One Crazy Fiber Lady

As many have probably figured out already, I’m never really idle… never have been except that first year of being a new mother.  Having twins single handed made me so very tired that for the first time in my life, I could actually sit still and do absolutely nothing for more than a minute without wanting to chew my foot off.  But since the twins started sleeping through the night, and I got to as well, I’m no longer so tired that I can’t move and have been back to the continual busy-ness.  You’ll notice that most of my hobbies are designed so that I can sit and still be relatively active. Other than trying to keep the twins from killing themselves, burning down the house and tending small animals, I keep myself busy this weekend with the usual collection of crafts.  

First, the hand knitting.  I finished Kat’s Amore (ravelry link) yesterday while supervising patio play in the sunshine.  Monsters.  Kat happily wore the new sweater to school this morning over her sundress.  I never touched the second and much larger skein of yarn.  She expressly forbid me from knitting Alex a sweater from it an actually swiped it from my room, looping it over her shoulder.  It is now hanging from the Lendrum in her bedroom.  Kiss that skein goodbye.  Maybe it will become her sweater next year.  Now I need to finish spinning for A’s sweater, which reminds me, I need to find something to ply that blue/green merino with.  

I broke out the much underutilized NZAK on Saturday while the kids tortured each other while they were supposed to be cleaning their rooms.  I spent some time last week reading a fabulous blog for CSM’s over here.  I borrowed his recipe for a small ladies sock and got busy with some Trekking XXL that i picked up at MDSW this year.  These socks have his standard 2×1 mock rib hem (40 rounds of mock, insert missing needles, knit 2 rounds, hang hem), 45 rounds for the leg, short row heel, 45 rounds for the foot, short row toe.  Done.  Whipped these suckers out and even grafted the toe the same day!  Fit perfectly.  I’ll definitely be knitting more.  I made them on the 54st cylinder.  I’ll probably be swapping Jessica back her 60 for my 72.  Now that I can get a good fitting pair off the 54 for me, I’ll use the 72 to knit socks for dad or others with bigger feet.  Definitely, head over to Soxophone Player’s blog for all you wanted to know about cranking socks.

Finally, Saturday night, while the folks had the kids at a local fair parked in the mall parking lot, I did a bit of beading.  I actually started this necklace on Friday night, but didn’t get very far before Battlestar Galactica started and I had to stop to give the show my full attention.  (Oh yeah, I can sit still and do nothing for a very select group of tv programs.)  Ignore those little circles of light both at the side and bottom of the picture.  It appears that the sweet Macbook is reflecting light from the high-hats in my bedroom.  Doesn’t look that way to the naked eye, as I didn’t notice until I saw the picture downloaded from the camera.  This necklace is a right angle weave of 3.8mm peach colored freshwater pearls, gold 15/0 beads and tear drop crystals.  I love it.  I have a few pearls and crystals left so I think I’m going to fashion a set of coordinating earrings.  Not sure what the hell I’m going to wear this for, but still, nice to have.  

Having trouble typing today as the ring finger on my right hand is stiff and sore to bend.  Not sure what is up with it but it has been cranky for a couple of weeks now.  I don’t remember hurting it.  Fingers crossed it isn’t the dreaded A word.  I can still knit, thank g-d.  This getting older business sucks.  Oh well, time to go write some code. 

Craft on!

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Since yesterday was officially Twirling Tuesday, I pulled out a spinning wheel (or two) to use.  I spun a bit more of the blue-green merino on the Ladybug, but then moved to the recently neglected Matchless and the red mix that I bought from Little Barn at MD.  

I think I need a solid navy merino to ply with this.  I initially bought a black merino for that purpose but I didn’t have the red fiber with me and couldn’t offhand remember what colors were paired with it.  Time to prowl the net.

