2018: I made it!

Hello and happy 2018.  I hope yours is happy, healthy, and prosperous. I hope the same for mine.

Our Christmas was excellent.  Both of the knitted gifts were well received.  This is somehow the only photograph I got though...
It is a Red Wings hat that my hubby doodled in my scribble book a couple years ago and even named the yarns and colors he wanted, and then totally forgot about.  So, drawing short on cash and ideas, I knitted him this hat while I was in London in October. Totally stealth.  He loved it.  It's something I made up and those damn charts were nearly the death of me- at least they finished off my sanity. But after 4 false starts it turned out really well and he and I are both happy with it.  He immediately asked if I would make another for Tia. No. Never again.

My mom seemed to like her feather and fan scarf I made her, but I didn't get any pictures of it.  I really didn't take that many pictures, I spent most of the day trying not to let Tia eat the wrapping paper.  We all had a very merry Christmas and woke up 2 days later with a nasty cold. All of us.

So the past few days we've quarantined ourselves at home to be kind to the not sick people out there, and because it has been extremely cold and I just don't feel like leaving the house. Which has been really awesome for my finished project count!  I'm starting 2018 with the lowest project count I've had in years.  I actually feel a little naked.

So there's been....

A quilt for Project Linus. It's a bunch of 4" square scraps that are mostly leftover from my king sized quilt on my bed, but there's a few other random project scraps in there too.  I had no idea what to back it with, so I found some fabric that looks like it belongs in a comic book, and I bought the whole bolt.  It was on sale, and I'll use it to back several other baby boy quilts.  No regrets.  I've contacted the lady who organized drop-offs for Project Linus in my county, but it's been several days and I can't get her to return my calls.  I have another, smaller quilt to go to Linus too.

The Noah quilt. I've been slacking on this one- I think Noah is  like 4 months old now. It's a bunch of random Dr. Seuss fabrics.  No measuring (though I probably should have), just quick piecing.  I put the top together during a long Tia-nap, and then pieced together a bunch of scrap batting to fill it with.  Then I got side tracked and put it to the side for a couple weeks, but I finished the binding yesterday, threw it in the wash today (because I had lots of feline assistance) and will mail it to Noah's mom tomorrow.  Done!  I keep Dr. Seuss fabric on hand and buy a little every time I see it (which hasn't been in a while come to think of it) because it's so fun for little boy quilts.  I need to make 3 more for upcoming baby boys, and a little girl quilt too.  If I haven't lost steam by then, I'll try to make one or two for the gift stash pile.  I even added Noah's name in the upper right corner on this one- one of the perks of crafting for babies that are already here and named!

I finished the red wedding shawl!!! Okay I still need to weave in the ends, but I'm thrilled to have this beast done with. I ended up adding triple the border than I originally intended, but I'm glad I did, it looked too small after the first border section and I had tons of yarn left- it felt sinful to waste yarn I paid retail for.  It's blocking on my crazy guest room quilt right now, but I'll try to get outside and get some pictures of it in the snow before I give it to the bride.  Wedding is in March- so I'm golden. Now on to the other 4 wedding gifts for this year...oyyyyy.

And lastly, I finished a cowl that I'm designing for Winter Wooly Weekend next month.  I made the hat a few months ago but I felt like it should be part of a set, and I'm hoping to sell twice as much yarn since there's a matching cowl to go with it (fingers crossed!). I have the pattern written on paper, but need to get it in a document and then test-knitted and have the cowl photographed before the workshop, which is February 9-11.  By the way, if you're interested in attending Winter Wooly Weekend- holler! It's in southern Indiana and there's a few spaces left.  It's $250 for the weekend if you're staying on site, or $180 if you're staying elsewhere at night.  It's really fun, and it's a really great deal for all the food, lodging, classes and supplies you get. Definitely my favorite knitting event of the year. Bags are little stitch marker kits that go with the hat pattern. Need to make 40 more of those soon. 

So with all the finished projects of the past few weeks, my current projects list includes...

1.  Knitted sock (part 2)
2.  Gramps cardigan (need to figure out where I left off)- also knitting
3.  Kraken cross stitching
4.  Tia's baby quilt that keeps getting bigger

I think that's it actually.  I have a couple projects in deep hibernation, but they'll probably stay that way until I get all the wedding and baby gifts done.  I can't remember the last time I could count ALL my projects on one hand.  Frankly it's unnerving.

