another post brought to you by insomnia

Thank you for the nice comments on my baby quilt. I think it will end up being used by Daughter, but for now I can't quite handle that. I don't know if it's just the dates on the calendar, the finishing of the quilt, or what, but I've been feeling pretty melancholy lately. Hubs and I are not very close at the moment, every word out of Daughter's mouth is "NO" or some whiny variation of same, and I am in danger of breaking off all of my teeth due to the grinding and clenching I do all night, every night. I'm a little bit stuck on my island of sadness...I know there's a raft out there somewhere, I just have to find it and climb on.

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I went over to my future-sister-in-law's house on Friday to help her pack. M is finally heading to the opposite coast to be with C (hub's brother). They have been apart since the beginning of the year and she has been planning their wedding and living without him all that time. She's so excited to be joining him in the place where they will begin their married life (though the wedding is not actually until September).

Anyway, I was packing her copious work wardrobe into boxes when she let slip that she had already packed her sexy underthings, wigs, and - ahem - s*x swing. And that she had a heckuva time patching the hole in the beam where they'd hooked the thing up. She was sharing this in the context of discussing the hiding of certain things from her DAD, who will be helping her load up the car and also be driving across the country with her. She also said she thinks he knows about the, uh, swing, because he saw the hook in the ceiling before she patched it and wanted to know what it was for. (!!!!!)

AHEM.

I don't know about you people, but I am of the opinion that there are just certain things you don't need to know about your family members. I mean, I totally don't care what kind of...uh...recreational devices they choose to employ. But...wow. WOW. I don't want to know about it. I could not look her in the eye for the rest of the afternoon.

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In other news, I was reading something recently that is still eating my brain. It was a comment on another blog by a homeschooling mother in which she stated she had not yet "boughten" her curriculum for the coming school year.

Boughten?

Am I incorrect in thinking that the past tense of "buy" is simply "bought?" I mean, you wouldn't say you were "taughten" something in school, right? You would say "taught." Because that is the English language, no?

BUT WAIT! I looked this up on the trusty internets, and it turns out you CAN say "boughten" but it's considered a dialect thing rather than Standard English. I was amazed by this. All my life, whenever I've heard someone say "boughten" I thought it was because something was wrong with them, but egads, it's dialect.

I will get off my snobby grammar high-horse now.

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On the knitting front, none of my projects are working out well these days.

Two nights ago I ripped out the back of the River Forest Gansey. I cannot figure out where my error was, but I kept ending up on the wrong side with the cables. I even made my mom look it over and knit a row for me, and she couldn't figure it out either. I could find no errata on the internet, and other people have completed this sweater, so I'm guessing the directions are fine...it is my brain that is broken. Either way, it got to the point where I didn't even want to pick it up and work on it because I was un-knitting more than I was knitting. G'bye.

That's the second sweater I've ripped for Daughter in the past month. Crikey! I've got a Starmore pattern to try next...so far my girl Alice hasn't let me down. We'll see.

So right now the only things on the needles are my blue shawl and the socks I was knitting for Hubs. The shawl is waiting in the wings because it has over 600 live stitches at the moment, and I can't bear the thought of making an error and having to painstakingly un-knit all those stitches with fuzzy angora yarn in 80+ degree heat. Ew. And the socks? Well, the cast-on appears to be too tight. I can barely yank them over my own ankle, so Hubs has no chance. I don't know what to do. One sock is just to the toe shaping, and the other is at the heel flap. Rip and re-knit? Or finish them both, un-do the cast-on edge, and cast them off in the opposite direction as loosely as possible?

Help me, I am burned out on knitting. The day has come. I'm in a panic.

***

Here is a success, but it is crochet, not knitting.


Ring-bearer pillow. I snuck off to the back room of the house to photograph it once M had opened it at her shower. I am not a very girly-girl, and don't usually make such frothy, frilly things, but this pillow? I adore this pillow. I am tempted to make another one (sans wedding bells) just for myself. It's pretty big - 12" square - and would look lovely on a bed.

It is made from ivory crochet cotton, stiffened a bit so it will hold up at the wedding, and has two ribbons in the middle of the bow with which to tie the rings. The inside pillow is ivory satin, and the ribbons are double-sided satin in 2 widths. I made 4 bows (2 of each width), tied them together, and tacked the whole bow to the top of the pillow. The bells are crocheted as well, stiffened to the point where you could probably sit on them and they would not crush (scary, because I had mixed equal parts stiffener and water). A ribbon runs through each, and a pearl is tied at the bottom to look like a clapper.

This was a ton of work, and if I don't see it in use at the ceremony I will be pissed. I mean, I anticipate it being used - the bride was most pleased, as was her mother - I'm just saying I sure hope I see it clutched in some grubby little ring-bearer hands come September.

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Oh, did I mention I got a dress for the wedding? I did, and I love it, but it is currently with the lovely seamstresses at a local alterations shop (I can construct garments but I don't do alterations). They are removing the entire back zipper, taking in the bust, and replacing the zipper. Because the dress is strapless and my boobs are shot after 2 pregnancies. Boo hoo!

This story is only interesting because I saw pictures of the wedding dress (gorgeous) and bridesmaid dresses...and my dress is just about exactly the same as the dresses the girls will be wearing. Dudes, what are the odds? I guess fashion is fashion. Theirs are in a different color, of course, and are a bit "flowier" (which is probably not a word but you know what I mean), but essentially the style is the same. Ha! Weird.

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I think I am tired now. Off to bed. Thanks for bearing with my insomniac randomness.