knitted items for the kids.

But no, this late-winter chapeau is for mama!

Mmmmmm. Warm.

early spring sewing

Oh boy - less than 1 week of February to go, everybody! And as our typical weather pattern around here is to get just one last giant wallop of a snowstorm in March, it is safe to say we are truly almost done with winter. And yes, sometimes we still have snow flurries until the end of April, but we also have had high 80s on Daughter's mid-April birthday.

My point is, spring is SO coming. We had a couple of truly lovely days at 50 degrees last week. The packed snow melted away, and the children were able to play outside. I can definitely feel the difference in the sunlight, can you? Just like in late August and September when the sun slants differently in the afternoon, so too does the sun seem higher in the sky and just...I don't know...friendlier, I guess, as February winds down.

So like I said before, while there is still knitting to be done, I am preparing for warm weather.

Here's one of Daughter's new dresses for 2011, nearly complete. Just needs buttons/buttonholes, and a hem. She has requested that it be "down to her ankles" so that is what she shall have. We are thinking this will be worn for Easter, along with the white cotton cardigan I fully intend to knit. Easter is very very late this year, so I'm thinking it will all get done.

And this is just for fun - a 3-tier gathered skirt for Daughter. I am desperate to use up chunks of fabric before she gets any bigger. This is some floral quilter's cotton I got years ago when I worked at a quilt shop, along with some (Michael Miller?) red pindot left over from another project. I don't know what the pattern is...my good friend Karen sent me tracings years ago when we made these for a charity project. But gosh, it is so easy and could be drafted in no time. It's basically 3 rectangles, each roughly double the size of the one before. Cut two of each on the fold, sew them into tubes, and gather them onto each other. Add a hem and a casing for elastic and voila! A super cute, simple skirt. Daughter is actually wearing it right now - with tights and long sleeves of course. (It is, oh, about 9 degrees out today.) I look forward to having her help me pick out some more matching prints from the stash to make up more of these cute, simple wardrobe staples.

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.

hope springs eternal

Winter in the northeast US is kind of like pregnancy. You know for a fact that it will indeed end. And February is, for me, like being 8 1/2 months pregnant...you've passed the point of truly enjoying it and just want it to END ALREADY. So thanks for the commiseration yesterday. Today the sun is blazing, and while it's still only in the 20s out there, I am cheered by the thought that Spring is really not all that far off.

Anyway, I am preparing for it in my own way. By making stuff, of course. Yes, there is still plenty of time to curl up and knit with hearty wool (and plenty of time to wear those woolens), but it's nice to brighten things up with some advance Summer sewing!

I bought these patterns last year in preparation for this year's clothing needs. Daughter is very tall and leggy, and all the dress patterns I have are really too short for her to play comfortably in without flashing her business, if you know what I mean. As printed they are likely going to be a bit too long, but I had what I thought was a genius idea - after all, what would Caroline do? She would sew rows of horizontal tucks around the lower skirt, right? Then the dress could be let down as needed. Of course, excess fabric could be cut off and the dress hemmed that way, but then that extra length is sacrificed and the dress is useless in the future. If I do the tucks, it will last longer, because Daughter doesn't grow much as far as weight gain, but she does get taller and taller.

I want to be smarter and more efficient with my scrap management as I go forward. I bought 2 yards of this pink calico at Joann's, and cut what little remained into various size squares and strips, ready to be used in a quilt or whatever. I hope to do this with all the calicoes I'm using this Spring and Summer. Otherwise all the crazy scraps from dresses, tops, and shorts get jammed into a big bag or bin - where they just sit, getting more wrinkly and less appealing. A nice, neat box of squares is definitely more tempting.

And it results in a lot less waste! This is what remains from that 2 yard cut of fabric. Mostly selvage edges and tiny strips. (Yes, they could be used in string quilts, but I don't make those.)

I hope to finish this dress up today and make a start on another. Or maybe I'll make tea and curl up with more knitting. We'll see where this sunny day takes me.

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?

emergency mittens

A certain little girl keeps leaving her hats and mittens on the school bus.

*sigh*

So a certain mother keeps knitting up more.

