There hasn't been much knitting this past week, but I finally finished the first sleeve of Alyson's apres surf hoodie.  The second sleeve seems to going faster and I'm determined to finish this project before I cast on anything new.  Sometimes the urge to start a new project is paralyzing.  There are so many things I want to knit! 

first sleeve

second sleeve

Yarn and Pedals

During Madelyn's swim practice at our local YMCA, I was having my own little workout on one of the many elliptical machines.  It's always very crowded the first few weeks of the new year.  I suppose it's because of all the new year resolutions that people make.  "I will exercise EVERYDAY!"  Now that it's February, the crowd has thinned out and we are left with the regulars.

I'm not a very intense exerciser.  I don't like doing it and I find all sorts of excuses not to do it.  In fact, I talked myself out of a morning workout today so I could work on some of my projects. So far, I've read and replied emails, trolled Ravelry, read some stupid articles on Yahoo and started this post.  My project, the double wedding ring quilt, which I will get to after I'm done here, is still waiting for me at my sewing machine.  Anyway, I was hopping along on the elliptical machine thinking about my knitting.  I wish I could knit during a workout.  I think I would enjoy it so much more.  Would it be really weird if I knit while pedaling one of those recumbent stationary bicycles?  Those seats are very cushy and my arms wouldn't be doing anything.  If I had my yarn in a little bag at my waist, it wouldn't have a chance at getting tangled in the pedals.  Just imagine the strange looks I'd get!

recumbent bike with cushy seat

Baby Surprise Surprise

My baby surprise jacket is off the needles.  I didn't have quite enough yarn so I frogged back a row and bound off.  I don't think one less row will make much of a difference.  It's a funny looking thing.  I still can't wrap my head around how Elizabeth Zimmerman was able to design it.

How can that possible be a sweater?

Still need seaming and ends woven in

I didn't put any buttonholes in the sweater, so I can sew in some snaps and buttons on top. 

This is all the yarn I have left!

Christmas Homecoming

Margaret's Christmas Tree

Alyson, our oldest, spent a semester abroad in London.   Yesterday, her flight brought her back in the country via Logan airport.  Since Logan airport is a three hour drive for us and my sister-in-law, Margaret, lives in Boston and since our two youngest still had a full day of school we were going to have  Margaret pick Alyson up at Logan airport and meet them in the evening.

I really didn't want to wait all day to see my darling daughter, so I cancelled a doctor's appointment, pulled the younger kids out of school and drove directly to Logan airport to meet Alyson.  The expression on her face when she saw her youngest sister and father was priceless (she couldn't see me).  Not expecting to see us, she was looking for her aunt and had to give her dad a double take.  

Now, my family is all whole again.  We're spending the Christmas weekend with Margaret's family and my in-laws.  All the seven cousins from the ten-year-old to the 21-year-old are having a great time being with each other.  Hubby, Margaret and their parents have been playing majong all day and I'm perfectly content sitting in the corner, knitting.  I even walked to a the local yarn store, A Good Yarn, after Hubby fell into a post-lunch stupor on the family room couch.  Life couldn't be anymore perfect.  

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays...  I hope you're all enjoying this holiday season.

My Grandmother Used to Crochet

I learned to crochet in fifth grade.  A school project involved learning a new skill and demonstrating it to the class.  Since my grandmother taught me to knit when I was seven, it wasn't a new skill, I couldn't use knitting.  Crocheting seemed much more manageable anyway.  There's only one live stitch to be concerned with and granny-squares were cool in my ten-year-old mind.  I remember bugging my mother for a couple of weeks before she finally, very reluctantly, sat down with me with yarn and hooks.  Even though Mom sewed, knit and crocheted, it wasn't a skill she wanted her daughters to learn.  She wanted us to have careers and those old-fashioned crafts didn't have a place in our future lives.  (Of course that didn't stop her from scolding us when we didn't know how to hem our pants properly or fix a button neatly.)  I think I got the hang of crocheting fairly quickly. I was able to master the basic stitches in a couple of days and was making red and white granny squares...many many red and white granny squares.

