Process or Product

Are you a Process knitter or a Product knitter? Do you knit for the pleasure of the process, or for the finished product? If you were stranded on a desert island with only the knitting project you took with you on the plane would you finish it and then go look for wild grasses or something to knit thereafter (Product)? Or would you rip it out and start again because the thought of not having ANYthing to knit, no matter what it is, is just too horrible (Process)?

This was our Question of the week on my knitting parent's group this week and it has got me seriously thinking. I'm afraid that I have to admit that I am a split personality knitter. Meaning, that it depends on the day on which I am. In general I am a product knitter. I pick out a pattern that I like and then knit until it is done. I will leave mistakes in it simply because I can't bring myself to frog it. True, sometimes I'll just make "something" so that I can practice a new technique, or stitch pattern, but I think this is still a progress thing, even if I rip it out later. I am knitting for the purpose of seeing the finished lace, or mastering a technique, not for the purpose of feeling the yarn run through my fingers (well, not JUST for that purpose).

There are times, however, when my inner process knitter comes out. The last 2 days have been like that. There is a scene in "The emperor's New Groove" (you know you're a mom when you relate life to cartoons...lol) where the peasant Pacha comes home to his kids and very pregnant wife. The scene goes something like this:
Wife: "What did the emperor want?"
Pacha: "Uhhhh... He couldn't see me"
Wife: "What?! Well, that's just rude! If I wasn't pregnant I'd march right down there and give him a piece of my mind!"
Pacha: "Think of the baby"
Wife: *Frustrated Snort as she turns to stomp back into the house* "I've got to clean something"

Some people clean when they get upset. If you've ever seen my house, you would know that this is not me. I clean because I have to. After a long day of just the kids and I, the repeatedly screaming in the car, and them continuing to do exactly the opposite of what I told them, I had had it. I turned to my husband after dinner and said "I need to knit something" with that same expression that Pacha's wife had. It didn't matter what I knit. It could be a completely useless chunk of knitting, but I needed to hold needles in my hands and feel the yarn going back and forth. I needed to let my hands focus on a simple mindless task and let my mind slip into meditation. I cast on a sock, which I tried on my son the following morning, saw it was too big and happily ripped it out. It didn't matter to me that I had knit all evening and now had nothing to show for it. My goal hadn't been knitting a sock, it had simply been to be knitting. I think that socks are my stress project. They are honestly the only item that I truly crave to knit. They are simple, predictable, progress quickly, and are mostly made up of very meditative round and round stockingette. Some days my brain craves the stimulation of lace, or cables, or something, but when you just need to "knit" nothing beats a good, boring, sock.

Now, please excuse me, I've got a toddler sock to rip out. The foot is 1 inch too short for my little girl...lol

Free Pattern! Toe Up, Heal Flap, Magic Loop Toddler Socks

I got sick of the 6 inches of ribbing at the neck of my Somewhat Cowl, so I decided to take a break yesterday and try something new. No, the yarn isn't new. Toddler socks aren't new, but the way I made these was new to me. First of all, I made them toe up. Second, I used Magic loop instead of dpn. Third I tried that really cool Turkish cast on for Magic loop. So, that's 3 totally new things I learned! Notice that the sock is done toe up, but still has a heal flap. Isn't that cool? I really like how the heal flap fits. I found a calculator for it at the knitting friend.

Techniques used: Magic Loop, and Turkish Cast on. If you want detailed instructions on these, please click on the links.

Toe Up, Heal Flap, Magic Loop Toddler Socks:

Using the Turkish Cast on, wrap 4 times around both needles. Knit 4 stitches on each needle being careful to rotate the work, not turn as if to purl (8 stitches total) .

Toe Increases:
Round 1: *K1,, Kfb (Knit into the front and back of stitch), Kfb, K1* Repeat for second needle.
Round 2: *K1, Kfb, K2, Kfb, K1* Repeat for second needle.
Round 3: *K1, Kfb, K4, Kfb, K1* Repeat for second needle.
Continue in this pattern increasing 1 stitch at each end of the needle until each needle has 20 stitches (40 stitches total).

Continue in stockingette, Knitting every round, until your sock measures 1 1/2 inches less than desired length, then begin gusset increases.

