A weak attempt to play catchup..

So, it's been 3 months since I last posted. Why does it sound like there should be a priest behind a screen as I say that? I think I will try for a very brief recap.

Only made a few gifts for Christmas, one for a sister, who has to walk long distances to work.



I made several items for the raffle at work, and started many more.

Since the first of the year, I've done a lovely scarf out of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (yummy), not sure who that will be for.
Mom finished L's socks, that I started MONTHS ago, got 1.5 socks done and couldn't stand them anymore. She did the 2nd foot and toe in, like, 20 minutes. OK, 1.5 days, but still. They were in my Guilt Corner for months, and now they're done and he even wears them! What a concept!



and E is now lobbying for HERS, which I really should do - they are sportweight so won't take long at all. Except that she is no longer the LimeGreenGirl. Oh well. After that, I think I'm giving up on socks.

Work has been crazy, but I've finally offloaded most of the travel arrangements to someone else. She is very sharp and she is catching on great. I did it for 6 years, but I'm a glutton for punishment.

In non-knitting news, the big news is a new member added to the family about 6 weeks ago.
Her previous mommy simply could not manage her allergy symptoms any more. It's going better than anyone had hoped, especially with our original cat, Joey, thinking he was king of the hill and weighing roughly triple what she does. They have their moments but generally, there is a peaceful coexistence:

In her honor and to thank the friend who selflessly gave her up, I did this, which still needs felting. Her BD is next week, so it will be a nice little present from New Mommy to Old Mommy.

Mom's house, sold to a contractor in May, went back on the market in December, for $449K
We got to take the full tour and it was AMAZING, the changes. You can see the full show here:

We are now planning a huge remodel / addition to OUR house, which will effectively double the space. We own this house, a fixer-upper, free and clear so financing should not be a problem. We are getting contractor's and sub's bids for the work, and drawings are at 95%. By Christmas this year, we will either be closer than ever, or as my boss says, "one of you will be at the bottom of the lake and the other in handcuffs. I just don't know which will be which."

Ravelry is where most of my online time has gone to, and of course, if you have Ravelry, you pretty much need Flickr. I will put links to the side, hopefully, when I finish here.

Keeping Up ?

Well, I eventually followed the crowd and got several kits for the Dream In Color Baby Sweater, one for me, one for Mom and one for a good friend. This is the girly kit and this photo is just awful. The colors are much more vivid. The small ball in top right corner is a beautiful pink, and the bottom left corner is a gorgeous peach color. Even though I use the cellphone camera more than any of the other features, clearly the camera is not the best.

Here are the colors for the boys sweater. I thought there had been a mistake because there are only six colors instead of 8, but two of the colors are used twice.

I can't wait to get started on one of these, but I have several things in the nearly FO corner to get to first.

DH's socks - one has half the gusset done, and the other one is done through the heel turn. I guess it was the Death Valley of the gusset where I lost my way and was distracted by other, flashier projects.

The Knitty Argosy scarf should be done in about 45 minutes. I probably have two repeats of yarn left. It will be nearly 6 feet long and the colors are amazing. No wonder I got distracted - it's Kureyon; I couldn't help it.j "It's not my fault...."

We met with the architect regarding preliminary sketches for the addition. To the left is the house now. There is a long driveway to the left (south) that runs the length of the lot, and the plan is for the addition to run about 4 feet deeper than the current footprint of the house.





I'm considering starting a remodel blog once it gets started to show the progress. But first we need to settle on the actual structural changes, budget, arrange financing, get a contractor, etc. The next year will be challenging but exciting. I'm still rather on the fence about doing this but our current situation is SO not working, and we own the house free and clear, so it's definitely an option to make it better.

Too Embarassed to Post

OK, so I haven't posted in a month. That's because I've been bad, starting too many things, stressing over moving, etc. I will try to do a brief catchup.

I did a search on my computer for photos and "it has been 187 photos since my last confession", er, blog entry. It would appear that most of them are related to house hunting, or adding photos to my new Palm.

The house - we have dropped that idea. New idea - build massive addition to current house (double garage underneath a master suite, at least one more bedroom, an office, kitchen remodel, move all the stairs to the side of house instead of all over the place like they are now. Probably $100,000 minimum. Which is likely the amount of debt we would have left over after all the buying/moving/cleaning/selling was done. We own the current small, ugly house free and clear. DH met with architect 2 weeks ago, and tomorrow we will both meet with him to hear his preliminary plans and perhaps see some drawings.

OKC - a few knitting photos DID crop up in that search.

One of the baby learning socks from Cat Bordhi's new book (will update with link this weekend). Book is stunning, and I'm not even a sock knitter. This one has the increase stitches all in a triangle on the TOP of the foot.
I can't wait to try out some of these ideas.




Unfortunately, I was already well into these socks for DH before I went to Cat's booksigning. I'm doing quite well with these, working both sort of at the same time (two sets of two circs). The most recent photo is just AWFUL, but trust me they will get photo'd again WHEN, not IF, they get done.

