God's Sock Yarn....and why I want to tie up my DH with thrirty-year old acrylic yarn.

Ok, so last night I was working on Katie's second pair of socks (she's addicted and I'm feeding the beast but hey, it works) and this time they're just a plain vanilla sock but I'm using self-patterning yarn and as I was working the gusset on the second sock I was becoming more and more fascinated by what was unfolding before me. These two socks, knit from the exact same skein and with the same needle,pattern,etc....were turning out to be quite different looking from one another. I was just delighted by the spectacle of it. And suddenly He spoke to my heart, "See? Do you see what I mean? That's how it is for me EVERY time!" I do get it...even though he uses the same old pattern and same basic materials, we all turn out so very different from one another. Even when he does two up on two circulars (twins for you not following the metaphor) they're still different! I feel very blessed to have had this shared with me. Now, on to the reason(s) I want to tie up my darling.

I don't know how many wives out there have to endure this, but my husband seems to absolutley refuse to do housework unless I throw a fit or my parents are coming (he's got this thing with my dad 'cause my dad's ocd). He has put at least eight loads through the wash and (as an experiment to see if he'd do it) I refuse to fold any of them. So they have sat, wrinkled and growing in numbers for ages now. The children are wearing sandals everyday because they fear the thought of looking in "The Pile" for socks. I don't remember the last time he did the dishes if there were more than five dishes in the sink and though he absolutely insists on treating our kitchen as though it's the local Greasy Spoon, he refuses to clean it up. Now he doesnt' say," I'm not cleaning it up," he just leaves it until I get too grossed out to clean it up. Today I draw the line. I'm not spending the one day I have some time off to clean the house. He can kiss my foot. And until he does some cleaning.....that's ALL he'll be kissing!

Thanks to those who gave me the here-here on my last post. It helps to know that I'm just part of a special group. And not an "I rode the short bus" kind of special! Well I'm still working on the sleeves for baby Ashe's cardigan. He's due Sept.21 so, like Craig says, I've got time. But can I be honest....I'm afraid to be done with the knitting because I'm terrified of blocking and sewing it up. I'm not one to back down from a challenge and I'll face up to it bravely when it comes, but I'm TERRIFIED. How I quiver at the thought of seaming the sleeves. But alas, it will be done. All things were new to me at one time. It can't possibly be harder than intubating a two year old. If it is, I'll probably cry. I'll do it, but I'll cry. It won't be pretty....I get all blotchy when I cry.

I'm so misunderstood!

Why( please tell me 'cause I NEED to know) why don't people get my thing with knitting? I'm not ignoring you, and I don't NOT care just because I'm knitting at the same time. I CAN multitasking people! I'm training to be a surgeon for goodness sake! You better hope I can multitask or you may pay for it when you come under my knife someday! It's not a hobby, it's love. I love doing it. I thinking about it, planning the next project, imaging and then buying the yarn...all of it. It's love okay? Just accept that it's not going away and that it doesn't make you less intresting to me or less important. I just love it and I want to do it all the time. I do it during church and I still follow the message just fine. My kids have accepted it and want to play with it too. What's the big deal?

The Gauntlet

It has been cast down and I have decided to pick it up. 30 days with NO cheat days on diet. I was trying this week but my heart wasn't into it. I was stepping around the gauntlet. It was purposefully thrown down in my path again today. Today I will pick it up. Tomorrow I will answer the challenge. Today I will limp (lifted too much at the gym) tomorrow I will glide. And since the boys will be camping this weekend with the parents.....I will be hardcore doing some cupboard cleaning. Oh, yeah, the knitting stuff, sorry. I ahve finished first pair of fingerless gloves. I used SWTC Karaoke in Mermaid mix and SWTCs pattern. I HATE that yarn. It snapped every couple of rows! Made it damned near impossible to keep tension. To check myself I knitted the same pattern in a same weight/gauge yarn......yeah, they look fantastic, so it's NOT me, it's the damn yarn. I have a spinning guru who hates the stuff too. Wouldn't spin it if you paid her too. Oh well, it's a beautiful colorway anyway and after all the(millions of) ends were woven in, the gloves turned out pretty cute. Even if they were all wonky in places.