Gusset:
Needle 1: K1, Kfb, K16, Kfb, K1
Needle 2: Knit across
Repeat this 5 more times. 6 rounds total. 20 instep stitches, 32 heal stitches.

Heal Turn:
Note: The heal turn will be worked on the center 12 stitches. 10 stitches will be held in reserve (not worked) on either side for the gusset. They will be picked up in the heal flap.
Turn work so that wrong side is facing
Row 1: P10 (gusset stitches), Pfb (Pearl through front and back loop on same stitch), P10, Wrap next stitch and turn.
Row 2: Kfb, K9, Wrap next stitch and turn.
Row 3: Pfb, P8, Wrap next stitch and turn.
Continue in this pattern, working one less stitch between the increase and the turn each round. Final round will be: Kfb, K3, Wrap next stitch and turn.

Heal Flap:
Row 1: P11, P2tog, turn.
Row 2: Sl1, K18, SSK, turn.
Row 3: Sl1, P18, P2tog, turn.
Row 4: Sl1, K18, SSk, turn.
Repeat these repeat rows 3 &4 until all gusset stitches are worked in.
Heal complete. For the rest of the sock, continue knitting in the round on both needles.

Cuff:
Continue in stockingette stitch, knitting every round, or desired cuff pattern until sock measures 1 inch less than desired length. Work K1, P1 ribbing for 1 inch and bind off. Weave in ends.

Happy Easter!

Isn't Photoshop fun?!

A little bit of nostalgia

The other day when I posted the picture of Brendan in his cute little corduroys and blue denim shirt, I went searching through my files to find a picture of Alex in the same outfit. While I was rummaging around I found several other pictures that just made me smile. I tried scrap booking for a while, but in all honestly, it took far too long to cut out, and paste all those pictures and little die cuts and such on the paper, not to mention the fact that it made a mess. I think this blog has become more of a giant electronic scrap book for me. Here are some of the pictures that I found that I just had to share:

This is my wonderful Grandma holding Alex when he was about 4 months old. Yes, you heard that right, she's MY grandma. That makes her my kids' Great Grandma. She is really one of my favorite people in the world. She and my Grandpa live only about 10 minutes away from me, and the 3 kids and I troop over every Monday morning and visit. They are in their 70's and currently have my Mom, and 2 of my brothers living with them. One brother is still in High school, the other just turned 20. One of the reasons why it makes me so sad that my MIL Jeanne lives so far away is that I have always lived so close to my own family. It makes me sad to think that my kids won't have the opportunity to see their grandparents all the time like I did growing up. This is totally aside from he fact that I actually lived with my grandparents for about half of my childhood.

My wonderful Grandma is also one of the few people that I truly feel comfortable leaving my kids with. I suppose it helps that she's a free baby sitter, but I know she loves and will take good care of my kids on the rare occasions that DH and I actually get out just the 2 of us. I know that I can always rely on her to help me out, or need someone to talk to. I just adore my Grandma :D
This is Alex's very first friend, Kathryn. Kathryn is the first child of our very dear friends Calamar and Katrina, and is only a week younger than Alex. I have known Calamar (no, that's not his real name) longer than I have known DH, but lost contact with him shortly after I got married. I got a call one evening a little over a year later and heard his voice on the line. "Guess what?!" he said
"No, you guess what!" I replied
"I'm getting married!"
"Wow! Congratulations! Now you guess what.... I'm pregnant!"
"Wow! Us too!"

I first met Katrina at their wedding, and she looked lovely in her home made renaissance wedding dress. They have been our closest friends ever since, and ironically our kids have continued to stay close. As I said, Kathryn is a week younger than Alex. Our second children are 2 weeks apart, and she is now expecting their third child in June.
As you can see, although they are close in age, Kathryn had a lot more hair, and more substance than Alex. I'm sorry to say that Alex started out as a good 8lb baby, but once he learned how to move, that somewhat drastically shrunk. He was far more interested the world than in food.

