Red Raglan- DONE!

I can't believe I have a finished project to show you.

The red raglan sweater that I started in the beginning of March is done. I put the buttons on this morning. If Hubs doesn't come home too late tonight, I'll have him take photos of me modeling it. It fits snug, but warm. Perfect for May! OK, maybe not. (Or so we hope. This is New England and there's freeze warnings up for tonight, so you never know for sure.)


Specs:
Yarn: Cascade 220
Pattern: Cosmicpluto's top-down raglan pattern. Fantastic!You could make this sweater in 30 million ways. I added side shaping to mine- just a few decreases and increases to give it shape.

Needles: Handy Denise circs, size 9.

Buttons: From a vendor at the 2007 MDSW. Totally stalking him this year. Kicking myself that I didn't pick up a business card or anything from him.

Close up of the antler buttons.

I also completed another project. I plied and set this skein of handspun.

It's BFL from Little Barn. Also going to stalk them...but doesn't everyone??

OK, that's it for the finished stuff for awhile, I'm afraid. My wrist is bugging me again and I don't want to totally destroy it. I'm still feeling beat also. The old female issue isn't helping matters either. So, no knitting...which sucks.


And one last thing...

WTF is up with Roger Clemens? Seriously, I've adored the guy since I don't know when. He was on the mound during my first trip to Yankees Stadium. I've purchased t-shirts with his name on it. My kid had his first professional photos taken with a jersey of his in it. I understand that he's human. I think he's not being honest with the steroids issue, but I can overlook that. Now I read that he cheated on his wife with a 15 year old, years ago. And he's denying it, even though the woman says it's true. It's none of my businees, but have some integrity.

Last week I threw out my Clemens shirt. It was well loved- ratty, holey and stained. I thought that I'd get a new one this spring.

Forget it.

CT Sheep and Wool

Yesterday was CT S&W.


Of course I went. And of course I got lost. It was Alice's fault. She was in the car to Rhinebeck when we got lost repeatedly also. See the connection?


I bought 1 skein of yummy cormo laceweight from Foxhill Farms (no website) in Lee, Mass. (I get them and Firefox Farms mixed up alot.) I hope to buy one skein of it every time I see them and have enough for a laceweight cardigan soon. Since it's a natural color, I don't have to worry about dyelots. It's going to be the perfect souvenir sweater, if you ask me. Anyways, I also bought roving:


Pretty blues, yellows and creams.


That's it.

Well, that and a Klondike bar. Yum!


I saw some friends. The New Haven SnB represented. I volunteered and it cost me money. (Let's just say that I can't count.) And hung out with a new friend. The weather was chilly, but the sun came out in the afternoon.

It was the perfect stepping stone for Maryland Sheep and Wool. Only 5 more sleeps!

Yay!

(PS. Anyone need a place to sleep next weekend? I might have a space or two open! Leave me a comment or email me for info.)

My Body Knows...

This may turn into TMI, so if it offends, sorry.

My body has a way of knowing important holidays and trips. I swear, my reproductive organs have a built-in calendar. My ovaries count down days until the next special occasion, then seem to pop a few days before said event.

For the last few years I've had my period on every important holiday (Christmas and New Years), trip (family vacation to Fl, Rhinebeck), and birthday- both mine and Hubs. Sometimes I think I'm in the clear with holidays that are closer together, but my body always tricks me.

WTF?

Is this some kind of joke?

I started lightly spotting last Monday- not 5 days ago, but the week before. I thought- hey, plenty of time. I'll get it in a couple days, the heavy days will be over by CT S&W. I'm STILL waiting for it to start. Ugh. So now, thanks to mother nature, I'll have my period for both CT and MD S&W. Fantastic!

It's like my body knows it will be around large clusters of other women so it has to show how much estrogen it can throw around. Nice, hunh?

My period usually last 10-14 days. I bitch about it all the time. It's just my natural cycle. I could control it with birth control pills, but I don't want to put hormones into my system for convenience sake.

Last night I had such a headache in class that I was seeing spots, sweating and shaking. After class let out, I stopped at Walgreens and bought Midol. The big blue box. I took two without water and prayed for either sleep or death.

Today I have the remnants of the headache, but I feel less bloated!

Have a happy period...not effin' likely.

Peace and Quiet

I'm really striving for some peace and quiet lately. It's not working out, but I'm doing my best to find some every day.

Yesterday afternoon was stressful. The Boy was showing all of his two-ness, destroying everything that came within a foot of his path and being very vocal with his wants and needs.

By 6:30 I was ready to cry, by 8 I was so elated that I made it through the day that I did cry. I picked up my knitting, finishing a sleeve to a cardigan that I wanted to wear at Easter. Only one more sleeve to go. Hubs teased me about the knitting, and I told him to let me be or I'll shoot up a McDonalds or something.

By 10 I was in bed, listening to the house settle and waiting for sleep to overtake the day.

This morning I went to spinning at the gym and although it was neither peace nor quiet, I still loved every second of it.