Basic worsted weight mittens, made from Ann Budd's book (Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns). The yarn is Debbie Stoller - Full o' Sheep? I can't remember, and my toddler is obsessed with throwing things in the garbage so he took care of the yarn ball band as soon as I removed it from the skein.

These will be clipped firmly to her coat cuffs and hopefully not lost in the next few weeks. And hopefully the bus driver turned her others in to the school office. Ay-yi-yi.

12 days in and another F.O.

Less than two weeks into the new year and I have two finished garments to show for it! Ok, granted one was started in 2010, and one is only a vest, but still!

I finished AJ's Milo vest this morning, weaving in the ends just before bathtime because I wanted to put it on him right away.

The entire time I was knitting I was convinced it would be too big. But I always misjudge the size of my own children. It ended up fitting perfectly.

Stats:

Milo by Georgie Hallam (ravelry link)

One full skein and a little bit of another skein of Patons Classic Wool in "dark gray mix"

US 6 needles to more closely approximate the pattern gauge (pattern calls for DK weight yarn)

Size knitted: 3

Here you can see it's not as short and boxy as it looks hanging on its own. I like this little vest - it's nice and simple, and the neck-down construction is really pretty ingenious, with the cast-offs forming the straps and armholes at the same time. Pretty neat - I'll probably make more.

And a belated Christmas item...

This was under the tree for Daughter on Christmas morning. It's the jumper version of the pattern I used for her red corduroy Christmas dress (Simplicity 5830). I only had a 9" zipper (the pattern calls for 14") but I was trying to be thrifty and frugal so I just put in the 9" and crossed my fingers. It works just fine.

The fabric is denim I got at WalMart when they closed their fabric department last year...in total this dress probably only cost about $3 or $4 to make. It's adorable on her, and goes with just about every shirt, sweater, and pair of tights she owns.

My son and I are still hacking and coughing...oh, the coughing! He's down for his nap and I'm about to follow suit. This is the second time this week that I'm giving myself permission to nap...feels quite decadent, I can tell you that. But I need it, my body is begging for the rest.

dispatch from the TB ward

A picture is worth 1000 words, no?

This is about all I have, friends. Three-quarters of a Milo vest and some cold meds. We are sick and it's the pits. Daughter brought home a germ last week, and since AJ and I had been very slightly sick with a mild cold over Christmas, our poor weakened bodies jumped all over this one. Now Daughter is 99% better but the two of us are miserable.

It's a chest cold, too - the kind that makes people look uncomfortable and walk away from you in the supermarket. Niiiiiiice. And of course I'd decided to give myself a wee break from laundry and groceries late last week. So yesterday and today have found me digging out from under the enormous pile of dirty clothes and towels, and making a quick run to Target and the grocery store this morning. I hated taking AJ out in 25 degree weather when he is coughing up a lung, but we had to get his prophylactic antibiotic for surgery next week (that's right, he has 7 days to kick this germ). Actually I am hoping we have a bacterial infection and NOT a virus, because that means the antibiotic will do something good for him.

At least we have some food in the cupboards now and I don't have to leave the house for the next several days. PJs here I come. Maybe I can finish up this Milo vest and move along to something more cheery and colorful!

happy new year!

Hello! Happy new year! I guess I'm a little late with that, but what can I say? The days, they are so long, and yet time whizzes by faster and faster.

Let's get this out of the way first. BEST Christmas gift I received? Well, first let me say this: you know that question people ask about what person, living or dead, you'd want to have dinner with if you could?

My answer, no doubt about it, is Elizabeth Zimmermann. My sister went trolling around Amazon.com and found my wish list. She took a chance and ordered this for me. Woot! It's a colleciton of her original typed (!) newsletters with hand drawings and anecdotes, along with commentary by others. So, so good. I've been savoring it each evening before I go to sleep.

As far as Christmas crafting is concerned, I did get most of my goals accomplished. Daughter's knee socks were done a few days early so I gave them to her as one of her last advent gifts. And pretty much one day before Christmas (the 23rd, no kidding) I sat AJ down with play-doh and he happily mushed it around for TWO HOURS, so I was able to bang out 5 more little Barbie garments:

The final tally was 3 pairs of pants, 3 dresses, one skirt, and 4 tops (I am just now noticing one of the tops is missing here). Daughter was absolutely tickled and brought all of this along to Grandma's house later in the day. I was tickled because to me that's how you gauge Christmas gifts...if they come along to Grandma's you know they are liked!