Cotton Yarn Conquered

I have conquered cotton yarn. Yes, I bent it to my will in the form of reversible shamrock dishcloth. I promptly gave it to my babysitter and she loved it. I will nurse my aching hands with wool and start on Craig's baby's cardi. It will be my first venture into sweaters and my hopes are that he will love it. If not....well it's only three balls of wool (one of Patons Kroy sock yarn in navy and two of Sirdar Country in colonial) I bought an extra ball of the Sirdar just in case (it's so lovely and soft, if I don't use it, it will make great gloves or socks!) Now that summer is here and I have no schooling to attend to my knit list will be filling with projects and I will happily be knitting ( or I should say I'll be happily knitting) every free moment I have. I will also be updating my blog more often as I will now have to time to hop on the computer at work. I will be adding my pics of the above mentioned dishcloth soon.

Socks and 30 days of grindstone

So I finish the "run through" sock of this new pattern(my first venture into yarn overs) and Katie loved it so much she refused to take it off until it had a mate.
Here's it mate.

She couldn't stop petting it. Now she won't take them off....my kitchen table. So there they are. In Bernat baby yarn on the feet of my best friend ( I did get to wear them for like a minute before she ripped them off my feet. I'm telling you the girl loves those socks!)

Now on to my next challenge, knitting with cotton, and making Craig's baby his first cardi from Sitch'N Bitch Nation (Baby's first tattoo). And for the next 30 days I will not take so much as one free meal off my diet. I am putting my adorable nose straight to the grindstone! Hopefully It won't get any smaller ( just my butt.)

It feels so good.

The test is over and I got a 94% on it! Sweet. On home to the husband and children. And the yarn too of course!

Procrastination

I'm so tired I can hardly see straight. As it comes down to the wire in these last two weeks of school, I feel as though everything is due at once, though truth be told it's my own fault for not planning. I won't blame the lovely pink yarn I'm knitting into slippers for my mom. Or the fantastic new sock pattern I'm almost done knitting a "run through" on. It's not the yarn's fault. It can't help itself, and the pattern didn't ask to be so fabulous. So tonight I will study the lymphatic system and the acid-base balance until I'm blue in the face. And then I will knit. Because that seems to be the most logical way to handle the irritating final and lab test I have tomorrow. I won't even glance at the self-patterning sock yarn my beloved best friend dropped off in the passenger seat of my truck this morning. She doesn't understand why, but she know's I went NUTS over the fact that it was on clearance for 2.49/50g and was lamenting the fact that I was so poor I couldn't pay attention, so she went behind my back and bought me SIX balls! She even had a coupon for 25% off the clearance so she basically got a ball for FREE! And then promptly dumped it unceremoniously in my truck after her appointment in my office this morning. All she asked for was one pair of socks. DONE! She says, "Go do your knit thing with this but get a good grade on your final first!" I almost cried. God, I'm a dork.

I love the wall

I love the wall. For the longest time I was upset because nobody reads my blog. I kept blogging to the wall. Then I thought, so what? Is that really the measure of a blog? Isn't a blog really just a journal online rather than in a book? It would still be nice to have knitterly friends to converse with but as long as I can express my love of yarn I'm okay with just talking to the wall. The wall understands and it loves me anyhow.

It's getting awkward again...

Yep, it's that awkward time again. You know, that time during your weight loss that you're too small for your old size but still an inch too big to wear that next size down (well, you COULD wear it but you'd be sportin' some major muffin-top.) So far I've lost 70lbs. I know that's a major feat and some girls would KILL to be able to say that, but for me it's not even half way (another 15 and I'll be half-way.) I am proud of myself, don't get me wrong, but it's still so frustrating to see pictures of me pre-kids and then look at myself in the mirror. My husband's great about it. He thinks I'm gorgeous (HE says) no matter what size, but honestly he's secretly thrilled that I'm getting back down to my "normal" size. I'm actually aiming for a few sizes smaller than the size I was. I used to be a comfortable size 10 and I'm aiming for more of a 5 or 6, 8 tops. Of course my husband balks at the idea of my being that thin ( he likes me "thick"), but I told him I'll have more muscle-to-fat than previous so I'll be WAY hotter than I was even when I was a firefighter. He still doesn't like it but he'll adjust. I told him it's actually more economical. See, the way I see it 1) Knitting smaller sizes requires less yarn. 2) Less room taken up by me=more room for stash enhancement, thus further reduction of heating/cooling costs. 3) Less of me means smaller grocery bill (this also means more money available for stash enhancement but we don't need to tell him that. What he doesn't miss won't hurt the stash!) The list goes on but you get the gist of it.

