Overweening Mama Pride

Sonar X7 won a first place ribbon in the school science fair today and earned a spot in the regional science fair in May.

Can I just say how adorable it was, the Sonar’s modest surprise and light-up-the face joy when the first place ribbon was announced. *big happy sigh*

He gets it from me. (annoying smugness)

For those of you who would point out that the genetics in question include a healthy donation from someone who once spent several years working on a Ph.D. in Biochemistry before oppressing the masses in public education I say (with a surprising lack of modesty and maturity). Pshaw. Though I was more mathy than sciencey, with at least a decade of math geekiness under my belt, I did earn a Biochemistry degree before switching allegiances to the humanities. Partner, bless his soul, experienced adult-onset geekiness. AND more than half of that heritable genetic material is from me. Seriously. Go look it up. Then brush your teeth.

As the Germ Turns

Partner has pneumonia. Sunday and Monday he looked like death warmed over. A chest x-ray from Monday afternoon shows that it was just *barely* pneumonia (is that like being a “little pregnant” I wonder?) and he felt fine though coughy and returned to work Tuesday.

Sonar X5 started to droop Tuesday night. We thought initially that it was also going the way of an upper-respiratory virus, but alas, took a turn toward multi-textured and -sourced digestive efflux during the night last night. Nothing like a shivering sobbing child in the tub in the middle of the night followed by nasty midnight laundry. After some dry-heaves this morning, this bug has settled back to mild cough, mild fever.

Sonar X3 started to droop last night, but has thankfully acquiesced to a naptime with actual sleeping. But first we had to do the daily banana rules.

Background first. Every day before what we have ceased to call naptime and now call quiet time (what with the general lack of actual napping), I chat or read quietly with each preschool Sonar for a few minutes. Each Sonar has developed a unique settling routine that invariably involves a personal script of silliness that is recited each day.

For Sonar X3 this includes a list of things to remember during quiet time, a.k.a. The Banana Rules, wherein we take regular things to remember and add the word banana.

1. Be quiet becomes Be quiet, banana
2. Get some rest becomes Get some rest, banana
3. I love you becomes I love you banana
4. Stay in your bed unless you need to use the toilet becomes Stay in your banana unless you need to use the toilet, or Stay in your bed unless you need to use the banana, which is giggling corrected by the Sonar to Stay in you bed unless you need to use the toilet, BANANA!
5. Don’t put your feet on the wall (he’s a wall-kicker) becomes Don’t put your feet on the Bananas, which is gigglingly corrected to Don’t put your BANANAS on the wall, in a surprisingly funny twist on preschool humor.

Funny kid.

Sonar X7 is healthy and competing in his school science fair today. Making the world a better place for toothpaste and hard-boiled eggs.

I am feeling a bit weary, so I’ll complain. Scriptfrenzy begins April first, but the detailed plan I had planned to make is so far nonexistent. I haven’t had a chance to Run in more than two weeks. These facts are combining to make me grouchy. In addition, Family—a sane, sensitive, thankfully unfastidious contingent—arrives for a four-day visit April fourth. I am looking forward to this visit, but, you know, there are things to get ready, and I want everyone to have a nice time. And these are good relationships, but they are relationships in repair after long-term damage, a some time source of anxiety.

On the bright side, there is an abundance of salad greens waiting to be picked in the back yard. The preschool Sonars and I harvested baby broccoli and cauliflower this morning to make some soup. And there is the most amazing bushy cluster of blooms and buds on our tiny avocado tree.

Now, if only I can keep myself from getting sick.

Love, Thank Yous and Vacation

Hey, for those of you who have sent messages of outrage and support and cheering and comfort and silliness, both publicly and privately….

Thank you so much. Seriously. Together with the love of other family and friends, I feel surrounded (in a good way), soothed, buoyed, strong, and positive. The anger and despair I felt when I posted about the dismissive and painful remarks directed toward me recently has softened into something that feels much less overwhelming. I no longer feel buried. No longer feel that this one conflict has undone my progress toward healing, merely that it was an upswelling of emotion, and a brief side trip that has reminded me that the love in my life is so much bigger and more powerful than than the negative emotions that remain.