I’ve rediscovered an older hobby that hasn’t gotten much attention in a few years.  Partially because most of those supplies are sadly, still in my storage unit, tucked way way in the back behind the Ikea shelving units.  Well, the trip to AC Moore led me down the beading aisle because I needle small beads for the projects in the bobbin lace book.  I bought all sorts of stuff. Saturday night I found under my bed in a shoebox all the supplies for a necklace project that was in a Bead magazine.  I must have purchased the stuff last spring, got distracted by something else and just tucked it away, forgotten. 

Not forgotten anymore.  This is the project picture in the magazine with the first of the 5 necessary gold squares that I’ve finished.  I’m using gold delicas and a right angle weave to make these up.  I’ve so far made two of them.  Each one has taken about an hour to put together.  I had to order additional threads for this last night in the topaz and black colors.  While I was at the site, I might have ordered supplies to make another necklace  And Laurie said I’d go blind with bobbin lace!  The next project with the size 15/0 beads will really make the eyes work!
 

As if I needed further evidence that my kids are kind of weird, I walked into my bathroom last night to find a toothbrush on the wall.  This is what happens when you mix a four year old and a toothbrush with a suction cup on the other end.  I have to admit, it was not the first time one of the monkeys did this.  Kat was infamous for sticking hers just about anywhere, including the edge of the sink, I just never remembered to photograph it.  I never know what I’m going to find when I walk in there.  Weird.

Craft on!

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Oy am I tired.  I stayed up late again last night jabbering on the telephone with another feller.  I’ll save the perils of dating discussion for later in the post so those who tune in for monkeys and yarn can tune out before there.  But first the really good news, Uncle Richie was able to get back into the house yesterday and rescued his animals.  The dogs are at Bid-a-wee and can stay there for up to 15 days.  Aunt Jackie will be driving back to pick them up and return them to Atlanta with her.  The birds are in Metairie with friends.  Not entirely sure where the cats are, but I suspect they are in Metairie as well.  Dad doesn’t always think to ask the question.  Heck we hadn’t a clue where and how my cousin’s husband was for days as dad never asked.  I had wrongly assumed he’d stayed behind to watch the homestead, but found out that he’d gone with my aunt and cousin to Atlanta.  Uncle R is going to be staying at a friend’s house in Metairie for the next bit as he works for the city in the building department and will probably be called back to work after the water is gone.  His friends have a second house in Metairie and will be moving into one and letting him have the other.  Nice to have friends like that!  Anyway, its a relief that the two-legged and four-legged members of my family are now safe.

OFC (obligatory fiber content)

I knitted yesterday!  I actually picked up Birchington again and managed to get two rounds done.  At this rate, I’m going to be a grandma before that shawl is done.  Scattering my attention every which way to Sunday isn’t helping in getting that thing done.  In the interest of coming closer this decade, I’ve had a daily knitting realignment.  Birchington is back in my bag, the socks are out.  The amulet bag is hiding in the bag as well, especially since I wanted to take a picture of it.  Plus them 0000 dpns could make a nice defensive weapon should I need one!  We won’t talk about poor Eris hiding in the knitting bag, untouched and unloved for oh so very long now.

Here’s the beaded amulet bag that I’ve been working on.  Sorry for the lousy photo.  I have yet to have a chance to try out the new light tent.  This was taken a few minutes ago on my lovely desktop at work.  I did happen to use beads that come in a hank, rather than loose.  My problem was as I was transfering them to the 10/2 tencel, the thread snapped, or disconnected, or once the tencel snapped and let go of the thread.  Finally with the fourth strand, I got them all on without hearing little beads scatter.  I love the color.  Its fairly reminiscent of my pi shawl.  Maybe mom would like this little bag to go with it.  Fun to knit, still don’t know what I’m going to do with it.  Looking at this picture, I think I need to pull the thread a little tighter after I slip the beads over. 