And here's the list of design projects that I would LOVE to finish by the end of January to get them off my desk...

1.  Tormund- fair isle baby sweater. Needs oodles of resizing math.
2.  Wee Celt- fair isle baby sweater.  Needs something, can't put my finger on it.
3.  Vicissitude Shawlette- needs math on part 4 and total reformatting. I designed it for a knit-along organized by some local yarn shops.  They NEEDED it done a year ago.  So it's done...and has been...but they won't return my calls or e-mails on when this knit-along might be happening.  If I can't get an answer by March, I'm putting together kits and going rogue.
4. Cable Me That Cowl- the reddish cowl above.  Hat pattern is done and proofed and good to go.

I might be escaping the cold for a bit towards the end of January and visiting my parents in Sarasota.  In which case I will have to finish a bunch of designs and Wooly workshop projects BEFORE I go (not unreasonable) and then start a fresh project! Because hey- vacay knitting means I get to play with something new.

Happy New Year!!!!

What the sock?

Behold! I made a sock!

It's a Christmas Miracle.

Okay, it's not at all.  It's the first of a pair I started back in June when I was still attached to my breast pump for 5-7 hours a day. It's some of the oldest sock yarn in my stash, some Three Irish Girls I bought maybe 8 years ago and have fallen out of love with.  But I've been attacking my sock stash from the oldest side this year, and this yarn was next.

I did a picot hem, which I like, and Farrow ribbing, which I like.  At least I like the look of it- the construction is another story. It's just very slow.  But I've been working on this sock lately because I (a) have finished most of my other knitting projects and (b) don't love the other projects I have going- and they're the wrong size to travel with.  So yesterday, with a glass of nice whiskey and the company of good friends, I finished the first sock. And somehow I was 3 stitches off on my decreases on needles 1 & 3. And the toe just didn't look right.  I knitted on.

It had been so long since I made a pair of patterned socks that I'd forgotten to stop working in the pattern and switch to plain stockinette, and I wasn't smart/sober enough to think about why it looked funny.  I also realized that in order for the pattern to work with my gauge, needles 1 & 3  had 15 stitches each, and needles 2 & 4 had 18 stitches each. Oyyy.....

So this morning, I took the cat to the vet (she's as fine as an 8 y/o tripod can be- just her annual check-up and vaccines), poured a strong cup of tea, and sat down under my good light and ripped back the woven in ends.  I ripped back the perfect kitchener graft.  And then I ripped back the entire toe that took me most of last evening.  So I'll try it again tonight, plain, with the right amount of decreases.  And then someday I might think about making that second sock. 

I do have 2 other projects on the needles at the moment, but I don't really care for either of them. The first is a cardigan that hasn't been touched since February.  It's red, it's lovely and it has soooo many cables.  Which I'm just not digging right now.  It's also not going to fit until I lose about 10 more pounds, so there's very little motivation to work on it other than freeing up that basket.

The second is a lovely burgundy shawl that my dear friend Brooke will be wearing in her wedding in March.  The pattern is Rock Island by Jared Flood, and I hate it passionately. I started it and frogged the first part at least 8 times before moving on to the second part and deciding to replace the cursed border with one that I like.  I have found a new border to put in but there exists one more roadblock to this shawl that is needed for a wedding that is getting closer and closer...

I can't freaking see it. 

My vision got a little blurry when I was pregnant for Tia, which I've heard is a totally normal thing, and I kept waiting for my normal vision to return.  But that baby is 7 months old now and I can't see a thing.  So my next project is to get glasses, then pick up eleventy billion border stitches in a very fine deep red yarn, and make a very elaborate border.  I'm sure it will be no big deal, once I can see what I'm doing. 

I've been working on a few quilt tops too, for new babies and project Linus and even one for Tia.  I have 3 tops made and need to sandwich them and quilt them, which isn't my favorite part.  So that's just kind of a theme with all my projects right now.  Everything is just a little bit blehhhhhh.

I'll keep chugging along just to get them done, and someday I'll find a project that excites me again.  Hopefully.  If not, I'll get my butt back to ceramics class.  Unbalanced tea cups, anyone?

