Just when you thought it was safe to knit socks

I seriously need to take a look at my current queue of knitting projects. Not the UFO's, mind you, but the ones in my head that are not cast on but NEED to be knit up by something or other time.

Okay. 82 year old FIL wants a sage green kangaroo pouch pullover, no hood. I will do this by Christmas. It will be my first sweater for a person larger than myself. I'm intimidated. I have had the LYS get in the color of yarn for me already so I will purchase it soon. Before summer vacation. With the money said FIL sends me for my birthday, so there!

L.A. County Fair socks - Bazaar socks by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts (my absolute favorite). I'm spinning the yarn for these with the goal date of June 15. That gives me a month to knit them (shouldn't take that long, but I will have to focus a bit, they are fair-isle after all).

The only UFO that needs to be finished is the baby sweater very soon. Like, I should finish the second front tonight. Yep, I should. We'll see. I am in the middle of the second heel of my Meilenweit socks and it's terrible to stop there. I can't stand it! But I will do it. That baby is almost cooked!

I bought some yarn for DH for Father's Day. Yeah, yeah, for DH? Sure, it is. But he gets to decide what he wants from it and the colorway (from sweet georgia) is called "Angel" designed for a "Buffy" fan (which my DH is also). I hope he understands. Socks, gloves, hat, scarf, whatever, but it has to be by Christmas also, so he can wear it. We live in SoCal where once a year we wear scarf type things. Except we go back east for Christmas. But it's in the queue.

I feel like I SHOULD be knitting things that I'm not knitting now. But I guess it's not that bad.

May 27-June 15: baby sweater, spin for socks
June 15-July 15: Bazaar Socks
July 15-August 31: Whatever
August 31-September 15: lengthen DS's Wallaby
September 15-October 31: FIL sweater
November 1-November 30: DH whatever
December 1 on: Whatever

I just love those whatever times. Guess I can do a cardigan for ME, ME, ME after all! And there is quite a bit of wiggle room in there if I need it. But I do need to go ahead and knit instead of blog surfing some of the time. Eek! Easier said than done!

Happy spinning and knitting!

Give me Liberty or Give me Death!

"Summer of Socks"

Inspired by Zarzuela, I shall enter the "Take Your Sock on Vacation" contest and take photos of socks in progress to send in. I will also post them here. But they have to be cast on after June 21st, so nothing current can go in. Hmm... I'm supposed to be knitting FIL's sweater this summer, but that could be September/October... The County Fair socks can go in...what about the Cherry Tree Hill Pomatamus (only in my head), what about some more cottony anklets...what about...I love socks.

Give me Liberty or Give me Death!

(Think the NSA likes handknit socks? Hope so, 'cause they'll never get any from me!)

Crazy Busy II

That's over, thank goodness! YPAM was a great success, thanks to many, many people who made it all possible and put in huge amounts of time. Special kudos to Mary, Angie, Paul, Donna, Tiffany, Amanda, and Jill!!

Now on to preparations for Encampment, SWAPS (mine and DD's), groceries, piano practice, spelling, etc., etc.

To Do List:

Renew Driver's License before my birthday
Books for classrooms
Register and pay for VBS
Practice solo for Sunday
Clean up so I can babysit on Thursday
Supplies for SWAPS
Piano!!!

I suppose this isn't the best place for a to do list, but at least I will look at it every so often.

Have a lovely evening!

Well, that's that!

Guess even a little blogger with no visitors can get his goat. He deleted a little bitty comment about how I wasn't going to send him any money if he was going to act like Bush. Now he's off my favorites and good riddance.

Knitting is slow, as I am madly spinning yarns for the Bazaar Socks for the L.A. County Fair. I should take a photo of what I have so far but no time tonight.

I have the gold, very nice, although I thought it would show more variation. Love the color, however. Decided to finish the natural gray from fleece from last year's fair for the neutral color (black is just too much for me in this context) and I need a little more. It is the bounciest yarn I've ever made. Spinning woolen makes a big difference. I have spun more worsted from combed top than woolen from batts before.

I spun up the blue/purple batt from last fall hoping to use it for the light blue but it is neither light enough nor uniform enough (and I don't want total uniformity). But it is lovely and will be well used elsewhere (can you say blue shawl? or pinwheel?)

So I'm going to card some very old pale blue BFL with some blue/white/blue-green BFL left from another roving together and see if I can get a nice blended light blue. I started the dark blue today and I only need a little more (I have 78 yards from an earlier round with this Targhee).