Monkey Fun

Is it just me or can toddlers wreck havoc like a plague of locusts?  I was on the phone with the office on Saturday (I was the lucky sucker on call this weekend) when the toddlers wrecked havoc on my bathroom, after visiting the pantry.  They hit the toilet paper container for extra rolls, stuffing it with tissues from the box on the back of the toilet.  The toilet paper roll was shredded by the aptly named Kat.  Here you can see her on the floor with the pilferred container of almonds from the pantry.  Luckily they didn’t recognize these things as food and contented themselves with scattering them all over the bathroom.  There were nuts EVERYWHERE!  Alex here has a handful that he was about to toss on the counter and into the sink.  I did install safety latches on the pantry doors so there will be no repeat performance of canned goods touring the house.  I do get to play the canned mystery game though as they did strip the labels off a few of them

This weekend was also pretty momentous in that the boy figured out that if he pushed his little wooden Ikea chair to the storm door, he could now reach the handle and let himself out.  I’d gone to the car to get something, only to hear squealing and giggling as these two monkeys came around the side of the house heading for me.  They’d escaped!  He then spent a good deal of time pushing or carrying that chair everywhere and climbing on it for a new perspective of things.  Lovely.  Never ever a dull moment around. 

Dating

Only on the dating scene for a couple of days and I already had to dispatch a nutcase.  Here’s the quick timeline with this dude:

• Friday 9pm - Quick IM conversation where we exchange phone numbers (yup my 1st mistake)
• Sat 10:45pm - he calls, I ain’t answering as call intercept grabbed it and I was on my way to bed anyway.  Short people get up early and all that.
• Sun 10:00am - he calls.  This time I talked to him as I tried to simultaneously finish packing and feed the twins/cats/rabbit/myself breakfast.  Convo got very strange and triggered some warning flags that had me deciding not to pursue a relationship.  Told him I’d try and call him Monday night as we were going to be away.  He told me I could call him from the boat (gosh thanks).  Again, I repeat, I’ll try and call you Monday night.  Dude wouldn’t shut up, finally got him off the phone so I could then wrangle the short people who once again had gotten into the bathroom, this time playing with a bar of soggy soap.  Oy.  Anyway, I ran through the conversation with my folks and again later with my sister and they all agree, no dating this guy.  I decided to tell him thanks but no thanks.
• Mon 8:15pm - he calls.  I was just finishing up with the twins’ bath/bedtime ritual and didn’t answer the phone.  After I got done with them, I was on the phone with my mother, talking about the weekend, my uncle’s evacuation, visiting my sister this coming weekend, etc.  After that, I popped on to check my email and wound up on the phone with a new fellow.  We didn’t hang up until after midnight so I didn’t get back to the weirdo.
• Tues 8:05pm - he calls.  Again, I’m getting the twins down to sleep and leave the phone to voice mail.  Hell that’s what its there for isn’t it?  He starts berating me for not getting back to him and blowing him off.  How he would be a perfect match for me and how come I didn’t call him back, why didn’t I answer his IM last night, blah blah blah blah.  Other than the finances thing (oh yeah, he’d told me I’d have to be the breadwinner - not bad in and of itself - but that also he needed a new job and maybe my dad could hook him up.. or maybe he could come to work at the same company I did - yeah, not a good picture) he would treat me like a queen.
• Tues 8:11pm - I call him back seething and got his voicemail.  I told him off.  I was away, he knew that.  I have little kids.  He knew that as well.  It is in the first sentence of my profile on the service that I’m a single mom to almost 2 year old twins.  I also told him to quit stalking me.  I was only on the service briefly the previous night and never saw his IM.  I said that while I was planning on calling and telling him nicely that I’d like to take a pass on pursuing any further relationship, he hadn’t given me the chance.  I told him to lose my number and get lost.
• Tues 8:15pm - he calls back.  First he apologized then disclaimed stalking me.  Whatever.  I told him again that while I wished him luck, I’m going to take a pass on pursuing a further relationship with him. He then went nuts telling me that while he thought we’d be a good match (because other than the kids, we had a similar situation with our divorces.. not even close doofus but I’ll spare you those ugly details), and that he was honest and a good guy unlike all the other losers on the service and was trying to spare me having to deal with all them.  He was putting the burden on me to come to that decision and meet him saving myself the trouble of dating the phoneys.  He kept going on and on and on and on.  Couldn’t buy himself a clue that I was getting farther and farther from interested.  "We can consider this our first fight" was a suggestion he made.  "Sure and our last fight as well" was my reply.  I finally got rid of him with a "Dude, buy a clue.  I’m not interested."  He finally hung up.