I just came in from spinning on my wheel in the sunshine on my porch. The Boy was out there with me, chasing bufferflies (or so he says) and bees. Although it can be stressful, keeping an eye on him, the road, the cars and the wild life, I enjoyed my time out there. Spring has sprung. It warms my soul, in a much desired way.

So I'm finding peace and quiet in little doses. I'll take it where I can get it.

Hope you manage to find some peace and quiet in your day today also.

Fair Isle Vest- DONE!

It's finally finished (and has been for a week.)

I have no idea why I didn't post these photos earlier, except for the fact that I swear that I already did. Isn't that the precursor to Alzheimer's?

I'm really proud of this vest. I was never a big fair isle knitter. Sure I loved to oggle them when another knitter did one, but I really had no interest in doing one myself. Then I did the skull hats and it went downhill from there.

I love fair isle now.

This was a challenging project, both from a technical and a physical aspect. My wrist started to crap out on me in the beginning of this project and really crapped out on me after the front was finished. A project that I thought would take 3 weeks took 4 months. This project was for Schaefer Yarns and they were incredibly supportive and patient.

The yarn is Schaefer Heather, made with 55% superwash merino wool, 30% cultivated silk, 15% nylon. Highly recommend the yarn to anyone. It was a pleasure to work with, although I will admit to the yarn having some extra energy (meaning it had a tendency to spin up on itself.) That would be easily rectified by dropping your needle once in awhile and letting the needle spin a couple of rotations (anyone who has done needlepoint knows exactly what I'm talking about.)

So now that this large project is done and given the fact that my wrist still hurts intermittently, I'm knitting in slow doses.

Happy Monday!

Weekend Wrap-up

This past weekend was lovely. The weather was in the mid 60's to upper 70's and sunny. You can't ask for better than that.

Hubs was away at a hockey tournament, so The Boy and I spent a few days at my inlaws. It felt like the entire weekend was spent outside, teaching The Boy how to ride his tricycle and watching my father in law dig in the dirt.

We came home this morning and decided that we weren't done playing outside.

I get bored with watching him watching birds, bugs and the grass grow, so I brought my spinning wheel outside with us.

At first The Boy wanted to help. Eeks...that didn't go over well at all. (No photos of that mess, trust me.)

Then I told him to pick me some flowers (dandelions). He put them all over my wheel. It was very sweet. I'm spinning BFL from Little Barn. Inexpensive roving, but I love this stuff. Can't wait to buy more!

When Hubs got home, I got to congratulate him on winning the bronze medal. Here he is showing it off to The Boy. Adorable.

And here's The Boy riding off into the sunset.

What did you do this weekend??

...And the Winner IS...

LAURIE M!

Please email me your address and I'll send the mug up to you.

Yay!

Thanks for playing and for the good wishes, everyone.

Good Things.

Today in the mail I got two long-awaited items.

I know the photo shows 3 items. The yarn wasn't long-awaited. ;)

First, I received my fine copy of Yarn Harlot's new book. I haven't started to read it yet.

And this came.
How the hell am I supposed to NOT knit while I have this book in my possession? Yes, the stories of the different fiber farms are great. Yes, the photos of the sheep are adorable. Yes, the entire project rocks. The patterns in this book make me want to get the most organic, natural, beautiful yarn I can find in my stash and KNIT NOW!

Great job, Gale and Joan. Seriously, I can tell that this book will be well loved in the ol' knitting book library.

And oh, I might have purchased new sock yarn. I don't even knit *socks*.

More Favorite Things

When I was in my early twenties I dated a guy for about a year. His name was Frank. He was a school teacher and a popular local musician. I was completely messed up when I met him- I had just ended a very intense relationship that crashed and burned quickly. But Frank was able to pick me up, dust me off and help me rebuild myself. He showed me love through words and songs, sometimes waking me up in the morning with his acoustic guitar in his hands, strumming softly, singing even softer.

We would go on day trips all the time. Not only did he play gigs up and down the East coast, but we thought nothing of getting into his jeep and driving 150 miles for someplace new to have lunch.

We left little notes for each other in a small notebook every morning. I'm sure he destroyed the notebook, but I would give anything to read the words we wrote.

He'd pick me up from work every night so that I didn't have to take the bus.

He gave me candy when I was having a bad day (back then, most of them were).

And he always brought me a sunflower or two to make me smile (and it always did).

Anyways, on to my favorite thing, part 3:

Frank and I went to a Pow-Wow while we were dating. It wasn't the first that I had been to. Still, I was amazed by the Native American culture. There was an artist there who made these pictures with sand on different sized pieces of slate. The artist's son was one of Frank's students. I fell in love with one:

To me, it looked like a lion. It was colorful and for whatever reason, I had an instant attachment to it.

Here's the back, which we discovered (after we got home) that it had some etching on it.

Click for bigger

Can you see it? Written above the white line: Sunflower.

Hunh. Isn't that a coincidence?