In case you are interested in the outcome of the D&C, the results were pretty gross but totally not cancerous.  Let's just say "complications from childbirth that could have gotten really bad, but luckily hadn't done so yet."  If you're curious from a medical standpoint, let me know and I can elaborate privately, but it's a bit gross for the general public.

Simply Perfect

So if you are an Instagram follower (I'm knitpurldrop on there too), then you'll know I've been a little obsessed with this simple patchwork quilt. 

As I (think) I mentioned last post, it's just a little destash project- a charm pack I've had for a couple years, the leftovers from the backing of my brother's quilt- I even sewed together batting scraps to fill it! I'd never done that before but the pile of scraps was taking up entirely too much space in the storage ottoman, and I was able to make a dent in that wad with this quilt.  For some reason I was thinking it was going to be hard to piece together batting scraps, but it took about 10 minutes and some zig-zag stitching.  Not a big deal at all.

So here's the quilt, as simple as it gets.  Just simple patchwork.  Simple diagonal quilting (I drew the lines on in pencil and just sewed over it).  Then I just pulled the backing forward and bound it like that- the whole quilt took about 3 hours and I'm ridiculously happy with it.  It's been added to the gift stash for future baby girls.  There is one tiny change I would make if I had to do again, and I'd adjust my machine so the stitches were longer in the actual quilting part.  I normally do that, and I'm a bit rusty and I just forgot. This might be the first actual quilt I've finished in 2017. 

I also had quite a bit of knitting time today at the Dr.'s office.  I'll spare you the gory details, but I've been having some girly problems since I had Tia and then went back on birth control. (One and done for me)  Anyhow, after about 45 minutes of Feather & Fan with some Posie by Good For Ewe, I found out that there's a mass in my uterus.  We were unable to tell exactly from the ultrasound if it's a fibroid, a polyp or something else, so I'll be having a D&C as soon as there's an open OR- probably the first of the year.  It's totally not a big deal, just an outpatient surgery.  The worst part is the anesthesia, which always takes a couple days for me to shake off. It's probably nothing bad, but I have a family history of uterine cancer on my mom's side, and I'm BRCA2 positive, so it's better to be safe than sorry. Years ago, I came to terms with the fact that my uterus would try to kill me at some point, so I've been staying on top of my reproductive health as best I can.

I also wanted to say thank you for all the kind words on my post a couple weeks ago about my PPD.  There's such a stigma about mental health and disorders, and it's been really good for me to talk about it and let it out a bit, and I've had a couple people open to me about their own issues. so it's worth it to know that I'm not suffering through this alone- and there is some sort of comfort in this miserable company.  There are starting to be more okay days than bad days, which is a very slow step, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.  

The Great Destash

Over the past year, I have been on a serious yarn diet (only bought 2 skeins of yarn- seriously!) and sold a ton of old stash in sweater quantities on eBay.  Did well on some, not so well on others, but trading old stash for cash is always nice.  My tastes have changed in yarn, so it's natural to have some from old phases that can go to a new home.

I've also been on a destash group on Ravelry, that makes you fess up to yarn coming in to the stash and yarn leaving, and it's all done by grams.  So you check in at the end of each month, say "Hi, I purchased 250 grams of yarn/fiber, and I knitted 745 grams".  Stash sold or gifted doesn't count, but whatever.  It counts to my checking account!

But that system has been keeping me honest about my stash in and stash out, and tracking it has been really great when facing a somewhat intimidating stash.  It felt like I hadn't knitted or crocheted very much this year- and I haven't compared to some people in the group- but it's nice to go back month by month and see progress.  And holes starting to form in the stash.  I dream of one day fitting ALL of my personal stash in a smallish chest which currently holds my sock yarn. And thanks to finishing some old projects, that dream might come true in a couple years.  I'll keep you posted.

But here's my most recent finished project- the Uglysweater.  Or Mrs. Weasley Sweater, depends on the day.