Geez, it almost makes me want to return to my self declared 6 month dating sabbatical that lasted from July 99 until now ;)  On the good side, I had a very lovely long conversation with a very nice guy after that.   I had a really good time talking to him and he’s pencilled in for dinner either next Friday or the following week.  Depends on both of our abilities to arrange for child care.  I’m sure there will be more about him (B) or the fellow from the night before (J) who I’m going to have lunch with next week.

Bravo to anyone who reached this far, I do very much appreciate it.  You all get good buddy merit points.  I promise to continue shoving the dating fun into the end of a post and highlighting it so you can ignore at your leisure.

Knitting is indeed easier than dating!

Craft on.

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One of those days.  I was just finishing one list bit in a rather lengthy, brilliantly written, emotionally deep and otherwise fabulous post when I got a little confused closing a browser window that I had open for a link.  You know where this is going right?  I’m using the maxthon IE with its beloved tabs and well, closed down the whole works 98% complete posting and all.  Since I’m only brilliant once a day and that time has passed, we’re going to do this Cate style with bullets and overall randomness.

• I’m still waiting to hear word from my uncle Richard in New Orleans.  Last my cousins (or other family members) heard from him was Tuesday morning when he reported that the water had risen to the middle of his driveway and then had started to receed.  Cousins and aunt are pretty sure he’s okay and just unable to communicate.  They also advise that the house is in the 20% of NOLA that isn’t flooded.  Naturally, I’m still concerned.  My cousin Paige, who’s due in some 5 weeks, was directed to her sister’s OB in Atlanta where she’ll more than likely have my little nephew.  Doesn’t look like anyone is going home to NOLA anytime soon.

• I spent last night watching the news coverage of the continuing tragedy, keeping my hands busy, much in the same way I used my spinning wheel thru 9/11.  I made myself a bracelet last night from a pattern I found on the Interweave Beadwork site in their subscriber area (the last issue I picked up on the stand had the subscriber-only password on it!).  You can see the whole bracelet here.  It is made from 4mm hematite beads with gunmetal delicas and a pewter toggle clasp.  My first bead order arrived and my second is scheduled to arrive today. I also finally got a picture of the necklace up in the album as well.  Note to self:  set up a light tent for proper pictures of beaded and yarny goodness.

• The knitting and beading collision is not far away on the horizon.  I have this pattern ready and waiting.  When?  When the orders from Elaine’s favorite crack bead seller and The Mannings arrive with the needed supplies.  What can I say, I’m weak.

• I finally did manage to cast on that second fish sock.  Took me until this morning on the train in to do it.  Boy am I a slacker.  It does look like I’ve managed to get the color repeats almost exactly the same as on the first sock.  That was a good mental note I made.  I held this sock to the first and the stitches are dead on.  Yay me.  Sorry for the crappy picture, I took it this morning on the train.  That’s my pink mohair "Kerry Blue" shawl in the background.  That’s been my train shawl for the last couple of weeks.  I made it during my last last phase some years back.

• I had yesterday off so I took advantage of the hairdresser appointment that my mom was going to cancel and finally get my hair trimmed.  I missed/cancelled the last three so I vaguely remember my last cut being somewhere around February. Nothing special, just a trim with some fringey bangs cut in for excitement.  The fun was how she styled it.  Kassie used one of them nifty wet-to-dry ceramic flat irons.  I love the results!  It got my wavy hair pin straight.  She did give it a smidge of a curl under and I’m just digging it.  I did some googling when the twins went down for a nap.  Now I ordered this (same model she used), but also see this one and this one.  All the same model number, all on Amazon and three different prices.  You betcha I ordered the cheaper one.  The one I ordered appears with a Ships in 3 to 5 weeks delivery note on the product page.  I can wait, right?  Lived this long with wavy hairs, what’s another couple of weeks.  I just got the shipping notice.  It went out today, actually a day ahead of the estimated ship date that I got in the confirmation email of tomorrow.  Go figure.

