How not to unravel a sweater...

I've been wanting to give sweater recycling a try for a while. I have this sweater I bought a few years ago in Ireland...very big, very nice, very, very hot. I hardly ever wore it because it was so darned hot. Despite that, I managed to somehow put a hole in it, so I decided this year I'd use it as my test piece for unraveling a sweater and reusing the wool.

Yeah. Well. Clearly, this was not a good choice. I mistook the "Made in Ireland" tag for "HANDMADE in Ireland," and assumed I could just undo the sweater much as I could any sweater I'd knit myself. No. Not happenin'. This one clearly had been serged, because every row unravels into it's own little strand of very curly yarn. :::sigh::: That pile accounts for only half a sleeve.

I'm thinking now how I might be able to be creative with it and still get some use from it. I wonder if the body would felt as is and I could then turn it into a bag or something? The yarn is supposedly 90/10 wool/silk. I don't know if that would felt or not. At this point, it probably can't turn out to be any bigger a mess than what I've already got, right?

Live and learn.

(Wish I'd seen this before I started.)

Friday ponderings and pictures...

...it is not fair that Kevin took today off work and I ended up having to get up early as a result. In case you never got the memo (as my husband apparently did not), Friday is my self-appointed sleep-in day. I'm up with the kids doing school all week, Saturday I work and Sunday is church. Friday? My day to sleep a little late. Unless my husband takes the day off, goes out to get new tires on his truck first thing in the a.m., and calls at 8:15 a.m. to ask if you can bring your credit card down to the tire place as he seems to have misplaced his. Grrrr. Consider that I did not go to bed until 3 a.m. because I was up and being productive. This would be the equivalent of me calling him AT 3 a.m. and asking him to come bring something to me somewhere. Yeah. He'd be really happy about that. Just as I was. Again...grrrr. Oh, I did it. I got up, went out into my cold, cold car, drove the 45 minute round trip...but I was not pleased. Oh, no. I was not pleased.

...from yesterday...what I was doing until 3 a.m....organizing my yarn!


...it is cold down here in my little office/studio. I could build a fire out in the woodburner, but I pretty much suck at building fires. I would have made a terrible pioneer woman. My family would have starved and frozen to death. Thus I am using this teensie little space heater my son loaned me before he left for basic training.
It doesn't do much to heat up the room (kind of like spitting into the ocean, frankly), but at least my right side is slightly less frozen than my left. I'm not sure if it is completely within the recommended operating guidelines to tilt the little thing upward like I have it, leaning against the corner of my love seat...but the back doesn't get hot, so I'm hoping it's ok, because I use and exercise ball for my chair at my desk, and I'm thinking that overheating the rubber of this ball could have its own ill-effects.

...my sad little Sony.
I love, love, love my big, beautiful Canon 400D, and I happily use it anytime I want to take good quailty photos. It's excellent for my needs in that way. But sometimes, it is just easier to grab my little point-and-shoot Sony and take a fast photo. However, I cannot do that. I have not been able to do that for months. Because I've misplaced the cord and cannot recharge it. :::sigh::: I was certain that once I went through all of my piles and boxes that I was cleaning out down here, I'd find it. I'm 80% through all of that stuff, but still no cord. It's an old camera, and while it still works, I'm not going to spring for a replacement cord. Just really hoping to find mine somewhere.

...love this...


This is a stool my dad sat on for as long as I can remember when he was downstairs at his workbench. It originated at the University of Pittsburgh, where my dad worked in the machine shop. I guess they were getting rid of it at some point and he brought it home. The wooden top has clearly been worn over the years and years of use, but right in the center, you can still see the identification that was stamped into it:


If you can't quite make it out, it says "Physics Pitt". I love that! Mainly because it makes me wonder...just how many world-renowned physicists actually sat their hienies on this very stool? Some great physics-related discovery could have taken place while some guy in a lab coat had his Ph.D. butt on my stool! Isn't it cool to think about? :)

It's amazing...

...what a little late day caffeine will do for you. Got a major second wind this evening and proceeded to clean out my entire scrapbooking stash, which then allowed me the storage space to completely organize my yarn stash! You have no idea how exciting this is, as my yarn stash has been squished into my bedroom closet over the past year. (That said, this time last year I didn't *have* a yarn stash, as I was not yet a crazy knitter.)

So, the goodies to share from my last post are all waiting for eager takers. And I can now see all my preeeeetty, preeeeetty yarns at a glance, which can only be helpful for my creativity, right?

Oh, and on top of all of this organizational productivity, I also loaded all of my favorite Christmas music onto my iPod tonight. Yee-ha! :)

Cleaning house...

...er, studio.

I've got way, way, way too much scrapbooking stuff. There was a time when I didn't think that was quite possible, but guess what? It is. Too much of a good thing. Too much stuff for too little storage space.