They have grown a bit since then, as you can see here at Shaya's birthday in January. Isn't Kathryn such a pretty big girl now? As long as Calamar and Katrina don't move out of state, I hope to have many more pictures of us all together in the future :D

Easter Eggs

It's that time of year. It's time to color Easter Eggs! On Tuesday evening (because we had more time than Monday) we did a special family home evening and colored eggs. Poor DH got roped into doing most of it because Brendan insisted that he needed someone to love him.... Hmm, isn't there a song something like that "Somebody to love". Oh now I'm going to have that in my head all day...lol

It's not that coloring Easter eggs is a bad thing, it's quite fun, that's why I insist that we do it, even though no one in the house will eat these hard boiled eggs. It just tends to be a bit messy. DH abhors messes in all wet, or icky forms. He's the kind of person who would really need to put on rubber gloves to clean out the cat box, or scrub "icky" dishes. Here he is valiantly, though, supervising the egg dying.
Alex doesn't think ththat waiting for Daddy to mix the colors and then wait for Shaya to get to help daddy carefully put the egg in the cup is very interesting.
"Who wants to color eggs?" Apparently Alex doesEggs take too long to actually dye for small children, especially when you have a daddy that won't let you keep picking up the eggs to see if they're done. This causes spills, or little hands to become dyed too, therefore we need to sing songs while we wait for the dye to set. Putting your hands up in the air to sing twinkle twinkle star, or Popcorn tree, keeps them away from the dye and the spoons.

On a completely different note, I'm plugging away on Somewhat Cowl for the sexy knitter's club knit along. I'm using recycled yarn, and size 3 needles. It is the same gauge as everyone else who is knitting the darn thing, but for some reason size 3 makes me feel like I'm knitting FAR more than people who are using size 5. One person is even using size 6. How on earth do I get gauge on size 3 and someone else does on size 6?! I must be a loose knitter. I can't imagine anyone knitting tighter, though, how do you get your needle through the stitch?!

I almost didn't' knit anything for the knit along, because the pattern has a very low neckline. I didn't particularly want to have to wear a cami under a sweater that is supposed to be a spring sweater, but I realized "Hey! I'm knitting this thing! I don't need to make the neckline that deep!" So, I didn't. When I joined under the reglan sleeves, I went ahead and joined for the center of the cowl too. I'm thinking that once I knit the cowl it will fall just right, about where the fop buttoned button on my shirt is.

A package of love

A large box arrived today from my wonderful MIL who lives in Idaho. Because we have a very tight budget, and because of her health, we don't see her very often, in fact we haven't seen her for over a year now. I get the feeling that she and her sister (with whom she lives) really like to shop. I was kind of worrying about the fact that I couldn't find most of the baby clothes that we had saved, or that we had passed around and had never made it back from friends/family. Brendan had about 5 sleepers, a few onesies, and those special outfits that didn't get passed on. Since I'm keeping up on the laundry it seemed to be fine. I don't think I'll have to worry, though. The box was practically overflowing with wonderful summery outfits for our sweet little boy. Thank you Jeanne and Jan!She also sent a wonderful Easter outfit for each Alex and Shaya, as well as a stuffed animal. Alex's blue pig is actually a soft fuzzy piggy bank. She even sent a small bag of change for him to put in his new bank :D

I really do wish that Jeanne lived closer. I was very sad when she moved away shortly into our marriage, but life goes on. I'm not sure if it's better or worse on her shopping budget to have us so far away, though...lol

Happy Monday

Here's that big baby boy of mine. He's a whole month old now. Can you believe it?! Isn't he sooo cute in this little blue shirt. He doesn't look so tiny anymore. Before Brendan was born, we pulled out the baby clothes that we had saved and not loaned out to friends or relatives from when Alex had been a baby. These were mostly favorite outfits that I didn't want to get lost. This is one of them. Just pulling out the tiny little denim shirt brought back memories and my heart got all gushy as I remembered Alex wearing this. In fact, here is Alex at 4 months wearing the same thing. Hmm, 4 weeks, 4 months. Wonder if Brendan will get the same mileage out of it. Isn't it funny how something as simple as a baby outfit can bring back the nostalgia? No wonder so many of us have problems letting go of items. My dear friend Katrina talked about finding some Barbie dolls that she had had as a girl and how many memories that brought back to her. It just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Today is a pretty slow day. Which is why I'm posting on my blog. I've got dinner in the crock pot simmering away and it's smelling good :D It is a new recipe that I got off of Foodnetwork.com Here it is: Taco Soup by Paula Deen It has big chunks of tomatoes in it, which look wonderfully like my Grandma's home made chili. I'm excited, but somehow I think DH will be picking around the tomatoes.

