*headdesk*

Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! I spent all night at knitting complaining that it was taking so long to finish my sleeves (short sleeve version) of Daffodil. But I was following the instructions for the long sleeves! How?! How???????? I've knit my sleeve 3.5 times longer than I needed to. Gah!

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Okay. So the sweater I am knitting is Katarina by Cocoknits. We are having a shop knitalong that starts next month and I am making the shop sample. I am making the smallest size. Which is now a bit smaller because I grabbed a US7 instead of an 8 on my way out the door to Vancouver. It's not a total disaster. I won't rip it out and reknit the whole thing but I do have to explain to customers (over and over) that my version is not as large or as drapey as it should be. Sigh.

Audrey has been done and off the needles for days. I just can't work up the energy to sew on the buttons. Sign again.

Next up is finally figuring out if this mess can become a sweater.



I'm not sure. Sigh once more.

It is a Terrible Moment

When you realize that you've knit an entire sweater on the wrong needle. Damn.

Foiled Again

Lloie's Cardigan has it in for me. I spent two days getting the yoke pattern established. The first go was off by one stitch but I didn't recognize the problem until I knit on it for a day. Then I ripped it all out and got it set up again. But my original yarns for the yoke did not have nearly enough contrast so I went stash-diving and came up with a skein of yarn labeled Felted Tweed in a great green. It has amazing contrast.



The only problem is it isn't Felted Tweed. When I realized it I couldn't believe I thought for a moment it was. I believe it's long-discontinued Rowanspun DK. It's a single and Felted Tweed it plied. How didn't I noticed this? I think I was too focused on getting the color and pattern right. Anyway, I don't have enough of it to finish the sweater. I'm going to try to find something that will work. I really wanted to bring this finished sweater to camp and I leave in three days!

My Mud-Soaked Life

On Friday Wes called me at work to see if it would be okay for him to accompany his parents on an overnight trip to LA to see his father's siblings. I believe the conversation went like this.

"Sure, when is it?"
"Saturday."
"This Saturday? Tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
Long stunned silence.

Eventually I said fine. Then on Friday night I started to get that vaguely I'm-coming-down-with-something feeling. On Saturday I knew I was getting sick. And Wes left. And then I got sick.

The kids are at the age where they can pretty much keep themselves entertained. But the dogs. Good Lord. They want to run out in the yard, get covered in mud, come inside (I wipe them down) then run back into the yard. It was raining on and off all day so they got extra special muddy and gross.

At some point I went upstairs and fell into bed. I dozed for about fifteen minutes while calling out entreaties to the kids.

George barking.
"Please let the dogs out."
George barking.
"Please let the dogs in."
George barking.
"Please throw his ball."

What I didn't realize was that George had brought a mud-soaked tennis ball in from the yard. So while I had a few minutes of rest he covered-- COVERED--the hallway carpet and walls in muddy dots. I wiped off the walls and attempted to vacuum up the dirt once it dried a bit but it's still a disaster. In fact the entire house is a mess of mud and dirt. Every surface downstairs is covered in a fine layer of silt. The yard has lots of bare patches and the parts that aren't bare are covered in wood chips that are a few years old and pretty broken down. So the yard is essentially all mud and dirt. We wipe down the dogs when they come in but apparently they can store a very large quantity of dirt between their toes. Someone on Twitter suggested using one of these.



All I could think was, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

George just would not quit. At some point I realized that he had be up and running for over eight hours without ever lying down. I decided to enforce a naptime, like I would with a toddler. I put him in his crate (I didn't crate my toddlers, for the record) and within about a minute he was fast asleep snoring. But then I worried about him sleeping too long and not going to sleep when I wanted to go to sleep. See, just like a toddler.

This morning has been full of standing in the cold, muddy yard throwing various toys. I've already completely lost my temper with one of the kids and one of the dogs. Wes is already on his way home. He can't get here soon enough for me.

The Bad Boyfriend

If you've seen me in the last week I apologize. You'll have heard this already.

Before leaving on vacation I got the greenlight to start knitting again from my OT. 15 minutes at a time, then rest for 2-3 hours. Add 5 minutes each day if there is no pain. I was so happy to get this news and yet...I haven't been knitting that much. Knitting is now like a bad boyfriend to me. I love it but it hurt me a lot. Can I trust it again?

Over the course of my vacation I built up to 45 minutes of knitting with no pain. Then on Monday at Purlygirls I kind of wasn't keeping track of the time as well as I should have. Add to that using a computer all day which I did not do while on vacation. Tuesday mid-morning I started to have pain in my thumb and wrist again. Not a lot but something and it has me very scared and sad. To top it all off the sweater I started for vacation, Lloie's Cardigan, was coming out too large so I ripped out the first three or four inches. Now it's too small. I will have to rip it out again. This is very hard since it took me a week to do what I would normally accomplish in a day.