• After I blew away my witty post, I had to get away from the evil that is a computer.  I headed uptown to  ever crowded midtown and hit a bead store.  Yup, weak I am.  I had seen another pattern I wanted to try and I had to get more beads for it.  Hope the kids nap well this long weekend, wouldja?  I’m into beads in a big way.  I see a side business starting up before long.  Must support the habits somehow

Prayers and thoughts are with those affected by Katrina.

Craft on.

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Yeah I knit.  See:

The first Opal Rainforest sock in Fish is now complete.  I grafted the toe on the train this morning.   I also got the skein ready for the second sock.  For a change, I made a readable/findable mental note as to where in the color repeats I started this sock in so I could come darn close to duplicating it for the second.  I’m ready to cast on for its mate tonight.  Having made these cuffs shorter than normal, I think I’ll have enough yarn to eek out two pairs of monkey socks.  I think this colorway is okay for Alexander as well.  Hmm.. maybe we have our family Rhinebeck socks.  We all wore matching socks last year, though they weren’t wearing shoes and I spent most of my time retreiving socks from the sidewalks, under the stroller, etc.  Still wish I had a nickle for every kind soul who stopped me to let me know that Alex had lost one of his socks.  I finally gave up and tucked those socks in my pocket.  This year:  shoes (aka Sock Protectors).

Did I knit last night?  Nope.  Spin perhaps?  Nyet.  Any guesses?  DIng ding.  Yup I played with the beads some more.  An addict is born.  I was giddy when I saw my order placed yesterday shipped yesterday.  Woo.  I do hope it will be here before the weekend.  I found I had enough seed beads to work a cuff bracelet that I found in a Winter 2005 magazine I had in stash.  I managed to get halfway done with it last night and should easily finish it tonight.  More beads!  More beads!  More beads!!!!!! 

It really is only a matter of time before the beads and knitting collide into one project.  Elaine showed me some beautiful beaded knitting she’s doing with pearl cotton and seed beads.  I’m visualizing pearls on socks, at the intersections of a diamond pattern.  I might opt for the crochet hook and string bead on as necessary approach rather than days of threading seed beads.  That, naturally, is subject to change if the right pattern comes along.  I do have a load of that crochet cotton thread in a variety of colors thanks to previous flirtations with both thread crochet and tatting.  See, if it involves thread/yarn/cord, I did/do it.  Stash good. 

Wanna bead!  Must work

Craft on!

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A storm named Katrina has my thoughts directed south.  My father’s brother and his wife live in New Orleans.  My very pregnant cousin (their younger daughter) and her husband live there as well.  I got word this morning that the women headed off to Atlanta to stay with my other cousin.  I believe the menfolk are watching the homesteads.  A quiet prayer for them and for all those other in the path of this storm is needed and appreciated.

While I have no pictures, I did finally add the new socks to the WIP list.  While waiting for Elaine to arrive on Tuesday, I cast on using the Opal Rainforest in Fish.  I’m making the leg a bit shorter than normal, but short’s a relative thing.  For a change the ribbing is a 2×2 and I’m using the short row heel instead of the flap thing I normally do.  The more I knit a short row heel, the more I like it.  I hit the toe shaping this morning during my commute it so the first sock is almost done.  Hopefully the first time I post a picture of them, they won’t be FO’s!

I didn’t do a massive amount of knitting this weekend, but I did transfer Birchington to the new, longer Addis.  While knitting onto the new needle, I took advantage of having the extra space and took a picture of the progress.  I love shots like these with the lace clear in the front and that indistinct sac in the back.  I’m planning on doing some 8 inches of the quatrefoil pattern and then moving onto the next.  I like how it is coming out so far.  I’m aiming for this thing to be a 50" square, give or take. I saw in my referrer statistics that someone googled "Birchington Shawl Pattern".  Is there an interest in my putting a pattern together?  Other than a couple of rows on this I did no other knitting and definitely no spinning.  Eris?  Nope.  Girlfriends Swing Coat.  Nope.  Nada.  Three rounds on Birchington all weekend?  Yup.  No, the kids did actually sleep, but I was distracted.  By what you ask? 