Eventually Frank and I went our separate ways. He's married with a couple of step-children. I see him around once in awhile, but conversations are always quick and a bit strange. Oh how I'd love to catch up with him and have a pint, but I doubt that would ever happen....

I Love Lambs!

Yesterday I went to Second Sunday Spinners. Basically, it's a group of spinners who meet up- guess when! Yes, every second Sunday of the month.

Anyways, we meet all across CT and this month's gathering was at Dudley Farms in Guilford.

It was one of the best attended meetings in a long time. I managed to remember my camera, but forgot to check the batteries. I was able to snap 5 photos before it died. Crap.

Anyways, it was great to spend time with some fiber and friends. I'm getting excited about the wool festivals coming up quick!

So I spun on and off for awhile yesterday. I knit some last night- all 15 minutes of it. Today, my wrist hasn't hurt at all. No numbness, no tingles. Maybe I might be on the mend? I'm still going to a specialist though.

And for the first time in a long time, it got to be 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I wasn't dying for a nap. Hmmm. Interesting.

BTW, one of the tests the doctor ran was for my thyroid. I had no idea what it did or why it was important. After looking it up on webmd, I'm glad that it's healthy.

The contest still continues....make sure to comment on the right post though. ;)

2nd Blog Birthday

Yesterday was my blog birthday.

I'm having a contest!

Leave a comment, tell your friends to leave a comment, everyone leave a comment- even if it's just to say, "Hi!" and I'll pick one person from the list (all seven of you, lol!) to win a fabulous "Shut Up and Knit" mug.

Contest runs until April 19th at noon, EST.

I also have bad news about my wrist. I cheated yesterday and knit for about 30 minutes (first time cheating, I swear). All afternoon it bugged me and this morning it's really, really sore. So I'm going to see a specialist sometime in the near future.

The first few days of not knitting were awful. Seriously- awful. Now that I've had time to do other things- cleaning, organizing and reading- I know that it's not a bad thing to take a break once in awhile.

And one last thing- a story.

So at the gym there's a sign in sheet for the women's exercise room. I have no idea why, but I diligently sign in every time.

Thursday was not a good day. We woke up too early, everyone in the house was in a bad mood, I swear if Motherhood was real job I would have quit that morning. Seriously, the morning was awful.

I went to the gym, not really wanting to be there, but knowing full well that I'd walk out of my house and never come back if I stayed home.

I go to sign into the women's area and someone had written, "Today is a great day!" on the top of the page. It had hearts and sqigglies all around it.
For whatever reason, it made something snap- in a good way. I worked out with renewed gusto. I forced myself to repeat those words over and over again all day long. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, whenever I wanted to give up, whenever the Boy whined or cried for no reason...I said those words.

Today is a great day.

So my wish for you is to remember: Today is a great day!

Normal

So my blood and urine tests came back within the normal range.

Why am I so f'ing tired all the time? My diet has been good-not great, but good. Up until the infections really hit I was still working out 4-5 days a week.

Everything should be fine, but something isn't.

Off to bed, early. I know tomorrow is going to be another trying day with The Boy.

GAA-OOWWCH!

That was the exact word I used while getting blood drawn this morning.

BTW, I know that I had to fast, but it sucks to start your morning with that.

Ok, back track to Friday. I went to the doctors. She told me that I had 2 ear infections, a throat infection and a sinus infection. Wow. Nasty. Yay! antibiotics!

Then I told her about my wrist and the 21 day break. She said to do 14 days and take muscle relaxers. Yay, muscle relaxers!!

I also mentioned that I'd been feeling tired. Not, "I need a cup of tea at 3," but more of a, "I can't go another second without a 2 hour nap." This has been going on for awhile now. It feels just like being pregnant. It's awful. Anyways, she told me to get blood tests done. And that brings us to this morning.

This is what my very white arm looks like:

It's hurty and I think I'm going to have a pretty decent bruise.

Ah, war wounds.

How was your morning?

ETA: I've been tired for many weeks now. It's progressively getting worse. That's why I brought it up with the doc. I know the infections don't help, but I think there may be other issues going on.

Fair Isle Vest Blocking

I know that I shouldn't be *so* happy to see a project end. But I am very happy to see this vest resting on the blockers.

I'll sew it up tomorrow, start the neckline and send it off to Schaefer for delivery by next week. Yeah, baby.

So happy.

BTW, I pulled out the blocks and smelled them. They no longer smell bad. I was concerned that it would make the vest stinky.

April 1- Can You Feel the Twitching?

I'm almost finished with the vest, which means no more knitting for awhile. It makes me twitchy just thinking about it.

Anyways, coming up on April 11th is my second blog birthday.

I think it's high time for a contest.

Since I have the fancy-pants Cafepress Store up and running, I think the prizes should come from there. Plus, that means I don't have to go to the post office. Nothing against the USPS, but I'm not subjecting the town to my 2 year old running around their place of business.

I'm still rolling ideas around in my head...not sure what I'm going to do just yet. Stay tuned for the details.

I'm going back to studying for my algebra exam. (Shoot me now.)