A trip to the newest LYS showed a long, luscious cashmere cowl in basic Feather and Fan, but the cashmere was in 3 blah, dull colors. Someone who shall remain nameless introduced me to Debbie Bliss Alpaca DK. I got one skein in red and faked the cowl just to see how far it would go. Not very. Plus, the yarn broke and released a few bound-off stitches while I was weaving in ends. And I wasn't tugging, just pulling through to snip. Fortunately, I had a longtail caston end which I cannibalized for repairs. I also got two shades in a lovely lavendar - no photos yet. I want to make a larger, longer one of these - this might work for a teen or petite woman, but especially if yarn is this fragiles, best not to pull on it, rather have it slip / slide / drape into place.

Finally, this week's project the Argosy scarf from Knitty (link later - google argosy knitty - it will come up. I promise you.) This newish LYS boasts the most ginormous selection of Noro that I've ever seen. The colors in this were radioactive bright and this is the only pix of about 10 I've taken that even BEGINS to capture the glory of this stuff. I have 2 skeins, which will be about 6 feet total. That's enough for a primarily decorative item; we'll see if I really want to add more after that. And my colors will sequence great from one skein to the next!

Quickie Before-and-During

<= This is the "family estate" as we put the house on the market this spring.

This is the house this afternoon =>

Click on either one for

a slightly larger pix.

And that is why we knit for other people...

I gave B the scarf for J's birthday. She was in tears reading the note, and again when she opened it up. Well, I had hoped it would touch her, but I didn't mean to upset her! There were hugs all around and later she sent me a Hallmark e-card in appreciation. Later, there was some glitch and Hallmark sent the message 7 times. She was apologizing and I told her I would save them for the gift recipients who don't appreciate the effort. Interesting coincidence, her nail polish color that day was a PERFECT match for the scarf...

I've been alternating between two projects since then.

<= I finished the gusset for the Brea bag, decreased from 16 to 12 stitches, folded the edges around, and started the i-cord for strap. The cord is 120 rows, boring, but it goes fast, good for commute knitting. Once the three cords are done, I will loosely braid them together and then kitchener to opposite side of gusset. I'm quite proud of myself for not starting something new. It's a little disingenuous since I *have* started maybe 10 new things since the first of the year, but every little bit helps. I have a button, clasp, pendant thing that will go with this PERFECTLY. I found it by accident and it has the same shape as the lotus petal, is primarily pearlescent white with a little bit of black and orange in it!!

Morning Glory => I am about 25 rows into the 58 rows total. I did an Excel spreadsheet (I love numbers) and figured out that I have about 20% of the knitting done. There will be over 600 stitches by the time it's done. I love the way this is working out. After all the struggling with learning the chart on Dogs Paw, I'm delighted to see this is making sense sooner. I added two repeats to chart to account for general boobage, but I think it will be a "one size fits most" if I decide to not keep it. DD saw the pix and pronounced it worthy of the old "You Knit What" webpage, so clearly it is not for her.

Yesterday, we took another look, with the realtor, of what might be our new home. The house has been on the market for several months, price has been reduced 10%. House is being sold as-is, but the few items needing attention are not massive. We may make an offer contingent on the house inspection. But how can you not love a house with 3 separate walls of stuff like this:

There are DOZENS of shallow drawers for placemats, etc. It almost looks like they were set up for architectural drawings. God bless my DH - he brought a skein of yarn to check it in the shallow drawers (they are about 4 inches high, lots of nooks and crannies to store stuff).



A couple of non-negotiables that are probably keeping this house on the market are: NO back yard (not a problem for me - lawn mowing is SO over) and it's located on a busy street with the city bus stopping 30 yards west of the front door. The street noise is pretty well muted by the windows and would be even more so if we replaced them with double panes. The kitchen is small, but soon it will be just the two of us, and cooking is not a pastime or hobby with me; it's a necessary evil. My current kitchen is HUGE but poorly designed so having everything closer works for me. There's even a built-in spice rack behind those cupboard doors at the far end, and they are probably 4 inches deep.

So, we're thinking about it and thinking about getting prequalified. There are not loads of buyers lining up for this house, so we've had some time, but I think we need to get moving on it Monday.

Finally, an old friend, my former BFF where we lived before, was in town and we got together and we had a grand old time. Things had sort of cooled off between us over the last couple of years. We just had the BEST time today! She comes from a small town that is not LYS-enabled (watch out for "enable" - it comes into play later) and so we hit three of my favorite LYSs - Naked Sheep (having their 2nd anniversary sale this weekend!), Mabel's (where Mom met us for yarn and a sip and a nosh =>) and Yarn Garden. I told her this was so much more shopping than I was used to, I'd have to have a cigarette afterwards.

In typical fashion, J netted out with only *2* skeins of yarn, but enabled me to do much worse, or is it better? Pix tomorrow when I've recovered.

So now, if I'm a good girl, I'll keep working on those two existing "current" projects and not start something with the new goodies, eh? Film at 11.