By this…

I’ve been bitten by the beading bug.  Hard.  While grabbing a couple of other magazines on Friday during my errands, I hit upon the August/September issue of Beadwork Magazine.  Sitting on the couch Friday night I flipped through my new magazines, and hit this one last.  I was captivated by the whole issue.  When I finally hit page 56 and "Stony Spirals" I lost my mind and will.  I spent the rest of the evening trying to find a local bead store as I had to make it.  Now.  Couldn’t wait for stinkin mail order.  Hell, I couldn’t wait to get back into the city and head to one uptown from the office…(though tempting now …:)  After lunch on Saturday, the twins and I headed to Beads by Blanche in Bergenfield, pretty dangerously close to home.  While not as big as some of the places I visited with Elaine last week, it had a pretty decent selection, even if there was limited stroller parking.  I wasn’t overwhelmed as I had the pattern in the magazine with the requirements listed.  A starting place and roadmap to keep the wandering eyes on course.  A quick chat with the owner confirmed I gathered all the requirements.  Yay me.  She recommended a couple of add-ons, a pair of scissors, a fuzzy matt thing that would keep the beads from scattering to the four winds and a nifty tweezer/scoup double ended dohickey.  The picture shows the results of three hours at the kitchen table after the twins went to bed.  I worked on the second half during nap and bedtime last night.  Wearing it now Maybe a picture of it tonight, along with the sock. The pattern is a sprial rope and I did a pretty darn good job for my first threading project, if I do say so myself.

I spent the remainder of last night digging through the magazine (and another Bead mag I bought a while ago) looking for projects I could do with the supplies I had on hand.  I found something and will probably work on that.  It should keep me until my order from AuntiesBeads.com arrives - which I hope will be before the long weekend!  Just what I needed.  It at least is another hobby that involves thread of some kind so it does fit nicely with the rest.  Any guesses as to how long it will be before I start knitting with the beads?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Craft on!

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Tuesday at lunch, Bridget and Amy remembered something about the first cable sock that I had completely forgotten.  I had been working on it using my brand new Rosewood DPN’s that had just arrived.  Somewhere through that sock, I switched to the pointy metal ones, probably after reading the page in Stephanie’s book that I took as license to like my pointy metal dpns again.  (As an aside, I also feel better about preferring a flap heel to a short row heels thanks to her as well.  If its good enough for the Yarn Harlot, it should be damn well good enough for me.)  Looking closely at the first sock, you can indeed see where I switched needles, it’s about a 1/3 of the way through the foot.  Not terribly noticeable unless you are really looking closely.  The cables from thereon and the ones on the second sock matched exactly.  I agree with Nancy that it would be a bit dodgy to add repeats to get the length to match up.  Preponderance of fraternal twins notwithstanding… here’s how the socks looked by the time I went to sleep Tuesday night:

Yup.  I had to frog it.  I don’t frog all that much, and I’m not exactly a perfectionist, but I really had no choice here.  Thankfully, I am also a fast knitter!  Here’s the second sock as of …NOW:

Yup.  I turned the heel this morning on the train to Secaucus and was picking up the stitches along the flap on the way to Penn Station.  The very large cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee precluded any further knitting though.   I will be tucking the sock in my purse for during my lunchtime trek with the new coworker to Chinatown.  I have my camera so maybe a picture or two later of the outing.