Twenty-four years later, I taught my oldest daughter's Girl Scout troop to crochet.  I remember it being a long meeting, since, none of the other moms knew how and I was teaching them too.  Last month, I taught another set of Girls Scouts to do the same.  I've been these girls' leader since kindergarten and I felt that since they were the same age as I was, they were ready to wield hooks.

I taught M to crochet the night before the meeting.  That was definitely a smart move.  Like me, she picked it up fairly quickly and was ready to help her troop-mates the next day.  My friend, Angela, could crochet and she stayed on to help.  Thank God!  By the end of the 1 1/2 hour meeting, only 2 girls other than M and Angela's daughter had advanced beyond the chain stitch.  (My co-leader did enjoy herself.  She was able to progress to her second round of the granny-square.)

M's first granny square

I always assumed that since I learned needle crafts quickly as a child, other children would be the same too.  Aren't kids supposed to learn new tricks easily?  Maybe I waited too long, maybe I would've been more successful if I taught the girls while they were still Brownies. The most frustrating thing to come out of the experience is that the Girl Scout Council has discontinued the "Yarn and Fabric Arts" badge for Junior Scouts

Yarn and Fabric Arts badge for Junior Girl Scouts

There's still badges for cooking, jewelry-making, gardening, writing, photography, geocaching, drawing...  The list is pretty long.  There's activities for a girl's self-esteem, the environment, camping, staying fit.  I don't understand why they had to get rid of the Fiber Arts badge.  It's not easy for most girls these days to learn about sewing and knitting.  Their moms don't know how and there isn't anybody close to teach them.  It  frustrates me that a lot of people view knitting and sewing as old fashioned, dying arts.  Isn't it easier  and cheaper to buy our knitted goods and garments from the store?  Of course it's easier.  But think of the joy and comfort we spread when we give our hand-knit or hand-quilted gifts to our friends and family, the sense of satisfaction when one completes a project. 

I'm one of those people who need to always have a project going.  It doesn't have to be yarn or fiber related.  I love the feeling of accomplishment when I finish something, be it a sweater or tiled shower.  These projects are a source of creative outlet and also an expression of love for my family.

I know I'm rambling.  I'll try not to bite the head off of the next person who says, "My grandmother used to crochet!"  When I'm observed knitting in public.

Birthday Blues

J's 3rd birthday during his Blue's Clues phase

This week, my family had two celebrations.  My only son, J, reached his 15th birthday and E came home from her first term of college.  I don't know where time has gone.  My sweet little boy has somehow turned into an adult-sized creature.  Well, almost adult-sized.  We're all small people in our family and I'm grateful J is at least taller than me, an achievement his older sisters have yet to reached.  I get startled sometimes when I here his voice booming up the stairs.  Why is there a man in the house and why is he playing video games on the family room couch?!!

I miss those days when Mom can do no wrong in his eyes, and a kiss could cure all manner of boo-boos.  He was the youngest for almost 5 years before M came along.  Sometimes, I think he's never forgiven me for dethroning him as the baby of the family.

On another note, I got a surprising message on my computer when I woke up yesterday.  E asked me, "will I be okay bringing knitting needles on the plane?"  Boy, was I proud.  My daughter knitting on an airplane!  It almost brought tears to my eyes!  Then I saw what she was knitting and I really wanted to cry.  Poor kid.  She's knitting on size 15 needles, yet her stitches are so tight, you can barely get the right needle into the stitches.  And her scarf is not only growing length-wise, the width is growing too.  I switched out her monster 13-inch metal needles for a pair of circulars.  At least she won't be poking anyone in the eye on her return trip to school.

I've actually done quite a bit of knitting since Halloween.  My February Lady Sweater acquired some pretty buttons purchased from Webs.  I didn't bother blocking the sweater and have worn it already.

The double heelix socks are off the needles and been worn at least three times.  I even managed to stretch them over my big feet to match a purple and blue Christmas sweater.