In an effort to get my scrap stash under control (and make more room for my yarn stash, which is ever-growing these days), I need to unload some things. I've got cardstock. I've got stickers, rub-ons, chipboard. I've got Heidi Swapp and Karen Foster and 7Gypsies (ok, that would be a lot of people here in my studio office...really, I just have their products!). I've got too much to name. I've got it, and I want you to have it.

If you're interested in receiving a package of scrapbookin' lovin' from me, please leave a comment here. Once I get it all sorted out (in the next few days), I'll draw names and send happy packages to those folks. Please help me clean out my room! :)

NEW NOTE! 12/8 - Ok, I realize I did not specify a time zone (my bad), but it is now 1 a.m. here on the east coast, and considering how many dozens of replies I now have, I'm going to say that the time's up! Thank you all for offering a good home to my scrap stash! (If I've contacted you and asked you to send your mailing addy, please still do that as you're on my list of people to send things to.)

NOTE ADDED 12/7 - If you are commenting and wanting some scrap stuff, PLEASE leave your e-mail address in your comment! Blogger is not, for some reason, linking e-mail addresses to people's names, so unless you have your e-mail address in your blog that I can connect to, I'll have no way to contact you! And that would be sad! Because then I could not give you any scrap goodness! If you'd prefer not to post your e-mail addy here, you can e-mail me directly at lmbwrites AT comcast DOT net instead.

ALSO - I never expected such a big response to this! I'm going to send stuff to as many people as I can who comment by midnight tonight and who give me their e-mail addresses so I can contact them.

New eyes...

As I get older, I find I'm get somewhat less vain. It takes too much energy.

True, I still get my hair colored every six weeks, not just to camouflage the gray but because I enjoy changing up my appearance. It's fun. I'd make a great chameleon. However, when it comes to other things -- like wearing my glasses -- I've put up a lifelong fight.

I've worn contacts for 28 years now, only reverting to my glasses at home, and only when I'm feeling too lazy to put my contacts in. Wearing them in public is not something I choose to do unless I have no other option, and even then, it's with a bit of teeth gnashing. I never feel as if I can see as well out of them, but more than that, I just don't like how I look in glasses. I have a hard time even convincing myself that they're a fashion statement of any sort (and with the vast array of glasses out there today, from the classic to the funky, that could be a compelling argument).

However, things change. In recent months, I've had a recurring issue with my eyes becoming horribly red -- red enough for friends and strangers alike to comment on it. I assumed it was just my contacts drying out, so I used drops more and more, but it didn't help. Finally, I went to the eye doctor who said a) infection and b) possible over wear. I don't wear my contacts 24/7, but I am a night owl, often not taking my lenses out until 2 a.m. after they've become terribly dried out. Thus, "b" seemed as likely as "a" might be.

Two rounds of antibiotic/steroid drops later, it seems to be better, but I'm afraid to push my luck. As much as I hate having to wear my glasses, I hate having red, unsightly eyeballs even more. So, I've been trying to wear my lenses only when I have to go out and then wear my glasses at home.

However, I decided to splurge on a new frame...my old ones were a bright gold, which clashed horribly with my highlighted hair. (I know, someone is thinking, "My gosh, what a diva! Heaven forbid her glasses don't match her hair! If only that was my biggest problem!" Yeah, yeah. The other frames have been around for a while, so I was due anyway, ok? Geez.) I figure if I have frames I don't hate, maybe I'll even wear the glasses :::gulp::: in public on occasion, giving my eyes even more of a rest when needed. We'll see how it goes.

Gifties underway...

So, Christmas knitting is underway. (Note to self: start Christmas knitting way earlier next year. Like, January.) The pirate socks are for my kids and possibly my niece, if I get that far. They aren't particularly difficult, just time-consuming, as socks can be. I'm doing all three pairs with different main colors to keep things from getting boring. But then I think what if I don't get them done? Or what if I only get one and a half pairs done? What then?

Enter the mitts. I love fingerless mitts and have finally started making them. Everyone on my list might end up with a pair of mitts this year, frankly. Even the kids. And that way, if the socks don't make it, there will be something knitted under the tree! I'm enjoying knitting the mitts more than the socks right now, though, so you know which one I'm working on most. (The mitts pattern is from One-Skein Wonders and is called, appropriately, Fingerless Mittens.)

Then there is my m-i-l's white shawl. Oh, lawdy, if one more person requests an all-white knitted item from me, I may have to use my DPNs as weapons. To keep it interesting, I chose a complex lace pattern to do...and about 60 rows in, I realized something important...I really don't like knitting lace that much. Yeah. Hm. I mean, it's pretty, but what a freakin' pain if you make a mistake. (Ask me how I know.) So, just another 135 ever growing rows to go on that one. Must start dedicating some serious time to that project daily if I want to have any hope of giving it to her on the 23rd (when we're doing Christmas with that end of the family) and not have it still on the needles with a note promising to finish it.