I did find something fibery while at Disneyland. Spinning wheels in Sleeping Beauty's Enchanted Castle!



It was moving and under glass so it was hard to get a decent shot with my phone.

Today's Post is Brought to You by the Letter S

Younger Son is Sick with Strep throat (again) and a Staph infection. While I'm Stuck at home I put on the Sashing for the Scrappy quilt blocks and Surfed the internet. This Sucks.

Damn

Diagnosis: de Quervain's Disease. I've been referred to a hand specialist.

Wounded

Madrona was great as always. I have photos from all of my classes and will try to get them up soon. My left wrist has been sore for the last few days. I thought it was from working on big, heavy Girasole. Today it got extremely painful and my lower arm started to swell quite a bit. I have been icing it and taking Ibuprofen to deal with the pain and swelling. I think this may kill any chance of competing in Ravelympics for me which is too bad.

Breaking Records and Winning Awards

Seattle had its all-time hottest day ever today. We also had a new record high for the lowest temperature.

I live one block from the Best Corner for Sugar Addicts.

That's right. I'm sweaty and jacked up on sugar.

I Was Just About to Feel Good

I finished all the parts to my Asymmetrical Cardi last night. I wanted to watch tv (see previous post) and didn't think it was the right moment to start the seaming. I reached way down into the neglected knits pile and pulled out the Auburn Camp Shirt. I knit on it for an hour or two last night and this morning I pulled it out to mark the buttonhole placement. And that's when I saw it. I forgot the ribbed edge for the button band. The whole thing needs to be ripped out and reknit. Crap! Double crap!

Another Collar Set Back

My theme for NaKniSweMoDo this year seems to be "screwing up the collar." The first sweater the collar screw up was in the pattern (and I still need to rip it out and reknit it). Tonight after I bound off the last stitch on my fair isle cardi I saw immediately that the collar was HUGE. After a lot of staring and counting stitches I realized that I had forgotten the final set of decreases in the yoke. What a screw up. I was in such a hurry yesterday trying to get the steek sewn before leaving for work that I just skipped the last part of the yoke. I've ripped it all out and am starting again.

Oh Noes!

My computer isn't working right now. Posting may be sporadic until I can figure out what's wrong.

ETA: Everything is okay now. Phew.

Forehead Smack!

So I drove sloooooooooooowly to work to today in the snow. Everything was fluffy and white. It snowed all day long. We had a surprising number of customers considering the weather. I drove home even sloooooooooooooooooooooower. Everything is now compacted into a very thick sheet of ice. I have the day off tomorrow. School is going to be closed again (they already announced it). Now where is my knitting? In the office at the shop! D'oh!

It Could Be Worse

Pre-Felting


After felting and blocking

It definitely shrank and lost some stitch definition but it could have been much worse. I don't know if I'll be able to smooth out the ripples now. I tugged as hard as I could (breaking two blocking pins in the process). It's pretty smooth now but I have a feeling it will snap back a lot when I unpin it.

And I still feel like I'm going to throw up.

That Sound You Hear...

Is me pounding my head against the floor.

I accidentally felted my Hemlock Ring blanket. The worst part is that it's not my yarn. I've been knitting this for the shop.

I've put the shawl in a pot with water and a ton of vinegar and am gently heating. Joyce Williams swears this will un-felt an accidentally felted item.

Keep your fingers crossed. I think I'm going to be sick.

Queasy

I just realized my travel arrangements (I did not make them) for TNNA are wrong. I'm really hoping this gets fixed. Or it will totally suck.

Deep breaths.

ETA: Well, it's all taken care of and fine. I just need to get my heart rate back down.

Digging Out

I've been dealing with a problem that has me so ashamed I didn't want to blog about it. I have moths. I would see one occasionally flutter by. I tried to ignore it. It was/is too overwhelming to think about rounding up all the wool/yarn/sweaters/hats, etc. in the house to wash and inspect them. I was working in batches and never finding any moth damage or evidence. Finally I found, way in the back of my sock drawer, a cocoon and a single sock with a hole in it. I cleaned it all out. But then, flutter, flutter again.

Since getting the puppy I have kept my office completely shut. I don't go in there. It is dark, warm and full of wool. I finally pulled everything out into my dining room.