What’s that hanging off the needle you ask?  Here’s a closer view:

That’s a beaded row counter.  I have ten beads separated by ten jump rings.  As I finish a row, I slip the next jump ring on the needle.  This was sooooo incredibly handy when knitting the cuff of the sock.  The cables are on a 10 row repeat and instead of stopping to count rows, I could tell immediately where in the repeat I was.  Those little plastic row counters don’t work with dpns, and are slow.  You have to stop and twist.  Blech.  The beads are fast!  I also got some beading practice while making this too!  I think I’m going to make me another set, this time with a different color bead each 5th bead.  How can I tell one end from the other you ask, well the 10th bead has a small seed bead stopper instead of a jump ring.  Ingenious if you ask me.

The best yet, I knit that sock while watching my ReplayTV!!!!  Woooo.  That thing will change your life.  I’ve had it one day now and I ain’t ever getting rid of it.  Ever.  Never.  It was so very cool to pause the movie I was watching on TCM last night (Holiday with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn) when Alexander cried out.  Sweet.  I have it set to catch 24, House, Grey’s Anatomy, ER for me and Barney and Sesame Street for the kids.  With the new DVD recorder I can burn all this stuff to DVD to play on the new portable for the car!  I love gadgets

As a quick informal survey, which do you prefer, large images in the post like today’s versus the smaller thumbnails like Tuesday’s.  Personally, I’m not quite sure which I like better and will vary from one to the other, sometimes both in the same post.  Just checking if there is a blogging etiquette that I’m missing.

Knit on.

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Damn.  I had a nice long blog entry going that was witty, informative and full of joy.  Then I made the mistake of clicking a graphic file in a directory with full intention of opening it in the photo editor so I could crop/resize for blogging.  I forgot that the default action was to open with the default browser.  Not any old browser.  Not a new browser window.  The browser window where I had my long blog entry typed, but needless to say, not saved as a draft.  Fudge.  I doubt I’ll be as witty, informative and happy this second time around as the twins are no longer chatting and giggling over the monitor spurring me to much happiness.  Alex is crying and whining in an obvious battle to avoid a nap.  Creepy kid never wants to nap and he doesn’t understand that he NEEDS to nap.  Sigh.  Anyway, I’m going to try and sneak in my last post of the year with a recent roundup of what’s been going on.

These are the stitch markers that I made last week and blogged about yesterday.  They were a lot of fun to do and I’ll be making more shortly.  The jump rings are larger than I initially thought as they are hanging on a size 13 needle.  I rarely, if ever, use a needle this large, but I know someone who does.  Actually, I made most of these with her in mind.  A friend at work saw my initial markers and asked me to make more.  She would love some and she regularly uses very large needles. Anyway, I have smaller jump rings to make some more markers for myself, as well as oooh dare I say, jewelry!  Moving on…

oh my.  blessed silence from the baby monitor.  Has Alex finally conceded the battle and gone to sleep.  About darn time. 

As promised yesterday, here’s the evidence of my recent yarn binge.  The yarn in front is the sari silk for the knitalong that is starting 15-Jan.  If you want to join along, pop on over to the knitalong page and drop a note.  The more the merrier.  I’m interested to see how this knits up.  Behind it to the left is the merino/silk yarn that I got on eBay for clapotis.  It is so soft and the colors are so subtle.  I’m really looking forward to working this!  On the right are the sock kits from Vicki.  The yarns are absolutely beautiful.  I have a huge problem.  Deciding what to work on next!  I need to finish Banff first.  I’ll probably get some time on that today as the kids and I are going to have a nice quiet new year’s eve at home tonight.  Like I can take them many places.  Hopefully they’ll go to sleep earlier tonight than they did last year.  Kat finally dropped off at 11:59.  They are out by 9 these days. 

I did some sorting and reorganizing yesterday, more about that later, and found this pretty yarn.  It is homespun that I did probably 3 years ago now.  It is from a hand painted romney roving that I got on eBay.  I don’t know the yardage on this, I’ll have to remeasure it.  It did start out as 1lb of roving and it navajo plied to maintain color distinction.  I had completely forgotten about it.  When I pulled it out of the basket, I questioned whether I had spun it at all.  Took me a while to remember it.  I’m not sure whether I’ll keep it or make it available to a new home.  I still have the rest of my stash to sort through, but I’ll probably be putting together a gallery of yarn available for adoption.