Then my husband came to me the other day and said, "You know how you always want to know what you can knit for me?" And I am, because he won't wear sweaters, or scarves, or gloves/ mitts, and the socks I started for him just aren't happening for some reason. Just not feeling inspired on those. Anyway, he handed me some obscure outdoorsy catalog with a picture of a headband-y thing through which the beak of a baseball cap fits. That's what he wants. Okaaaaay. I've never seen such a pattern, but it shouldn't be too hard. I'm envisioning circular knitting, short rows (to make the top and bottom at the back wider than the rest of it) and a big bound-off buttonhole of a thing in the front. I'm probably envisioning it far more complicatedly than necessary, actually. I usually do.

And then there are the people on my list who I have no knitted item planned for. I wonder...will they care? Will the be disappointed? Feel miffed? Perhaps a few extra pairs of mitts will be added to my list for that purpose. Hm.

At least I can say, now that I've finished my harvest pullover, I am being very good and not doing any of my own personal knitting. I really, really want to work on my Malabrigo sweater, but that will have to be my reward for getting through the Christmas knitting.

Thanksgiving Day musings...

Growing up, Thanksgiving was always my mom's holiday to host. She loved it. I can remember her making the stuffing the night before, helping cut up bread into cubes and then toasting it (which I never understood why you'd do that if you wanted moist stuffing) and eating a few of the squishy cubes along the way. I've got vivid memories of our kitchen in the hour or so prior to the big meal, my mom and her cousins' wives all in there taking care of last minute preparations. Flo always -- always -- brought her special hand potato masher to use, because the mashed potatoes wouldn't taste right being done any other way. Someone would hold the pot, and she would mash them into white, fluffy goodness. Sometimes we'd play some sort of game that lasted the whole day. One year, it was the safety pin game...everyone got a safety pin, and if you were caught crossing your legs, you lost your safety pin. Somewhere, I have the funniest picture, taken at dinner time, of Wilma peeking under the table cloth during the meal, trying to catch someone off-guard and take their pin.

As we kids got older, got married and had kids of our own, it was no longer feasible to continue the same hosting arrangements for the holidays. There was more extended family to be considered and to share the holidays with, and so things changed. Unfortunately, they changed the same year my dad died, which made things even more different that year. No dad. No big family Thanksgiving. Life goes on.

A couple years later, though, I found myself in my mom's place. Thanksgiving became my holiday to host for my mom and step-dad and my in-laws. Some years we had as many as fifteen people here around our table. The only year I didn't cook was the year I was pregnant with our second child and due within the week. I vividly remember our first Thanksgiving here...it was the first year my husband and I were married. My son was eight. I remember that morning, all three of us cuddled in our big bed, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV, late autumn sun streaming in through the windows. Later that day, I remember my husband carving the turkey that had cooked overnight (that's how Mom used to do it, as she said it helped cut down on the mess later in the day), standing in our chilly kitchen, that same soft gold sun shining through the bare branches of trees and into our kitchen resulting in shadows and light that will always be a part of my memory of that day. It was so special.

Now here we are, fourteen Thanksgivings later, and things have changed again. My mom and step-dad moved to Florida last year, and while they came back for Thanksgiving last year, they aren't doing so this year (they'll be here for Christmas instead). I miss my mom's presence. I had to bake the pumpkin pies this year. That's what she always brought. I realized, as my daughter and I were mixing the filling yesterday, that I don't even own the right spices for pumpkin pie filling because I never needed to make it before. (We improvised. Hopefully they'll be edible.) I just spent a half hour on the phone with my mom this morning, talking about our day ahead (they'll be celebrating with some friends down there...my mom hosting the meal) and other things of little consequence. Just the talking is nice, though. Thank God for unlimited calling plans.

And this year, my oldest son is also missing from our Thanksgiving picture. He'll be celebrating this day at Parris Island, with the drill instructors and 84 other recruits in his platoon at basic training. I keep hoping he might get to make a call home today, but I'm prepared for it not to happen. Or for it not to be to me, anyway, as he does have a wife who is higher up on the call list. Either way, I miss him. He's a third of the way through his training almost, so I just keep thinking about his graduation in January and seeing him then. But it is still going to make today (and Christmas) feel strange.

I might feel a little blue today because of the changes that have happened this year, but it doesn't make me any less thankful. I know I am blessed...with love and family and health and a home and food and more material things than I really need. More than anything, I have the promises of the one who provides these blessings, the one who says, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thes. 5:16-18)

And so I give thanks...for everything.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Peace.