Yesterday was my birthday. I have now reached the ripe old age of 26. How on earth did I manage to be 26 and already have 3 kids?! Oh, I know. It's because I got married at 19, and that DH and I always wanted kids. Lots of them. I figure have them young when your body and your sanity can handle it. Then I can enjoy my grand kids, and maybe get to travel. Sometimes I envy the people who wait a little bit and have all that time alone with their DH, but then again, I think kids would be more of a rude shock at that point. DH and I had only been married not quite 2 yrs when Alex came along. When I came home from the hospital with Brendan a few weeks ago, DH presented me with a wonderful stand mixer. He said it was part birthday, and part congratulations on the new baby...lol It's wonderful and I've used it MUCH more than I thought I would. I made meat loaf in it, whip up pancakes, mashed potatoes, etc. It's been used about every other day I think. Because that's such a big birthday present for our budget, I was shocked when he presented me with a bag of yarn for my birthday too. What a sweet guy! I think he's taken the hint that I'm a bit obsessed with this whole knitting thing. He just said "Hey, if it makes you happy..." The bag of yarn contained 5 skeins of beautiful deep blue Lion Brand Homespun, and 4 skeins of Caron Simply soft in a very Easter like verigated print. Oh, and Orange chocolate. I love orange chocolate... or raspberry chocolate... or mint chocolate... actually fruit and chocolate are always yummy together :D

So, despite the looming reality of having to pay a higher mortgage for our new house, and my recent yarn purchases, I decided to treat myself today. I bought the most comfy pair of tennis shoes I think I've ever owned. They were a bit expensive, but they were on clearance, so that helped a little (They started out at $70!). I needed new shoes, and considering how easy I am on shoes, I expect these to last me for a good 5-6 years. I think that's an acceptable price, and they feel sooo wonderful on my feet. I'll leave you with a pic.

Mother's Day Scarf

As promised, here are pictures of the Mother's Day Scarf~ Branching Out!

This is my very first completed lace project. I have started several, but this is the first one I have completed. It is a very easy pattern, and very quick. I have plans to make 4 of these, and one of them will be traveling to my MIL in Idaho. This first specimen is done in recycled silk/angora yarn that looked a bit bedraggled as I knit with it. I didn't dekink it before I knit, so I wanted to block it and see how it turned out before I decided if I wanted to make another one in this yarn. It is incredibly light and floaty. Just a little something to make you feel feminine and beautiful :D
Here it is straight off the needles, and before blocking

Here it is after a quick bath with baby shampoo and all pinned out to block on my bed. I had to pin it diagonally because it's too long to go vertically...lol I also used a method I read about online. I don't have blocking wires (though I'd like to get some) so I pulled some crochet cotton through it all along the edges and pinned the cotton. I then pulled it as tight as I could. This lets me use fewer pins and hopefully will keep the edges nice and straight.

Random Ramblings

I'm in a silly mood this morning I think. I attribute this to the lack of sleep. As wonderful as my DH is about keeping the kids under control when I need a nap, It is just simply impossible to get more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. Apparently little 4 week old baby tummies aren't meant to hold that much milk all at once. Then the milk gets quickly digested into what babies digest it into and the diaper needs to be changed, and the tummy filled again. True, I suppose that I could pump and DH could feed the baby for a feeding, but then my breasts would feel uncomfortably full and I wouldn't really be able to sleep anyway. Isn't nature wonderful? Just in case we mothers missed the switch that turns on when you have a child that now makes you the lightest sleeper on the planet (or you are just sooo exhausted that you end up in a coma like state), you've got that breastfeeding thing. In the middle of the night, you have that little dilemma. You REALLY want sleep, but your tender breasts tell you that the baby hasn't eaten in a while. Do you try to find a semi comfortable position and let the baby sleep? Or do you wake him up so you can be a bit more comfortable. Note, this hasn't happened to me yet. Brendan likes to eat often at night, or gets gas and is uncomfortable and needs me to make him feel better. Amazingly this morning, he was the first one up, not the other 2 kiddos running around the house. Breastfeeding really is a symbiotic (oo, big word!) relationship, though. It makes the baby happy (filling the tiny tummy, and that wonderful sucking thing. Not sure why that makes them happy, but it does) and it makes the mama happy because if he doesn't eat her breasts hurt. That's nature saying "Oops! Time to feed the baby! You didn't forget that you had one did you? If you did, here's a little reminder" At this point your milk lets down, and you have nice big wet spots on your shirt. Thanks so much mother nature *wink*