So the colors will eventually be: Gold, Light greenish blue, Dark greenish blue, Red-violet, Red-orange and charcoal grey. I will love them! Will the judges? Who knows! But they did like my gold/green/purple/orange socks of last year...

Happy knitting and spinning!

Give me Liberty or Give me Death! (Hi, again, NSA.)

John Aravosis is a "big...", oh, you know

I want to type it in, I really do. I was an early commenter on AMERICABlog's headline "Pat Roberts is a 'big girl'" because I took offense at girl=coward. Then my comments were deleted along with hundreds of others.

Since then John has told us all to stay away permanently. I think I could probably manage that. But I have been following the thread about the thread elsewhere and I'm such a child! I found myself quoted on another blog and I literally jumped up and down!

Here it is from City Elf (my comment is the last sample):

When a commenter expressed surprise at John's use of the term, his initial response was that this was "gay vernacular." Later, he wrote that those who asked him to reconsider his words were a tiny minority of his readers and essentially nutbars: "There are a very loud minority of folks on the left who won't be happy unless they're frothing at the mouth attacking their own for the stupidest, smallest things while the world falls down around them." This despite the fact that many were probably long-time readers and were mostly polite and reasonable in their comments. Here are a few samples:


I personally found John's use of "girl" much more questionable than Snowjob's use of "tar baby." And believe me I'm no Republican. Let's leave the name calling to the bigots. Please apologize, John, and let's get this over with.

I'm a girl and I'm offended that it would be considered some kind of an insult. A better definition for Pat Roberts would be that he is a big ass. But there's no need to denigrate more than 50% of the country's population to make a point.

Girls are not cowards, John. Girls are fighting in Iraq, John. Girls are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, John. Let's try a little harder, John. We're all on the same team here, I think. Senator Roberts is a big COWARD. I don't want him in my gender or that of my very brave daughter.

That third comment is mine! Yes, I was one of the polite ones, I guess. But I was pretty pedantic, as if explaining to a child. Which is what he was and is being.

The thing that amazes me (and maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and he's really still a Republican) is how much he is acting like Bush. Taking no responsibility, refusing to admit any mistake however small (and it was small before he compounded it by defending himself, "gay vernacular" my ass). Censorship, bullying, FEAR OF CRITICISM, all traits of the administration that we take issue with. Unbelievable.

Big thanks to all who have covered this issue, especially Shakespeare's Sister, Everyday Activist and City Elf who made me feel like my opinion matters after all!

Give me Liberty or Give me Death!

Crazy Busy

The whole year seems to come to a head right around now. School end of year activities, church show, Brownies, signing up for summer activities, VBS, all at the same time. Thank goodness we only took one dance class this year! Two years ago we had rehearsals AND performances for two dance recitals ON THE SAME DAY. I was not very pleasant to be around that year.

This year we have our church youth show this weekend, twice. Brownies are giving a Mother's Day tea, while weaving our flag and learning to cook in a charcoal fire so that they can go...

Camping for three days the first weekend of June.

Luckily, Memorial Day weekend is slow. Friday and Monday off school for DD, which is nice. We can have some time on our own.

Also luckily, I decided not to knit for teacher gifts this year. I did knit for DD's teacher for Christmas, so I thought she was off the list. And DS has THREE TEACHERS!! I'm going to buy books for both classrooms instead. I love them all, but it really does add to the stress of too many activities all at once.

After camping, we have a houseguest for a week and we will be trying to wangle a trip to Disneyland with him. DD has a dance performance at school. Last week of school stuff, then right into VBS (I teach games). DS has two more weeks of school than DD, which is also nice, but then he has "Promotion" to kindergarten.

I've managed to compartmentalize, after a small nervous breakdown in the winter over too many things going on) and it's really helped. I don't think about the next "group" of things until I'm through the current "group." The current group ends with the church show, I think, as we have a bit of a breather to get ready for camping. Monday will be a downtime day, most likely, and then back to getting ready for 30 SWAPS each, planning menus and shopping, lists, lists, lists.

This is not the most interesting post, but if you have a DH like mine who doesn't really understand how busy a stay-at-home, work-at-home-at-night, Brownie leader, church volunter, mother-of-two-under-eight is and thinks they have too much to do, send 'em right over here. I will field comments!!

Happy knitting and spinning!

Give me Liberty or give me Death! (Hi, NSA.)

Finished the First sock

First sock done, second sock begun. Why am I knitting these? I am supposed to be finishing the baby sweater (80% finished). I can't wear these or Jaywalkers (Bearfoot) till it gets cold (Halloween?). I would like to have my cotton shrug started. I need to spin for the Fair socks. I do need a mindless project for this week, though. Perhaps I should cast on for the shrug, or at least swatch. I have many hours of time this week 1) out of the house; 2) sitting; 3) sort of watching children but not too mind eating; 4) too mind eating for charts or anything like that. Sounds like a shrug sleeve/swatch would be a good idea...