I have one more item to photograph from Christmas but that will have to wait for another day.

On to 2011...

First official F.O. of the new year:

Tiny Tea Leaves cardigan for Daughter. This is the size 6 and it fits her perfectly. I used Caron Country yarn, which I don't particularly like because it splits like crazy and the plies tend to break easily, but I got it for $2.99/skein on clearance and I'm a sucker for clearance yarn. This sweater took almost 3 skeins, on a US 7 needle. The pattern was ok - I'm not racing to make it again, but it wasn't difficult to follow.

And because the most intellectually stimulating thing I do most days is load and unload the dishwasher, I need something really good to sink my teeth (and brain) into. That calls for cables!

This is the beginning of the back of a hooded cabled jacket for AJ. This is the most luxurious yarn I've ever bought - Rowan something-or-other, can't recall, will have to look for a ball band later. The pattern is FREE from here.

That's fun, but I can't work on it while I care for the children, so I also started another simple cardigan for Daughter:

I do so love mill-end yarn. This is some truly obnoxious Patons Classic Wool that I found in the mill-end bin at A.C. Moore sometime last autumn. I got a pound of the stuff for something like $5 or $6. Ridiculous. This feeds my need for mindless stockinette and you can't beat an all-wool sweater for that price! There will likely be enough here for a hat and/or mittens too. And it goes without saying, I think, that my almost-6-year-old simply adores these crazy colors. I have no pattern - just winging it with EZ's percentage system and a US 7 needle.

And because it is now the coldest, most miserable part of the year here in Western New York, I'm also whipping up a Milo vest for AJ. I don't have any DK yarn stashed so I'm trying this with worsted weight and a US 6 needle. It's ok if it comes out a bit large - it will fit over several layers and hopefully fit into next fall. And dark gray goes with everything (including the sky most days...bleh).

I don't really have many resolutions for the new year...they never seem to work out anyway, you know? But I do think this is to be the year of the stash for me. I've already given myself several mental hand-slaps when I think about purchasing yarn, fabric, or patterns. It is really time to push myself to use what I already have! It's not like that should be a hardship...there is quite a backlog of projects here waiting for my attention.

Here's hoping for a productive 2011!

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.

quick gift update

I took a little break from making Christmas gifts to make the Christmas clothing for my little humans, so not a whole lot of progress has been made...but I'm getting there. Hey, I still have 9 days, right?!? Yikes!

Sorry for the dark photos. I took them quite literally in the middle of the night after a long, bleary-eyed sewing session.

So far Barbie is getting 3 pairs of pants (one corduroy...ooh lala), one circle skirt, one lovely spring dress, and a shirt. I'm hoping to bang out a few more pieces but they are tedious. We'll see.

It turns out clothing for dollies is pretty tedious too...but at least a bit easier because of scale. This is a simple jumper for a medium baby doll (about 15") made of the same corduroy as Daughter's Christmas dress, with 3 tiny snaps to hold the back closed. I trimmed this with vintage silver ric-rac from my grandmother's sewing supplies.

This is a little dolly sunsuit, also for a medium size doll. The fabric is several years old from Joann's "tutti-frutti" line they have each summer. I still have a huge piece of this and I don't really like it, but I guess I'll suck it up and make something matching for Daughter next year.

Some doll clothes are really ingenious in their design and construction. This wee dolly nightgown, made for a smaller doll, is just such a piece. The entire thing is cut in one piece and cleverly seamed and finished. I had to make a small one because I only had a scrap of purple flannel left from a pair of pajamas I made for Daughter, and I wanted this to match.

My knitting basket was nearby when I took these photos so I thought I'd quickly snap the kneesocks I've been working on for Daughter. With 1" of leg and one foot to go, I think these will make it under the tree.

I have a huge Etsy order to finish up, for which I am very grateful, and then it's back to late-night marathons of sewing and knitting to finish up for Christmas.

What are you working on?