As usual this morning, I sat down to eat breakfast while I read my email this morning. At the bottom of one of the emails, I noticed Nick from my Knitting parent's group has a business listed in her signature line. It's for wool soakers. Now, I've heard all you knitting moms talk about finding patterns for wool soakers and stuff, but I really honestly had no idea what they are. After all, I don't use cloth diapers, nor do I plan to. I know if I did, I would never be able to get DH to change a diaper again. He has icky issues. He can't even wash the dishes if he has to get his hands wet or dirty in any way. I suppose we would have to give him rubber gloves, but I know that at that point it would be too much like work and I would just end up doing all the diaper changing. Back to wool soakers. These are little wool pants, or diaper covers that you use instead of the plastic covers that you buy at the store. Why use wool? Well, apparently it's antimicrobial, highly absorbent, and if it contains lanolin it is virtually waterproof. They're also much better looking. I'm a little disturbed by the fact Nick says they don't need to be washed after each use, though. That just sounds icky to me, but I don't really want to be hand washing soakers after each use either... I am intrigued, though, I might have to make some up for my DD who has decided that she wants to start potty training. At this point, she doesn't have much advanced warning before she has to go, and most of the time she happily sits on the potty after she has in fact gone in her diaper.

The Knitting Parents were also talking about the fact that our wonderful listmom Christine has a Roomba. This is a fantastic little robot vacuum machine. It'll run around your living room cleaning up, then go back to it's base and charge it's self. What a nice, well behaved little guy! I actually don't mind vacuuming. It's the obligatory picking up of all objects on the floor that bothers me. Every morning I get up and think "Hmm I haven't vacuumed in a while. Yep, there are cheereos under the table, and yarn scraps on the floor. I should vacuum this morning before all the toys come out. I'll do that right after breakfast." Inevitably, I'll sit down to eat my cereal while I read my email and when I'm done the floor will be covered with various "Kid" objects. This morning, this isn't so bad, but includes, 2 packages of wipes, a green beaded necklace, 4 or 5 videos and their cases, diapers, jammies, blankets, and a disassembled swiffer that Shaya was "cleaning" with. Sometimes, I really do think that when I turn my back objects silently fall from the ceiling. This does not include the usual computer paper with crayon scrawled on it. My kids like to draw, but they will draw just a few things on one sheet of paper, bring it to me all folded up "I have a present for you mommy!" and then dump it on the floor after I look at it to get a new one. Every day I throw away at least a dozen of these presents. It's amazing how trashed a room can look with 12 pieces of colored on paper on the floor.

My least favorite jobs around the house used to be laundry and dishes. This was probably due to my incredible procrastination abilities. As we speak, I am sitting here typing instead of moving the laundry over to the dryer. I blame this once again on the poor defenseless 4 week old baby who is sitting in my lap. He had a rough night and apparently can't sleep in his bassinet, he needs mommy's lap. Amazing that the twitching of my left arm under his head as I type doesn't seem to bother him. Anyway, I hated dishes and laundry. I would wait to do laundry until I completely ran out of underwear, or the kids did, or something, then I would only do 1 or 2 loads of laundry that were the most necessary, and of course they would never get folded. Since they weren't folded, I didn't have any baskets free for more clean laundry... It was a vicious cycle. I am really fond of Flylady's 1 load of laundry a day, though. I feel so accomplished when I have done a load and folded and put it away. Folding laundry doesn't seem so daunting when it's only 1 load. After all, that's what 3 pairs of pants and like 5 shirts. The procrastination also translated into the dishes. It was truly disgusting which definitely makes you hate it even more. Now, as long as I rinse things and put them in the dishwasher at least every night, my kitchen is shining. True, I have a load of dishes that need to be unloaded, but hey! I have a baby that needs holding right?! I also have a mother's day scarf that needs 4 1/2 more repeats of lace on it, but we won't talk about that right now.