So I’m ok. And I’m on Spring Break, visiting family, knitting, reading, playing with puppies and looking at wildflowers, dying Easter eggs and knitting, making long lists, reading magazines, and knitting.

Good stuff.

The best therapy.

And yes, my house is very very clean right now. ;)

Stashtastic

Sharpsticks has been talking about my yarn stash. Apparently it’s meager relative to many knitters, and it’s true, I don’t tend to hoard yarn excessively. I find it very difficult to purchase yarn without a project in mind. Oh, sock yarn, sure, now and then. But that’s easy. 100 grams of sock yarn will make a pair of average socks for most people with enough left for a couple of pairs of baby socks, or perhaps a few pairs for little kids. Lace weight is pretty easy too. The average shawl takes a couple of average hanks of lace yarn.

Then things get more grey. If I see a yarn I like, how much should I buy? A skein or two might only make a hat or scarf. If it’s sweater-worthy, should I get ten balls? Fifteen? Will the imaginary sweater be long-sleeved or short? It really flummoxes me, decisions like that, so in general, I only shop for yarn when I have a specific project, or even a select pattern in mind.

That said, I made the claim to Sharpsticks that all of my yarn fit into a single filebox, which used to be true. A recent purchase of a huge bag of discount yarn, and the gathering together of all of my WIPs (works in progress) proves that the collection has expanded a bit.

I’ve spread it out a little bit in this photo to aid in description.

The pink fluffy sweater is hanging from the doorknob. The plastic filebox in question is at the left, currently filled with sock yarn: an undetermined number of pairs, plus a gallon-sized bag full of ends, a cone of cotton yarn with one knee sock, two hanks of crochet thread for snowflakes, some lace-weight remnants from the Mystery Stole 2007, and five skeins of pink alpaca leftover from the sweater that would make a nice small lacy something.

The dark green flower pot to the left of the sweater in my Current Project Bucket, and usually sits under my computer desk. The two OIP (owls in progress) are here on the desk and were forgotten for this picture, but there is yarn in there for future OIPs. The bucket also contains a plastic bag filled with bamboo yarn and its partially completed moebius wrap, as well as most of my knitting needles and tools and a few random patterns.

The three blanket bags to the right and below the pink sweater contain (clockwise) 1. Katia Mexico, 20 skeins destined to be sweaters for partner and at least one Sonar, 2. and 3. Random bits of mainly acrylic yarn that I used to craft various things (like owls and storytellers and marble bags), plus some fifteen-year-old granny squares, a doll blanket in progress (at least ten-years-old), and a Loomette. The white grocery bag at center right is usually in bag 3.

The white plastic bag at the front contains wool yarn used in various felting projects. The clear gallon bag all the way on the right is probably going to end up as a pot hanger. It’s a bag of yarn and twine I found for a quarter at an estate sale last fall. The bag against the wall with the bright red yarn isn’t actually mine (ahem). That is a bag of red and blue yarn belonging to two of the Sonars.

Not pictured is a missing skein of white acrylic yarn and a skein of black yarn that belongs to the other Sonar, and a wee bag with SIP (socks in progress) that is out in the car.

So, ok, I fess up, one bin, three blanket bags, and a bucket. And No, I don’t usually keep it on the floor in the hall by the front door. But I am very unlikely to buy any more yarn until I use a good deal of this. And at the rate I’m going here in Phase One, that should take about four days. ;)

So fess up, what’s hiding in your closet? Yarn? Fabric (I’m guilty there too)? Salt and pepper shakers? Empty candy wrappers? Eels? The parts for your latest evil-genius machine?