Here it is in it's unblocked beauty, about 30 seconds after weaving in the last end.  I started this sweater with my BFF Rachel (you'll be hearing a lot more about her, she's my other-other half) back in February at a Superbowl party. She asked me to teach her to knit last year, and we've been doing this by starting projects together that teach her different techniques.  She's the fastest learner I've ever seen, and she'll probably publish a fair-isle knitting book by the end of next year.  Anyhow, she wanted to knit a sweater, we picked out a pattern, and we casted on together at a Superbowl party.  We'd work to the the next part of the pattern, stop, and get together so I could show her how to separate the sleeves from the body, how to pick up stitches, etc.  When she got close to finishing the first sleeve, I figured she was good to go on her own, plus I wanted to have that sweater out of my knitting bag.  So here it is, unblocked.  I wore it on Thanksgiving, unblocked.  And it's sitting next to my laundry basket, still unblocked.  I'll get to it someday. It will be fantastic for a Christmas Sweater party.

Yarn is Crazy Yarn Mill Ends by Stonehenge Fiber.  Each skein is unique, but I found skeins that all had the same Kelly green in them. I used just over 5 skeins.  I'm still a little heavy from having a baby, so I hope it gets more flattering as time goes on. 

I've also been trying to sew lately, since I was really in a quilting groove before Tia was born, and the chair in front of my sewing machine is one of my happiest places, but it's hard to get there with a 6 month old.  I've also been on a fabric destash, since BFF Rachel brought me 2 enormous bags of fabric that someone had gifted to her and I had a bit of a growing stash of my own.  I've been making tote bags at an alarming rate with the fabric from Rachel, which I'll give to people who buy lots of yarn from me at fiber festivals.  2 birds with one stone!  But yesterday I dug into my stash for a quick project and found an old charm pack that was a door prize at a show years ago.

I put this little quilt top together in about 40 minutes, and then I found a backing fabric that is the absolute perfect size- leftover from a quilt I made my brother last Christmas.  I'm even sewing together batting scraps to stuff it with- how thrifty am I? (I mean, how cheap?)

I have it shown here on top of the backing fabric so you can kind of see what it will look like when it's done.  It's definitely a girl baby quilt, but it's not super girly, and I like that.  It's also on the small side, which I used to hate but now that I have a baby, I love this size for strollers and car seats. But that's the entire charm pack, so that's what size it is.  I'll quilt it on my Janome machine, so it will just be diagonal stitching, nothing fancy.  I'm not paying someone with a long-arm to finish this destash quilt for me.  The only question that remains is....what do I do with it?  Tia doesn't need another blanket, as much as I like it.  I have a quilt in progress for her, which I'll show off when I get back to it.  But I'm torn between putting it in the gift stash for future baby girls, and giving it to Project Linus- because I haven't donated any baby blankets for a year or two.  Decisions, Decisions.

And lastly, Madeline sends her love and requests more treats.  She's spoiled rotten and still my little baby.

Ch-ch-changes

I highly doubt anyone is reading this anymore, and that might be for the better.

It's been a long time since I wrote.  Bike Boy and I finally got married.  We moved to a bigger house.  Good For Ewe grew.  I got pregnant and cut my hours at the software company.  We did a bunch of work on the house.  I had that baby (Tia, girl, now 6 months old). I quit my job at the software company and took Good For Ewe full time.   Good For Ewe stopped growing.  I started going to therapy for postpartum depression. I began looking for part-time work and didn't find any. I started drinking a lot more bourbon.  So now you're caught up.

I'm sure I'll raise some eyebrows for putting this in words, but motherhood isn't what I expected.  Some things are better, and some things aren't.  I love my little girl so much, but I'm not as enamored with being a mom. I go to group therapy weekly, and we talk about transitions in our roles.  I went from artist/department coordinator to just mom. All day every day. I know keeping a teacup human alive is a thing, I just struggle feeling satisfied with my life when I'm crying at noon, in sweats that I've been wearing for 3 days with hair that hasn't been washed in a week. And that's just life now.  And I feel like a complete jerk for not feeling all glowy and motherly.  I'm just not that kind of person.  I wish I'd known that sooner.

So here is my old/new journal of my life.  There will be some knitting.  There will be some quilting.  Gardening.  Baking.  But I'm also going to get real with you about what it's like to be stuck at the bottom of a hole, trying to claw your way out, holding a baby.

See you around.