Someone also asked what we all do with those little short scraps of yarn left over from projects. You know, the ones too small to constitute a ball, but seem like they might actually be useful? Apparently some people have difficulty throwing them away. I hate to be wasteful, but I KNOW that I won't actually drag them out to do craft projects with the kids. Heck, I don't even pull out the craft supplies that we do have! I'm too lazy to pick up the mess afterwards. So, if I kept the scraps, they would just be additional clutter, so they go into the trash. I suppose I could be keeping them and donate to our little stash raffle that we have going on. Somehow, I don't think that anyone wants MORE scraps of yarn though. Someone said you could put them out for the birds to make nests from. Hey, you out there in blog land could have lots of pretty scraps of yarn for your birds to make colorful nests out of! And since some of them are wool, it would work as "wool soakers" for all those little bird babies, and those poor over worked bird mommies wouldn't have to clean their nests except every few weeks!

Hmm, I think I should step away from the keyboard and do some laundry. I'll post pictures of the aforementioned mother's day scarf once the rampant silliness has worn off.

Knitting Update

I admit it, I haven't done much knitting in the 3 weeks since Brendan joined us. I didn't think that having a baby would make that much difference on my knitting time, after all, I knit all the time with a 2 yr old in my lap! Knitting with a baby in your lap is a very different experience than knitting with a 2 yr old. Your hands are in very different holding positions, and this different position naturally puts those pointy sticks you are holding MUCH closer to those sensitive baby eyes. Because of this, I've done a lot more reading lately, and much less knitting. I have managed to do a few things, however, so I figure I should update.

Baby socks:
These are socks for Brendan from leftover STR. Now we have matching socks. The color is REALLY off in this picture. I actually knit about 3 or 4 pairs of baby socks, you just can't tell because I frogged previous attempts at these socks to make new ones. If I had learned to knit toe up before making these, I wouldn't have had so much trouble. The problem is that I kept running out of yarn before I finished the second sock. So, rip out, take out some of the ribbing, got rid of the ribbing down the instep, etc until I had JUST enough yarn for 2 socks.

Lace Wrap:Lace wrap is progressing, even though I haven't touched it in a week or so. I am now about 3/4 done and it is longer than my coffee table (which you can see here). I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to weave in the ends on my ball join with slinky silky yarn in an open lace pattern. I guess I'll figure that out when I run out of yarn and decide to bind off.

Maple leaf socks:I admit it, I have an over powering addiction with socks. I NEEDED to knit more socks, but guess what? The only suitable sock yarn I had on hand was the same eBay yarn I had used before. I now know that it is completely machine washable, but DO NOT put it in the dryer. I felted my conwy socks. They are still wearable, although a bit tight. This is the maple leaf pattern by Jeanie Townsend. Luckily I belong to the Townsend knitting group and could ask for help. Like "How the heck am I supposed to k7tog?! My needle doesn't want to fit through that many stitches!" Apparently it's very simple. Knit 1, then slip the next 6 stitches over the top of it. Why didn't I think of that?! Here's a close up of my maple leaves. Unfortunately it doesn't show up nearly as well in my eBay yarn as it did in the pattern picture.

Recycling project #2: Blue cottonThis is 100% Cotton. If you notice, I got a ball winder mid way through winding up all the recycled hanks. On top are my hand wound center pull balls, on the bottom are the nice cakes made by my ball winder. My kids really like the ball winder. They keep wanting to play with it while I have yarn I am winding. I'm afraid that this will naturally lead to snarled masses of my yarn and therefore forbid any playing with the ball winder while I'm winding. I think that would like to make Grumperina's Picovoli with this, but have yet to swatch to see whether it would be appropriate yet.

Recycling project #3: Blue, and white lambswool:
I pulled this sweater out of my bin the other day and it reeked. I washed it in baby shampoo, and it is mostly better. I don't know if the residual smell is just wool, or if the previous owner got into something truly funky. It will definitely get another bath once it is knit up into something beautiful.
Here is an up close shot of the fabric. As you can see, the yarn is 3 ply, with each thread being a different color. This makes for a nice mottled fabric with dark blue, light blue, and white.Today, while I listened to General Conference on the internet (isn't technology awesome?!) I ripped it apart. Yes, I was lazy this time and didn't go through the process of winding it into skeins and then soaking them and waiting for them to dry. Part of my justification is that I don't have a swift, and no matter how carefully I wind the skeins, or hold them on my lap, I always seem to get some degree of tangling. This was SO much easier. In fact, I picked apart the seams, found the end to one of the pieces, attached it to my ball winder and wound away! Don't worry, I wound it again MUCH looser the second time, but it was so easy to unravel the sweater by cranking the handle, and I didn't get any tangling issues :D I did get A LOT of fuzz flying all over everywhere, though. I have tenative plans to turn this very large cowl neck sweater into a Somewhat Cowl neck sweater by Knit and Tonic. The original pattern calls for Alpaca silk, and Alpaca is warmer than wool... I'm still not sure if it would be cool enough to be a spring type sweater. The Sexy Knitter's Club is doing a Knit a long for this and I would like to join in. I did a test swatch today, and in order to get 24 stitches to 4 inches, I'll have to use size 3 needles! Yikes, that's gonna be a lot of knitting.