Pink and Fluffy

I saw this sweater pattern in Vogue Knitting Fall 2006, and fell in love with the luscious gigantic cabled collar (it’s called Cable Trim Pullover). Doesn’t it just look like you could sink yourself into its yummy squishiness? There was also a curiosity factor, in that I’ve done some small cables, but never a gigantic Cable 20. So I started to hunt up yarn and came up with AlpacaWare Superfine Alpaca in light pink, cheap on eBay.

I knit the pieces of the sweater many months ago. I’ve lost track how long. Probably more than a year ago, truth be told. I was very very careful in my preparation. I swatched (i.e. made a test square), in the totally proper way with the recommended number of stitches, plus a non-rolling border. Then washed and shaped and dried the swatch before measuring and adjusting needles sizes at least three or four times. I was good, and for me, incredibly patient in the preparation. I ended up going up several needle sizes to get the correct gauge (essential when one wants to produce a sweater that approximates the desired size), but I *did* get the correct gauge.

Then I knit the thing.

It took me a few weeks, as I recall, and then the pieces sat around the house, moved from surface to surface, stuffed into a bag, then into a closet. The knitting was done. Completed. Finito. I just had to seam together these pieces into the yummy sweater. But the sweater I had such a fatuous crush on had lost it’s allure. I was already worried then that it had come out a bit too small. The yarn is really rather fussy and delicate, not wanting to be tugged or pulled or pushed too much this way or that. And I really dreaded trying to set in those sleeves without doing some wacky stretchy damage to the whole thing.

A couple of weeks ago, in a fit of “Let’s finish some damn knitting already!” I pulled out the pieces and seamed them all together. To be sure, my sleeve joins are really shoddy. But I thought maybe some of that would relax out in the steaming and blocking.

All seamed, I put it on. Hm. WAY too short. Which was weird, because I measured carefully and, as I recall, added a few extra rows in the middle to make it a bit longer than the pattern called for.

Deep breath. I decided I could fix that by—those of you who might be slightly squeamish about knitting might want to look the other way—cutting off the bottom band, picking up the stitches left raw, and knitting some more bottom onto that thing. I have to say that the idea of cutting the yarn, with the inherent risk of the whole thing, all that work, being reduced back into a wad of string, really did make me feel queasy. But I braced myself and convinced myself that it would be a good adventure.

The bravest knitters would cut first and ask questions and pick up stitches later, but this being my first foray into knittacide, I decided to place a lifeline—two actually—before I cut. That’s the bluey/yellowy/greeny stripe. I put two so that I could save the ribbing and reattach it when the sweater was long enough. As it turned out, I decided to make a bottom hem rather than a ribbed hem and tossed the ribbing into the stash bucket.

Knit knit knit knit.

I could have just folded over and SEWN down the knitting to make the bottom hem, but the yarn fumes went to my head and I decided I’d kitchener the hem in place, which was stupid. It took FOREVER and required me to pick up stitches along the place where the them would join so that I didn’t twist it and make it weird. Ahem. I still twisted it and made it weird. But you can’t tell now unless you turn it inside out and look really closely and are generally picky and rude. Shame on you.

Finished (finally), I tried it on again. Gr. Still TOO SHORT.

Then I put on my knitting thinking cap. This was really weird, because I measured the sweater, measured myself, measured the length from armpit to hem on a top with a flattering length, and these numbers all matched up. When the sweater was on the table. When the sweater went on me….. no more matchy.

I decided to measure the sweater the other way. Turns out it’s a teensy bit smaller than me. Like more than four inches around less than me. Some sweaters can support that degree of negative ease. Not this one and not on me. When the sweater stretched out to cover my circumference, the yarn had to come from somewhere: the length. Mystery solved.

There’s really no way I can make this pretty little sweater fit me, so, in honor of Sweater Day, I am offering it up, to anyone who would love it or who knows someone who would love it. Price negotiable.

Here are the specs: Chest 31” Waist 27” Hip 32” Neck-to-hem 21.5” Armpit-to-cuff 18”

I will mail the sweater, complete with a handful of spare yarn (in case of catastrophe or the desire to reconnect the sleeves in a less shoddy manner).

I don’t even like pink. ;)