Surreal to insane...

...and everything in between. That's been my week. I've had lots of bloggy thoughts that just haven't made it to the screen. Pictures too. Preparing for the girlie's sleepover birthday party tonight -- me and a houseful of 12-year-olds...aie, aie, aie! After the dust settles, there will be some blogging. Honest. 

Happy weekend!

Knitting (and yarn) update...

So the intarsia I was lamenting in the last post...I figured it out and it went much better second time around. Here's a glance at my pretty argyle square...

...I'm doing the lines by duplicate stitch because I was too chicken to try and juggle five different colors at one time. I think if I do it again, I'll bite the bullet and try, though, because getting those lines to go in the right place was some kind of crazy at times.

This was going to be an afghan square for a swap I'm in. I thought intarsia would make for a better colorwork option for an afghan than fair isle, as there wouldn't be the stranding on the back. Unfortunately, the back of intarsia doesn't necessarily look all that pretty (at least mine didn't...maybe others are more skilled at it). So I had the bright idea to knit it twice as long as need be and then fold it over and seam around it, so it would actually be two squares back to back. Good idea in theory, only it made for one very thick square, which I figure will not go well with the recipient's other squares, weight-wise. :::sigh::: Thus, this square is being relegated to the corner...maybe I'll use it as my 12th square in my own swap afghan? I don't know. But, suffice it to say, I've done two squares worth of knitting and still do not have a square to send my swappie. Will be making a third try on that soon.

In other projects...I have one sleeve left to knit for my mom's sweater, then the seaming and button band and it will be done. Her birthday is tomorrow, so clearly she will not be getting it by then. It shouldn't take long to finish, though. I just needed a break from it for a bit.

I also have another swap project -- another pair of pasties -- to work on and finish by month's end. I've got a fun idea for them, and they shouldn't take long either.

I haven't worked on my Swiftly Turning afghan in a while, nor have I added to my Ribbon Lace scarf in a couple of weeks. I did start a new pair of socks for the boy, which I'd promised him some time ago. I'm half done with the first. I'm using a sport-weight yarn for them, so they are going much faster than most socks.

Speaking of socks, check out the pretty new yarns that have come to live in my stash recently...

This is a beautiful DK weight yarn from Knitted to a T. The colorway is called Heart Throb, and it is even more beautiful than this picture shows. I'm envisioning a pair of socks for myself with a nested heart motif if I can manage to create it.

Also, these beauties came this week from The Loopy Ewe...


That site is such an addiction for me! The yarns are, from L to R...

• The YoYo; colorway: Eleanor Rigby
• Indie Dyer; colorway: Dragonfly
• Yarn Love; colorway: Tuscany
• The Schaefer Yarn Company; colorway: Evergreen

So much good sock yarn, so little time! Makes me wish I was faster at knitting socks. And like so many of my hobbies, I've found I've got a "collector" mentality going on with sock yarns. Every time TLE adds a new yarn (or new to me, anyway) to their shop, I find I can't wait to get a skein of it. It's a sickness, I tell you. A sickness.

I also ordered a sweater lot of this gorgeous yarn from Three Irish Girls. I think I would order anything from a company with that name! LOL They're having a sale right now, though, so that is even more incentive than just the cool name of the company (and the colorway names...totally yummy and romantic and Irish...how could I pass up buying something with a color name of Irish Sea? It takes my mind right straight back to my day in Ardmore. Who wouldn't want to wear and Irish Sea sweater???). I'll post a picture of all the yarn goodness once it arrives, probably in a couple of weeks.

Me and the intarsia?

We're not getting along so well.

I'm working on a project (that I can't show you right now -- top secret for the next couple weeks!), and I was inspired to do a geometric intarsia pattern for part of it. I've never done intarsia before (big clowns and flowers and Mickey Mouse faces smack in the center of sweater fronts just aren't my style), but I can read a chart, and I've done Fair Isle knitting, so I've dealt with multiple strands before...so how hard could it be, right? 

Not that hard, I reasoned. So I started and was just humming along, it was looking good, and then I made the fatal mistake of gloating, just the teensiest little bit. Not even out loud, mind you. But karma, she has her ways. She heard my silent gloat and proceeded to stick it to me. 

This particular intarsia pattern is symmetrical, thus when there are, say, three stitches of Color A here, there should be three stitches of Color B there. Thus, when in Row 21 of the 24 row repeat I found that I had three stitches of Color A here and five stitches of Color B there, I knew I had a problem. And when I started counting and realized that the mistake that led to this stitch count discrepancy apparently happened back in freakin' ROW TWO, I knew karma had been by for a visit. 

So, I put it all down, walked away, taking deep breaths, and went out to mow the lawn. You know I need a time out if I go mow the lawn, because I never mow the lawn. Not my favorite job in the world. (With the husband's broken ankle and the son's seasonal allergies in full bloom, it looks like I'm going to be mowing the grass for at least the next few weeks. Let's hope I don't have bad knitting to walk away from every time I do it!)

Now the lawn is mowed, and the 21 ill-fated rows have been ripped back and I am ready for Take 2. Honestly, it's probably a good thing. While my first try (error withstanding) was looking pretty good, I had been figuring things out as I went along, so the later rows were definitely a little neater on the back side than the earlier rows. Not so much that I wouldn't have been happy to leave them alone, but this way is probably better. It's is yet another of life's learning opportunities. Yeay. I feel so enriched.

Ahem. ;)

(P.S. I realize that not all intarsia patterns are gaudy and tacky and unattractive as I may have inferred above. My comment basically comes from the many intarsia patterns we used to have in older books and leaflets in the discount racks at the yarn shop. I have seen some absolutely beautiful intarsia work, but as a style, it just doesn't usually float my personal knitting boat.)