That brings us to my final entry. This is not really a WIP yet, but with how I am with socks, it will be soon. I won this wonderful sock yarn in a stash reducing raffle on my Knitting Parent's yahoo group. It was wonderful timing, as I had just bought my ball winder, and was lamenting the fact that I had spent all my knitting budget on that instead of sock yarn. Since DH isn't really a "Camo" kind of guy, this will become 2 pairs of socks for Alex. He's still young and would love to wear something that I have knitted. After all, he's the only member of my immediate family that I haven't made anything for yet!

It's going to be one of those days

*Sigh* it's going to be one of those days. I just know it. It was probably a good hint when Alex decided he was awake for the day at 5:30am.... just after I had fed the baby and snuggled back down in my covers. I suppose it's all our fault anyway, since we were the ones who gave him the choice of eating his dinner (which wasn't yucky, I promise) or going to bed. He chose going to bed... at 6pm, and he fell asleep! Of course, Alex and Shaya share a room, so when Alex got up, he got his 2 yr old sister up too. After all, what's the point of being up if you don't have anyone to play with? So, I'm grumpy, Shaya is grumpy, and Alex is wired. What a nice threesome we make. Poor Brendan has a slightly stuffy nose, and my heart stops every time he tries to breath up a booger. "Will he start breathing again? Some babies die from SIDS because their bodies don't know how to start breathing again..." I'm a neurotic mom, I know. To add insult to injury, trying to breath up a booger as a 3 week old baby tends to make one wake up with a pitiful cry because said booger is blocking the itty bitty air ways, and then mommy has to get out the saline and the nose sucker. I have yet to meet a baby who enjoyed having their nose sucked. Most of them scream at the injustice of the whole process. I'm sorry to anyone who is offended by the term "Booger" but I'm not sure if there is a more PC term... Snot? Goober (well, that's just booger spelled differently)?

Potty training has officially begun in our household. We are VERY relaxed about this process, but Shaya is interested, so we encourage that. She has gone potty 2 times this morning, all of her own free will. Someone else has had to go, and she decided she wanted to also. Well, I did ask her if she wanted to first thing this morning, but that's beside the point. I'm generally of the opinion when it comes to potty training, that there's no point in even trying it until the kid in question understands that they need to go. Otherwise, you're only training yourself to watch them closely for signs, or training yourself to take them every 30 minutes or so. I'm WAY too lazy to take my child to the potty every 30 minutes. If she needs to go, she can go, or tell me, and I'll be happy to sit on the bucket next to her and say "OH, GOOD JOB SHAYA!" I'll ask her if she needs to go when she wakes up in the morning, and after her nap, as well as before nap and before bed, but that's about the extent of my scheduled potty stops. I suppose this Laze Fair philosophy is the reason why my 4 1/2 yr old still wears pull ups at night.

Wow, well, it's Saturday morning and you all have gotten to read about boogers and potty training... if you didn't know I was a stay at home mom, you probably do now...lol Let's move into the realm of adult topics now... My new house! Well, it's not mine yet, and it's not even built, or really picked out, but it's coming along. We are preaproved for a construction loan for more than we intend to spend, and our building company is referring a general contractor for us. We should be speaking with him in the next couple of days. The building company is also going to look and see if there are any investors interested in buying our condo in a quick sale so that our selling/building project goes smoothly. Once our contractor gives us some firm bids on our ground work, we can decide finally on a floor plan, and a home to build! At the moment, this is the home that I am leaning towards (click on image to enlarge):

It's amazing. I turned on cartoons, and sat down to write on my blog and I am feeling better now. I think I'm going to go take a shower. That'll make me feel even better :D