End of Summer Posting

Summer is quickly winding down and the leaves are starting to change. The garden has been taken over by volunteer pumpkins from last year's compost heap and the tomatoes are slowing down for the year. I've been so busy with both jobs lately, I didn't bother planting a row of radishes or turnips for my fall garden.

Our next door neighbor is a very nice man, but doesn't take care of his lawn. His back yard is some kind of invasive plant sanctuary- thistles 20 feet high, poke weed, poison oak and honeysuckle and it's all coming over the fence and into my garden. It's a losing battle I just don't have the time for, so after I pull the sweet potatoes we'll be laying out some flagstone to create a buffer for a few feet that will hopefully slow the weeds down. I wish he would move out and someone would come and take care of that poor house and yard. But he isn't, so I need to do what I can to protect my garden from his mess. I'm also worried about how it could hurt our home's value when we try to sell our house (not in the foreseeable future, but it's a small house and we might need something bigger someday).

Anyhow, there is an abundance of pumpkins, tomatoes and peppers now. BFF Rachel and I are going to be making a big batch of pepper jelly next week and I'll start pulling up the plants, spreading this summer's compost and tilling under for the fall in the week or so after that. I'd love to get a bunch of it done over Labor Day weekend, but Tall/Dark & Handsome is set on boating in KY, which is also nice, just not overly helpful for taking care of the to-do list.

I've been knitting on two projects lately, a purple baby cardigan called "Wee Liesl"- a Ysolda pattern for a pregnant friend at work. I used an Opal handpainted sock yarn I've had stashed for a few years. It's superwash, so I figured I'd save it for gift knitting. I've had the pattern and yarn picked out for a while, I've just been waiting for someone to have a girl. I don't know that this friend is having a girl yet, I just had a feeling so I cast on. It's finished now with exception of the buttons, but I'll wait until it's finished blocking before I put those on. I found silvery-gray shell buttons that bring out the plum color.  As you can see, Madeline the wool snob is a big fan.

I'm still chugging along (with a lot less momentum) on the green fitted February Lady Sweater. I think I'll need to find another hank of this yarn for it, and I'm dreading that and that's probably the anchor in the progress. That and I've been working on wedding things instead. I never actually knit at home anymore and progress on bigger projects (that don't fit in my purse) is slow-going. I also realized that Christmas is only a few months away now, and I should probably start with Christmas crafting. I've been working on a smaller quilt for Gavin's parents as a gift at some point- I was hoping to give it to them at the wedding as a thank you for paying for the rehearsal dinner. I had a really good weekend on it and thought I could give it to them for Christmas but now I'm not as sure. But I do want to knit a pair of socks for a friend, a couple hats or scarves for co-workers and a couple potholder/dried herb sets for a few foodie-friends as well. Extended family will probably have another year of jellies and dried herbs from the garden. So far I have 2 jars of dried peppers and a Rastafarian potholder.

I have also been working on a baby quilt for a friend due on the 14th. I meant to finish it and give it to her a couple months ago, but I didn't even turn on my sewing machine all through July and August. I made another blue and yellow quilt like I made for Mary Jane, but I ran out of fabric and had to go a tiny bit smaller on one side. I had some really cool Dr. Seuss fabric that I used on the back- it's such an awesome print and I didn't want to cut any of it and risk beheading some of my favorite characters, so I just made the entire quilt back all one Dr. Seuss print.  I managed to get the top done last night and quilt it, but it still needs bound. Madeline is very involved in the quilting process and I can't seem to get any pictures without her flopping down in the middle of "her" quilt. I'll make her one soon with scraps for her window seat.

Ovary Woevaries

My last few months (since mid-May) haven't really been the most pleasant. Somewhere between helping to renovate an old Midas building that became the new bike shop, TNNA and a summer full of shows with Good For Ewe (hurrah!), I started feeling a little...off.  I assumed it was stress and lack of rest and I pushed through. Then the nausea started...but only in the mornings. Then mood swings and finally a really odd cramp in my left ovary. (Catholics and squeamish people, turn away now) I have an IUD and being the worry-wart that I am, my brain went right to ectopic pregnancy. I called my doctor immediately and went in for an ultrasound. The good news is, it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy, or a pregnancy at all. I know how that sounds, and I do love and want babies, I was just really hoping to work on that AFTER my wedding next June and when Good For Ewe was a little bigger. The not so great news was that there was a nearly 4 inch cyst in my left ovary causing pain and first trimester pregnancy symptoms. They diagnosed it as a simple cyst- meaning that it was fluid filled, and provided that my ovary did not twist onto itself and cut off blood flow, it would eventually slowly osmose or burst, releasing those fluids back into my bloodstream.