...and the choreography was unbelievable!

This has to be one of the best non-stupid Youtube videos I've ever seen. These guys are amazing! It totally made me smile and laugh first thing this morning -- before coffee, even! Enjoy!

Five Minute Friday: Fall...

Wow, I haven't done a FMF list in a long time! So it is fortuitous that today is Friday and I have a list topic in mind! Fall. I can't get fall off my mind lately. It happens every year around this time, but this long stretch of unseasonably cool days we've had have definitely put me in mind of September or October rather than August. I'm even wearing a pair of my hand-knit socks tonight, for goodness sake! It's a treat!

What other treats do I look forward to as the days get shorter? Here's my FMF list to explore just that...in no particular order...

1. Cooler temperatures! 

2. Colorful leaves.

3. Apple pies.

4. Canning an overflow of tomatoes (if they ever turn red this year!)

5. Knitting woolly things.

6. Wearing sweaters!

7. A return to the routine of the school year.

8. An end to reruns.

9. Firewood stacked on the back porch.

10. Starting to see the winter constellations.

11. Plans for a fall camping trip.

12. The smell of the cool fall air outside.

13. The smell our house has when the furnace first starts to run (not sure why...it's probably really dusty and unhealthy, but the smell is comforting to me).

14. Planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

15. Remembering past fall seasons.

16. Frost.

17. Pumpkins.

18. Mums.

19. Bales of straw and scarecrows and Halloween decorations.

20. The harvest moon.

21. Re-reading "Dancing at the Harvest Moon" (which I do every fall!)

22. My birthday, which I share with my BFF!

23. Thoughts of New England (where I will be going for a long weekend in September with aforementioned BFF to visit this amazing writer!)

24. Bonfires.

25. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I'm sure there are more things I could list, because I totally love fall. It is my favorite season of the year. Me + fall = true love. I heart fall!

Anxious legs...

A pair of pretty, newly finished socks for my anxious legs.

It sounds weird, doesn't it? Anxious legs? I have a long history of anxious legs, and it has nothing at all to do with legs that want to be moving. Everyone has experienced "butterflies" in the stomach, no? Usually when you're excited or nervous or anticipating something? Right. Well, I get the same thing, only I get it in my legs. Butterfly legs. I know. Weird.

What triggers this odd malady? Thinking about the future. Planning. Thinking about planning. Getting ready to make a list to help me plan. In other words, it's a pre-cursor to planning. Seriously. Once I sit down and get the planning underway, it subsides. But as I sit and think, say, about making a list of things I want to accomplish in the next six months, for example...my mind starts to visit all the things I could write down, and immediately, my legs get butterflies.

As I look at my stash and think of all of the wonderful projects I want to knit, and how I might be more organized so this actually happens...butterfly legs.

As I sat today at Starbucks and started outlining objectives and curricula for our upcoming school year, and all of the cool things we might do as we study...butterfly legs.

As I think about all of the things I want to share with my daughter as she grows into a beautiful young woman...anxious butterfly legs.

What is this all about? Why does the thought of these things have this affect on me? I've never considered myself prone to anxiety issues. I don't easily get nervous. Yet, planning -- something I love to do! -- triggers this weird reaction. 

I wonder if maybe it has something to do with potential. When I begin to plan something, I'm acutely aware of the potential that plan holds...that the individual elements of the plan hold...like a bagful of marbles just straining to break free. 

Perhaps what I'm feeling is not so much anxiety as it is energy. Potential energy. Once it is set in motion, becomes kinetic, the marbles break free and feeling dissipates. 

Interesting. Someone should study this.

Back to routine...

...or as routine as it gets in the summer. Real routine will begin in about two weeks when we get started back to school. But for now, it's still summer.

The kids had a blast at camp. They came home full of stories and everything they had to say was positive. They both seemed to step out of their comfort zones and challenged themselves -- C. rode the zip line -- "It was exciting and terrifying," he said -- the boy does not like heights, so this was truly a step out for him. E. attempted the high ropes course. She had to be rescued part way through when she couldn't keep from falling, but she tried. They both spent a lot of time on the water, and they interacted with many different kids both from their group and the other groups there. 

When I went to pick them up on Friday night, I completely expected my daughter to run up and hug me, hugger that she is. Instead, she waved from afar, and went about talking to friends before finally coming over to where I was. I was glad she enjoyed herself so much that I wasn't her first thought upon returning home.

But home they are. It was a busy weekend. While they were en route back to western Pennsylvania, my husband was busy breaking his ankle. This is a man who twitches at the thought of not being able to be busy, yet he is resigned to four weeks off his foot. I offered to teach him to knit. He declined. 

Allergy season is upon us, as evidenced by C.'s incessant sneezing and nose-blowing for the past two days, poor kid. But, it's that time of year...he's probably in for another month of discomfort before it fully abates.

E. has her birthday coming up next week. She'll be twelve. This means we have one more year before there are two teenagers in our house. Lately I've been thinking about all of the things I really want to teach her, to share with her...not academics, but things about real life. Things that are important to learn from your mom. Things like, "Know you are loved, always and immutably." And "You come from a long line of strong women...draw on their strength when you doubt your own." And "You are unique and special and perfect just as you are...don't try to be someone else." 

These life lessons are hard to learn and easy to forget. They also make up the sentiments found on any number of greeting cards, it seems. But for my girl, I want them to be real and personal and ideas that she can live her life by. I know it is more than a matter of just telling them to her. For this reason, I am thankful that we homeschool, that I have so many more hours with her than many parents have with their kids, hours that allow me to teach by example and to have conversations and to hug...lots of hugs.