The unfortunate thing about the baby sweater is that it's on neck shaping (need to follow directions) and sewing up (eventually). Too much concentration. And I'm spinning the sock yarn on the wheel, not spindles this year, so not too portable. I guess I get to swatch! Got to get DH to find out REAL wants from DFIL about sweater for the fall. Size, kangaroo pouch yes or no. Then I can decide on pattern and set this project up for after the fair knitting is done.

I also must fit in lengthening DS's Wallaby before winter, as I don't want to make him a new one just yet (busy with FIL sweater, much larger!). I think I can just remove the ribbings, knit down and cast off again.

Anyway, have a happy day and hope along with me that Rove's 24 hours are up tomorrow morning!

A great quote for today

"I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery and villainy as this Writ of Assistance is."

-- Attorney James Otis defending citizens of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from illegal search and seizure by the British Crown, 1761.

Back to the Knitting

Well, I sincerely hope that next week will bring some Democratic courage and that someone in D.C. will make us proud for once. But I'm not holding my breath. Hayden has to go down in history as the worst possible choice for this position at this time. And maybe Fitzgerald will have another news conference on Tuesday...

Back to the knitting!

I've FINALLY (after endless pondering and wondering what to do) decided what to knit for the Handspun class at the L.A. County Fair this year. Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Bazaar Socks from IK. I need six colors of yarn, but I can easily make them fraternal and gorgeous.

I've chosen to card some golden orange/yellow, red/violet, light blue (cool), dark blue (cool), and red/orange. I need a dark or darkish neutral and I'm thinking about some natural gray from my fair fleece from last fall. Otherwise black, but black will be too dark against the dark blue. Probably the gray. Here's a picture of the yellow singles so far.



I will LOVE these socks. They are just my style and I want to ramp up the complexity/difficulty of my project this year. I was thinking of a shawl, but I beat a shawl with a pair of baby socks two years ago. And the shawl I'm doing out of handspun is such an assortment of colors, only a color junkie could love!

Other WIP's: Meilenweit Jaquard socks, almost to the top ribbing on first sock.



Jaywalker had to be ripped (didn't read ahead to decrease enough for the foot, too big). Stalled on baby sweater but baby is coming so I have to get back to it. Finished Chutes and Ladders socks and have worn them almost all the time (washed!) since. I need more cottony short socks!


Happy spinning and knitting all!

Had Enough??!??!

I certainly have! At every turn, they lie, lie, lie. First, GWB says "we need a warrant. Nothing has changed." Oh, really?

Then it's warrants take too long, but one end of every tracked call is overseas. Oh, really??

Now it's, we're not keeping names or numbers, just patterns of calls. Oh, really???

Nice nondenial denial, Sire. We're not invading the privacy of American citizens. Oh, it's nice to know you're not YET looking through my windows. However, nothing about wiretapping. You're not MONITORING my calls, huh? That means no one is listening RIGHT NOW to what I'm saying RIGHT NOW. Are you recording for listening to later if you think I'm a risk? Or a liberal? Or a protester? Or Amish? Or a vegetarian? Or, or, or???

And what about my emails? No answers on that, huh, Your Highness? And would you tell the truth if you had to stop parsing anyway?

I am truly afraid that this administration will CANCEL ELECTIONS if they have to. They have NO COMPUNCTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING!!!!

Now is the time for all good men and women to stand up, march, vote, yell, call, fax, call for U.N. monitors of all primaries and elections, demand paper ballots, STOP LISTENING TO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS and get these evildoing fascists out of office!!

Rant over, for now...

A Meme

Since no one has yet tagged me (or not for a while; am I all alone?), here's a meme that anyone can try:

Name ten of life's simple pleasures that you like most, then pick ten people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not to use things that someone else has already used.

1. Cuddle with a child who fits perfectly in my lap.
2. Tea with half and half
3. Coffee on Saturday morning, from Starbucks, delivered by my best friend, with time to chat
4. Handknit socks
5. Time when no one else is home
6. Helping my daughter figure out the long words
7. Listening to knitting podcasts in the car
8. Watching self-patterning yarn do its thing
9. Finding out that DH made the bed when he got up
10. Realizing that you ARE in fact stopping to smell the roses RIGHT NOW

If you feel like doing this, go for it, but let me know you were here...

Happy morning!