That didn't happen. Instead I grew an even bigger cyst on the right side. By this point I stopped being able to eat breakfast or keep any dinner down. I've eaten my weight in crystallized ginger root in the past 3 months. I've lost 10 pounds and have no interest in eating anything anytime. With the next check up, there were 2 additional growths- not simple cysts, and we took out the IUD a year early and went to a hormonal therapy to help shrink the cysts. This treatment didn't stop the vomiting, only made me cry while puking. I've had my 5th Dr's appointment about these cysts today and we've decided to stop hormonal birth control altogether for a couple months to let my system reset. Since we are 10 months out from the wedding, I'm more than a little leary of this but I can't continue to throw up on the way to work most mornings. If this were happening a year from now, it would simplify my birth control decisions greatly, but it's not, so I just knit in waiting rooms trying to figure out what the next step is.

So that's what's going on with my reproductive parts and why I look positively haggard if you've seen me lately. Here's some better things:

I've been dyeing tons of yarn lately for Good For Ewe. I sell it faster than I can make it, which is a pretty awesome problem to have. Finding time to make it is proving to be tricky though. I look lovingly forward to a day when I only have one job and can spend several days hunched over a steaming dye pot prodding boiling wool blends. Okay maybe not that particular part of the process but I do really enjoy the gratification of looking at the day's work and seeing my favorite colors and knowing they will be loved.

So far I'm just dyeing lace and sock yarn but so far it's gone really really well!

I've been wedding planning and it's going pretty well- which probably means I'm missing something huge. I did have my caterer bail on me which I was pretty mad about, especially since I had to contact him to find out he'd changed his mind. Thank goodness I'd emailed him to ask if he wanted a Save the Date otherwise I could have gone several more months before finding out he'd changed his mind.  I was supposed to meet with another caterer last night and drove out to Zionsville in rush hour with my MOH and my parents coming in from the NE side only to find the caterer had gotten the day wrong and wasn't there and didn't have any food ready. Oy vey. So we'll try again in a few weeks when 4 people's schedules align again.

Wedding knitting is going really well so far. I had a totally masochistic notion that all of my bridesmaids needed lace shawls (in lace weight of course) and they would all be ecru but all different patterns. I got the first 2 done really fast (thank goodness there's only 4 bridesmaids) but I kind of petered out halfway through the third. I just need a break from ecru lace. I also decided to knit Tall/Dark & Handsome a pair of socks for a wedding gift, lovingly wrapped with a note that says "in case of cold feet".

*Gavin, if you're reading this, act really surprised when you get these socks, touched that I would knit socks at that gauge for your giant feet and for the love of all things wooly, make sure your toenails are short before wearing them*

I'm *done* with the first sock- kind of. I still need to kitchener to toe closed and weave in the ends, but considering we are still 10 months out, I feel like I'm doing okay. I just can't work on them when Gavin is around but as much as he's at the bike shop, that's really not that hard.

I am knitting a totally selfish project because I needed something that wasn't a giant blue ribbed sock or ecru lace, and I dug some Cascade 220 Heathers out of my stash from about 6 years ago and am making another Fitted February Lady Sweater. I made one about 3 years ago and it felt like it flew by- there's just something about gull lace that soothes my soul when I have a lot on my mind. According to my yarn, I'm about 30% finished but have a road trip coming up this weekend. I'll probably be incoherent after taking a bunch of dramamine, but a girl can dream about 12 hours of knitting time, right?


And the garden is going strong this year. I should have planted my fall veggies like my carrots and turnips but I had some volunteer pumpkins that sprouted and I didn't have the heart to pull them. So I have tons of tomatoes and the pumpkins are taking over the yard. They're growing up the fence and I've got pumpkins hanging 8 feet in the air which I think is pretty cool since I'm one of those weird permaculture enthusiasts.

But until those pumpkins are ready to pick and the fall tilling needs to be done, can I interest you in some tomatoes?