Continuing down the path of progress…

I always spend a portion of my vacations on home improvement.  This vacation is no different. This vacation was two weeks long, which allowed for lots of home improvement.  Last week was the Ikea cabinets to organize the cluttered corner of the living room which housed cheap plastic shelving and a huge basket of yarns. 

This week brought another project.  Those five bins you see there used to house a great portion of my spinning fiber stash.  Yup, fiber stash is MUCH larger than the yarn stash.  I won’t even mention the huge rubbermaid cabinet outside that houses fleece.  Nope, no mention from me and certainly no pictures of that 6′ monstrosity on the side of the house.  There’s also various fibers in the living room closet, and the rabbit naturally ;)  The majority were in those bins that piled high over 5′ in the babies’ room.  I don’t know how high, but they were indeed over my 5′ 0.25" head.  Now they are empty and stacked in the corner of the kitchen awaiting final disposition.  I think one will be repurposed and made into a toy box in the twins’ room.  I’m not sure what to do with the rest.  I’m very open to suggestions though.

I spent a good part of the day running about from store to store to gather the parts necessary for my reorganization.  They are:

Two 32 gallon rubbermaid garbage pails
Two designer round tables

Two table cloths

I had to do a little rearranging in my bedroom to fit these in, but I now have storage night tables!  I spent the evening sorting through the bins, weighing and documenting what was going into these things.  (That is terribly organized for me.)  One of these pails is full.  There is still some room in the other.  I have alot of fiber.  I discovered that I have ALOT of merino roving.  I was pretty good at some point of my earlier storage to put a note in the bag of what the fiber was, how much it weighed and when/where I got it from.  I found some absolutely dreamy rovings including I that I knew was there but hadn’t realized how much was left.  It’s about 1 ounce shy of a pound of merino/angora/silk roving.  I spun and knit a shawl out of this stuff (and an earlier couple of ounces) and had had to buy more.  I bought up the complete supply to avoid that happening again!  Until last night, I thought about visiting eBay and checking out some fiber splurges, but that really isn’t necessary.  There are pounds and pounds and pounds of fiber around here.  I can be very happy for years to come

This is how one of them looks all gussied up.  It is working very nicely and I’m very happy with the height.  In July, I got a new mattress.  A double sided pillowtop dream.  The down side to it was that it is HIGH.  When the salesman told me that I needed the deep pocket sheets, I smiled and nodded.  Okay, I really need the deep pocket sheets.  Standing next to the bed, the top of the mattress is about hip level on me.  No way the twins are climbing into bed with me for a long time to come.  Anyway, my old nighttable was a dwarf next to this monster and I had to lean over the edge of the bed to see the clock.  The pails are a perfect height and as you can see, I no longer have to look down. 

That’s what I’ve been up to.  I’ve very much enjoyed my two weeks at home.  Initially I was worried about spending THAT much time with the twins.  They can be pretty tiring.  It has been wonderful indeed.  I’ve also bonded with Merlin.  He’s gone from a bird that flapped around the cage avoiding THE HAND at all costs, to a sweet little bird that will ’step up’ and sit on my shoulder.  He ignored the open cage door for hours on end for about a week.  Yesterday he finally took me up on the offer.  He popped out for a visit.   The cats, while curious about the fluttering thing, have gratefully left him alone, though they do watch him very carefully.  He is disturbed by baby crying/whining and will tweet loudly.  At night, while I read blogs, he sits in his swing contentedly grinding his beak before settling down for sleep.  He’s making a nice addition to my eclectic family.

Well I leave you all with the wish that you have a happy and healthy new year.  I hope that this coming year is an improvement on last.  At least it won’t be an big election year (thank goodness).  I just hope there are no mind numbing tragedies that this year is ending on.  I still cannot grasp the extend of the loss in South Asia.  Lets just hope next year is a better one.

The dulcet sounds of crying on the monitor tell me that naptime is over.  Time to go off and do mommy things.  Happy new year.

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