I cleaned up a lot of junk, threw out a lot of stuff and found a lot of moth evidence. I found cocoons and evidence of moth munching in several places. Remarkably I haven't found any real yarn or fiber with any damage yet. The biggest areas of "activity" were in warm, dark corners of the office where a small--tiny!--bit of wool was hidden under something else. I think and hope that moths are generally lazy. Why try to get into a Rubbermaid bin full of yarn when there is a warm, undisturbed meal way behind the desk in a corner that no one has cleaned out in three years? I have started rearranging and putting things away. I am also still seeing moths flutter by at night. The next stop is my closet. Wes pulled on a sweater today (granted a really, really old sweater that probably already had holes in it) and it was riddled with moth holes. I'm sad and scared about what I'm going to find destroyed in my closet.

Nearly a Bust

Today did not go as planned. We were going to have dim sum at Jade Garden then head to the Seattle Art Museum first thing this morning. But Bella has developed some sort of medical issue (gross and not worth discussing) so Wes took her to the vet. They haven't found out what's wrong yet but she's otherwise fine. So we head off to the International District two hours later than expected. The wait at Jade Garden was long and the kids were not feeling patient. Wes ran over to the House of Hong and got us a table immediately. You know there's a reason that one place had a long wait and the other had no wait. The food was meh. We ate quickly and headed to Kinokuniya. Usually the kids are game to look at all the Pokemon stuff for a while but today they just weren't feeling patient. Fortunately I found this cute lunchbag book. I'm participating in a lunch bag swap* and this is just the inspiration I need.

We headed to the museum and scored the greatest parking spot in the world. We were feeling happy and lucky as we headed in the door. Then there in the lobby were more people waiting in line than I have ever seen on all my trips to SAM combined in the last decade. It was mobbed. I got in the line to get a membership. I waited about 10 minutes and the line didn't move. It didn't keep the woman behind me from trying to shimmy around me or just stand so close behind me she kept bumping me forward. I was feeling really frustrated and let down. We headed back to the car. Wes got the great idea to stop at Le Fournil before they closed for some half-priced pastries (we were still hungry from the sub-par dim sum). We drove over only to find the pastry case empty. We trudged back to the car. We headed to U Village to get my son a book we promised him. At this point we were all feeling hungry, frustrated and generally pissy. We got the book and got out of there. When we got home I threw myself on the couch in a fit of pique (and MSG?) and fell dead asleep for three hours.

In an attempt to salvage something good out of the day, Wes fed the kids then gathered them up to accompany us to dinner at El Camino. They were reasonably well behaved and Wes and I got to have a grown up dinner. Nice.

I've been knitting away on my socks and have just turned the heel on the second one. they should be done in a day or two.

* I have been driving myself nuts on what to make. Do I sew something or knit something? I have too many ideas and I'm afraid my sewing skills might fall short of the visions of fancy-ass lunch bags in my head.

What Time is It?

My sleep schedule is all out of whack. I'm still feeling pretty sick and have fallen asleep crazy early a few nights in the past week. Like last night I fell asleep at 7:30. So then I woke up at 11:30 and stayed up until 2. Or Monday morning for no good reason at all I woke up at 6 and could not fall back to sleep. All of this is cutting into my knitting time, my time with friends and my life in general. I'm am so very, very tired of being sick. My sinus infection seems pretty much cleared up but I'm still hacking and coughing and feeling like crud.

I have very little new knitting to report other than I have working on the gusset decreases on my second Bayerische and my Tangled Yoke is getting a little longer in the body.

What I can report on are documentaries. I have been on a small doc kick lately.

Grey Gardens: Albert and David Maysles's fascinating portrait of the Edith and Edie Beale, aunt and cousin of Jackie Onassis. Shot in 1975, it thrusts you into the strange, sad world of this mother and daughter living in a crumbling East Hampton mansion. There is no exposition, no explanation. You are just dropped into their home and observe their co-dependence and decay. Incredibly interesting. The Beale's lives are being turned into a feature film. Given that the director's only previous credits are PA positions on crap films I'm not feeling too hopeful about this turning out to be any good.

The Weather Underground: An informatiive, though terribly biased, history of the 70s radical group, the Weathermen. Mostly talking heads with some historical footage.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly: Werner Herzog's portrait of Deiter Dengler, a German-born US naval pilot shot down over Laos in the Vietnam war. His incredible story of his capture, life in a prison camp and eventual escape and rescue is heart-breaking and bizarre. Herzog revisited his story again in Rescue Dawn with Christian Bale which I hope to see soon.

Born Into Brothels: Zana Briski befriends and teaches children living in a brothel in Calcutta's red light district about photography. The film, which won the 2005 Oscar for Best Documentary, is both up-lifting and gut-wrenching. It beautifully illustrates the universality of childhood and hope.