Saturday, January 27, 2007

An elementary school basketball game is 2472 stitches long:

This is Garter Stitch Panel Number, um, Five, I think, out of I don't know how many yet (I'm winging it).  Part of an afghan I'm making for my mom, as a housewarming present for her when she moves into town sometime in February.

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Lookie what arrived in the mail from uberimma:

Yummy mittens to brighten these dreary Michigan winter days!!  Thank you, uberimma!!!

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I'm making progress on my Fair Isle Cardigan:

I actually have both cuffs on the needles now, although the second one isn't quite this far.  I'm going to run short of at least one color of yarn, and maybe two, but I'll see how far I can get with what I have before I call Schoolhouse Press for reinforcements.

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Here's a photo of Mother-in-Law Number Two's socks, taken before I popped them into the mail to Florida:

These socks are the first (and so far only) entry onto 2007's Finished Projects page.

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And here are Son Number Two's Christmas socks, modeled proudly by his very own feet:

I'll have to look up the yarn label later -- I can't remember what it is.

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I've been trying to find movies to distract myself with that don't involve death, funerals, cremation, hospitals, or retirement homes.  I'm not having much luck.  People have been very eager to help by offering titles they think are death/funeral/cremation/hospital/retirement home free, but I think there's a Murphy's Law at work here that says that if you're trying to avoid something, it will pop up everywhere.  Here are some recent suggestions I've watched:

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont:  retirement home, hospital, death (elderly woman)

Wordplay:  death (elderly man)

In Her Shoes:  death (mother and elderly man), retirement home

Little Miss Sunshine:  hospital, death (father/grandfather)

The World's Fastest Indian:  hospital (elderly man)

Elizabethtown:  death, funeral, cremation (father) (I knew this movie was about a dead father, so this one was my fault)

Mansfield Park:  none of the above, but so untrue to Jane Austen's book that I was angry through the whole thing.

The Libertine:  I tried to distract myself with a little Johnny Depp, but ick!  A little too raunchy for my taste.  And Johnny with a buzz cut?  Not the same, sadly.

Do you have any suggestions for me?  I don't like to watch what I call "physical" comedy, like Nacho Libre or Dumb and Dumber.  Animated Disney movies are OUT, since both parents are usually dead and someone is always trying to kill the hero or heroine.  Maybe I need to re-visit the old musicals . . . does anybody die in "Oklahoma!"?

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Husband Number One and I went to see Jerry Seinfeld perform at the Wharton Center last night -- Jerry's always good for some laughs, right?  Sure -- he was great -- but did he have to include funerals, cremation and retirement homes in his routine?  Geez Louise!

Sarah

Monday, January 15, 2007

Let's try a blog entry, shall we?

Behold my Christmas gift from Son Number 2:

The photo was taken in a hurry as we were taking down our Christmas tree, so I didn't notice it was blurry until it was too late to recreate the scene.  It's a clear glass ornament, stuffed with bits of yarn that Son Number Two "borrowed" from my stash (with permission), painted with "I ♥ MOM".  Have I mentioned that Son Number Two is my favorite youngest son?

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In a moment of weakness before we left for Florida (between Christmas and the new year), I signed up for the UFO Resurrection Challenge, because I DEFINITELY have at least a dozen projects that have been marinating for long enough.  I pulled out my stash of project notebooks (one per year -- I knit professionally, so I crank out a LOT of projects each year):

These are the four most recent:  My new 2007 notebook is on the left, buried by 2006, 2005 and 2004.  There are more, but the earliest UFO I could find was in the 2004 notebook (that's the earliest UFO that's still on the needles -- I have much older projects that are actually FOs that need to be updated, torn out, or donated away):

Remember this?

This is the cardigan from the cover of Meg Swansen's Knitting.  The body is done, the steeks have been cut, and I had knit the border on, but didn't care for the color of yarn I chose or for the way I worked the border.  After a time-out of about a year or so (I'm too lazy to look in my archives), it was time to bite the bullet and re-work that border.  I kept the original picked-up stitches because I hadn't done anything to the steek stitches before I cut them, and I was afraid of manipulating them too much.  I changed the background color and re-worked the front of the band:

then picked up stitches from the back side of the original picked up stitches and knit the back of the band:

I finished up by using a three needle bind off to join the two halves together (shown in the photos above), a trick I think I picked up from Linda at Knitting Camp last summer.  The original pattern directed me to knit the front, work a purl turning ridge, then work the back (or facing), and then to fasten the facing down.  I liked this method better, although I was afraid my cut stitches wouldn't hold.  They did!

The border is done -- now I have to get the sleeves started. 

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While in Florida, I managed to knit a sock that was far too small for my foot (seen here dangling from the grapefruit tree that was in the backyard):

The yarn is Claudia Hand Painted Yarn in the color "Purple Earth".

The good news is that it fit Mother-in-Law Number Two perfectly, so I knit a second one (finished it today) and will send them off to her as a thank you for letting us visit them in their "winter home" in Florida.

Sarah

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Happy New Year to you all.

Our Christmas holiday at home in Michigan was lovely.  We finished it off with a week long trip to Florida, which ended sooner than we expected with the death of my father back in Pittsburgh.  I spent the weekend there surrounded by friends and family, and returned home to Michigan last night.  I'm extremely thankful for the busy "routine" of everyday life, about which I often complain, but which is helping all of us to move forward.

Sarah

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