I knit a hat from leftover Peruvia and Mochi Plus I bought during a trip to San Francisco.  My mother-in-law loved the hat so much, I knit another one for her.  My niece got the first one.

A watermelon hat was started and completed for the littlest niece.   

Another one was made for M's Bitty Baby doll.

  Just to mix things up, I crocheted a fan scarf for a birthday present.

And, I knit the druidess beret  during the Thanksgiving long weekend for another niece that looooves hats.

Wow.  Despite the holiday madness of shopping, cleaning, cooking, decorating, I've managed to spread some handmade love to my family.

iPod Love Affair

iPod Mini

I have a confession...  I'm addicted to my iPod.  I listen to it all the time.  In the car, I have one earbud in my ear (the right one, so I can still hear the outside traffic with my left ear).   While I'm cooking, that earbud's still in my ear.  Vacuuming... yep, both buds are in.  Mowing the lawn, weeding, washing dishes.  All done while listening to audiobooks or podcasts on my iPod.  When Husband is watching his many hours football, baseball, basketball (you get the idea) on TV, I enjoy sitting with him while I knit and listen to my iPod.  "Did you see that incredible play?!"  Yes dear, very nice (knit, knit, knit).

My love affair with my iPod all began in 2005, when my husband bought me my blue Mini.  I loved it!  So compact and cute, I could fit so many books and songs in the humongous 4 gigabytes of storage.  That same year, the Nano came out.  Daughter number one received a 2GB Nano for her fall birthday.  Dear husband received a 4GB Nano from his boss for Christmas.  Since Husband never listens to music, he gave his Nano to daughter number one, and daughter number two got her sister's 2GB Nano.  Still with me?

Dear Husband, being the generous, trusting dad, allowed both daughters to bring their iPods to school, against my better judgement.  "They're both in middle school," he said, "and they're both sooo responsible!"  E, the second daughter came home a few months later, upset.  Her iPod was stolen. 

You know what I did?  I consoled my daughter and gave her my shiny, blue Mini.  In the meantime, I found an abandoned HP iPod at my brother's house.  He said that the old iPod wasn't working properly and had bought himself a better one.  So now I had Brother's iPod.  That worked for about two months until it died.

Dear Husband took pity upon me and bought me my first iPod video.  Wow!  30GB!  I'll never run out of room.  "Hold on," says Husband, "you don't have enough memory in your computer."  Oh...

That's okay.  I learned to use an exterior drive to store all my files.

iPod Video

I actually used that iPod for five years.  That's a long time in iPod years.  Last year, the earphone jack started to fail.  First, I couldn't hear through the left earbud, then the right one went.  It still played when it was docked on my iPod speaker, the donut.  I just couldn't play it through earphones.  Crap! Mowing the lawn is lot more tedious without my iPod!

My "donut"

Dear Husband to the rescue again.  He said that he was going to buy me a new Nano.  It only has 16GB, but it has a radio, a video camera, a pedometer...  Can you brush your teeth with it?   "You can use your big iPod when you're listening to music on the donut," says Husband, "and the Nano for when you're doing chores, running errands."  I was warming up to the idea and even narrowing down on a color choice.  Maybe purple?

The next thing I know, Husband hands me my shiny new... iPod Classic.  "I got such a good deal!" He said, "For just a few dollars more you get ten times the storage capacity!  More bang for your buck."  What am I going to do with 160GB?  What about the radio and the pedometer and the cool video camera?...

Thank you Sweetie, that was really thoughtful of you.  Gotta love the guy.  Always on the lookout for the best deal.

I would love an iPhone, but can't justify the $30/month data fees.  That's $360 a year!  Can't I get an iPhone without the data fees?  "No," answered the phone guy, "why would you want an iPhone without a data package?"  So I don 't have to carry my phone and iPod?  Nevermind, you wouldn't get it.

So what does my iPod have to do with knitting, sewing, quilting, or gardening?  Everything!  I can do all those activities and "read" at the same time.