California Knitting

This past weekend was Stitches West, and I didn't go.  (I missed it a little when I looked at Instagram to see my yarn friends there but all in all, I'm glad I didn't make the trip this year)  Husband the Engineer, Tia and I were in California though, just the other end.  We were visiting Gavin's aunt in her nursing home who has been placed on hospice care.  My MIL was relentlessly insistent that she take Tia out to CA to meet her sister.  Gavin and I were not comfortable with her taking our baby to CA (she's almost 80 and to be honest, I wouldn't trust anyone to take my baby across the country without me) so we all went to Mission Viejo this past weekend.  It was fairly uneventful.  Lots of time in a nursing home with his aunt and mom (some of it knitting, when Tia permitted).  Very wiggly baby on 4 flights over 3 days (we missed our connection in Houston and ended up making it 3 days of flying instead of 2), and Gavin did ask if I wanted to go to a yarn shop or quilt shop while I was out there- and you don't have to ask me twice!

I got on my phone and found Orange Quilt Bee, which is in Orange and not Mission Viejo, but very worth the 30 minute drive.  I totally lucked out on some projects including a vintage travel baby quilt (which someone has commissioned and I've been struggling to find fabric) and lots of rainbow colors- bright color but low volume.  I plan on making a big gay wedding quilt for Gavin's cousin Lillian (his aunt's daughter) who introduced us to her lovely fiancee while we were out there.  I'll probably just do a simple half-square-triangle pattern because it's quick but extremely versatile.  I still have 2 more baby quilts that are now late because my sewing machine had to go in for repair, so after I finish those 2 quilts, I can start working on the vintage travel and big gay wedding quilt.

So I seem to be stuck here at my desk for a bit because the cat has crawled into my lap and has no intention of moving.  So here are my knitting projects:

Rachel's Getting Married Shawl:  Pattern is High Desert by Romi Hill, yarn is Mirrorball by me! I dyed I think 10 skeins of darker blues before Rachel liked this color (which totally isn't a big deal at all since I will just sell the other attempts at festivals this Spring).  There are 6 charts in this semi-circular shawl and since it starts at the smallest point and goes out, each chart is exponentially more work than the previous one.  I am on the biggest (5th) part of the shawl, and the pattern calls for 2 repeats of this chart for a medium size, and 4 repeats for a tall size.  My gauge is small and the bride is tall, so I am shooting for 3 repeats- the math doesn't change so it doesn't matter if there's an even number of repeats. My goal was to finish the first of the the 3 repeats on the trip and I made that by the skin of my teeth- I finished the WS row literally after landing but before we got to the gate.

The unfortunate thing about lace is that the whole time you're working on it, it doesn't look like anything.  Well, maybe wadded up panties.  The magic is in the blocking, and I'm probably 30 more hours of work away from that. It is coming along very well though.  I am thinking that I can maybe just maybe do 1 chart a week (which is bold) and possibly be done in 3 weeks and move on to the next wedding or baby shower project.  It's just one of those years- the brides and moms are keeping me busy.

Le Socks. 

The yarn is French, the pattern is plain.  It is perfect knitting to stash in your purse.  I put in a couple inches at the nursing home this weekend.  The socks have these really weird creases in them which are quite impossible to photograph.  I don't know if it's because the yarn is weird, or because it was maybe wet while I knitted it? (Baby drool).  Hoping they come out with a washing.  The yarn ball surely is getting smaller but it doesn't appear to have shrunken at all since the cast on of the first sock. So the plan is to finish these, wash them and wear them a couple times, and if I like them, knit a little pair of socks for Tia with the extra and put a little puffy paint on the bottom so they have little grippy bits.  She's not walking quite yet and we have hardwood floors, and I feel like it would just be evil to put her in non-grippy socks at this stage.

And since the cat is still not moving, here's a couple pictures of my office/sewing room.  It's kind of the "dump it" room of the house, and I would like to change that.  What that means is when we're about to have company and have things on the kitchen counter that we're working on, it gets dumped in the office.  So essentially every piece of clutter is part of a massive to-do list.  There's paperwork to switch my Roth IRA over to a new firm.  There's a pattern that needs edited and published, and 2 pieces of paper with email addresses for people waiting on that pattern.  There's yarn festival stuff that really should be in the basement but isn't.  There's fabric that people have given me that is slowly being worked into tote bags to be given away at these yarn festivals. There's things that need listed on eBay or Craigslist. There's shirts that developed a hole 2 years ago and have been waiting very patiently for a patch.  Checkbooks waiting to be balanced, memo boards to be hung...you get the point.  I'm hoping that posting these pictures will shame me into getting this room sorted out.

But honestly?  This room is too messy for Tia to come in and that really bothers me the most.  I like her hanging out with me when I'm working on something.  I just can't have her finding scissors on the floor and putting cords in her mouth.

And very lastly....seeds!

I had someone coming in and watering them every day while we were gone and turning the grow light on in the morning and off at night, but a bunch of them dried out and died.  Damn. But we have hot peppers, columbine, cherry tomatoes, bleeding hearts that refuse to germinate, sunset flowers, and campanulas.  I really want to add a ton of perennial flowers to the yard this year, but they're so expensive to buy in bulk so seeds it is! Wish me luck!