I'm almost there.

I'm almost there. I really am. It's right around the corner....I just know it is. This is what I keep telling myself when I'm about 13 miles into a 15 mile run. And I actually WANT to run 26.2 miles. Just for the fun of it. My best friend and I plan to run the 2007 Cincinnati Flying Pig next year and quite frankly although I should be worried about how I'm going to fit in time for training with transferring to a new school and probably starting a new job,.....all I can think is "Do you think the race officials would be offended if I took along a sock project in my GoKnit bag?" and "I should probably use wooden needles to lower the risk of injury to myself and others."

I'm not weird though, I swear. You understand........don't you?

This is a long one but I feel the need.

I love to knit. Let me repeat that. I LOVE to knit. Not in the vague sense that most Americans use the word, but in the deep, obsessive way that it should be. I can't get enough of it. Let's start with the yarn. I love all of it(with few exceptions). I consider myself an equal oppurtunity fiber employer. I love the idea of it, the butterflies in my stomach when I pull into the lys parking lot, the feel of the hanks as I run my hands over them, the smell, everything. I think about the warm needles in my hands and the soft yarn running over them when I should be working or listening to an instructor, or developing my pictures for my portfolio, or taking a test ( I will be doing that shortly, I swear). Somehow, the whole experience just got in my system and I can't get it out. I'm on some sort of meth-like yarn high. I dream about it,talk about it incessantly to the amusement and later annoyance of those around me. I embarass my husband by knitting at resturaunts (I've never minded a 20-30 min wait since). I fascinate my pastors wife with whatever I'm working on before the service starts ( she really dug my first pair of socks..little does she know she has a pair just for her soon to be on the needles). I have identified my husband, brother, and all other male friends and family as card carrying members of T.A.K.E (see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Yarn Harlot for information on this organization and methods of spotting their clever operatives) I think I've spent every free moment since my addiction first began combing through magazines, yarn, and patterns books just to feed the beast. I have to have at least one magazine near me or one pattern near me at all times or withdrawal tremors begin. I want to go all the way. I want to do sweaters with complicated Intarsia and Fair Isle patterns, I want to do lace shawls and I want to spin my own yarns and then hand dye them. If I didn't love medicine so much I'd abandon my career in surgery to raise sheep in New Zealand ( don't laugh, you know you want to) I thought in the beginning this was just a phase and it would get weaker and fade but it only grows stronger the more I get into it. I can't explain to non-knitting folk just how magical it is to pick out a yarn,and a pattern (in whichever order) and sit down with a lovely set of needles to begin to create.God understands, he's a knitter you know (...you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.....) how can I argue with it when the Father himself is sitting there needles in hand knitting every little one coming to this world? That settles it.I will give in to the magic of the yarn. I will enhance the stash while still keeping the bills paid( I do have two kids to think of) and I will not back down from the next challenge. Today it's toe-up socks, then a bag with aran cables, then a skirt, then a sweater....then the world! I just wish I had some yarny friends to share my love with. As it stands, my three friends that I talk to (did I mention that surgeon's aren't very well understood?) just don't get it. I need yarn companionship,even if it's only to sit and knit together or email and exchange love of yarn. I wish I could find them.

The first sock ever! It took me two days to do it and now it has a mate but....just look at it! Maybe now I can move onto something challenging!

I really needed to get a new blog

Okay so this is my new blog and it's under construction. Check in tomorrow.