Christmas Aftermath

I failed to finish Michael's Christmas sweater by Christmas and I am okay with it. We've been having tropical winter weather so who needs a wool sweater right now anyway. Despite a high yuck factor (a pile of wool on my lap in the sweltering wet heat because I refuse to use the air conditioner in December), I have set a new personal knitting record for sweater knitting. I accomplished this in one week:



Granted, Michael wears a pretty small sweater. However, I think I've done well for a week's worth of knitting considering the last sweater I knit for him took 3 weeks and that was last Christmas and an even smaller sweater. I am fairly glowing with pride over the whole thing. And since I promised my Mom a sweater a little over a year ago, I need a good boost to my sweater knitting mojo. (I actually knit an entire back and a portion of the front to a sweater for my mom before I decided I didn't like the way it looked and accepted the fact it was too big anyway. It has been sitting and waiting for me to unravel it ever since. I have a new pattern in mind and plan to cast on for it in the very near future.)

Yesterday I wound a warp for a wrap for me. I wanted something long and wide and cozy.



I bought the weft yarn in front from Heritage Yarns a couple years ago before Kurt finished repairing my loom. It is a discontinued yarn called "Cloud 9" in the "Flower Garden" colorway.

I'd planned a 520 end warp and ran out of Perle cotton at 475 ends. Although I did the math before starting and should have had at least 20 yards left over after winding my complete warp, I think the string I cut to measure my warp stretched as I plotted my course around the warping board resulting in a longer warp then planned and an insufficient supply of warp yarn. Fortunately, I should be able to reduce the width of the wrap and make due with what I have. If I am careful not to pull in the sides of the warp as I weave, I am hoping I can reduce the take-in and have a wrap as wide as I want it. The recent scarves I've woven have had almost no take-in at the sides when finished so I feel the odds of success are good. Otherwise, I'll have a crazy fat scarf on my hands.

We have a new wireless Internet modem and all is well on the computer front right now. I am so glad.

Christmas 2008

Any minute, our new wireless Internet modem could go up in flames. Seriously. We've been unable to connect to the Internet all day except in bits and pieces. However, in an amazing feat of obsessive-compulsive behavior, I've managed to upload a dozen Christmas pictures over the last few hours of trying.

We had a nice Christmas. After sitting up to watch Star Gate SG1 with the children until an irrationally late hour on Christmas Eve (I have no idea what we were thinking), everyone slept in this morning. Well, not Kurt. He generally gets up insanely early. This morning was no exception. He got up and tried to be helpful. Putting the dishes away. Or so he says. I awoke convinced someone had crashed Michael's new wagon into the wall separating my bedroom from the living room.

Originally we planned to open presents after breakfast. However, I gave in to the children's pleading when I realized I could probably escape cooking an entire meal if we had breakfast AFTER presents and ate dinner a bit early.



I gave the children the coordinating hats I knit for them.



Gregory's favorite color is blue. Gregory actually got excited about getting a hat after I told him I wouldn't knit for him anymore until he took better care of the stuff I make. We'll see how he does with his hat.



Gabrielle's favorite color is pink.



And Michael flips over the color red.

Unfortunately for Michael, green wagons cost less than red ones.



One of these days I will have to face him when he discovers wagons are supposed to be red. Oh well.

I think I finally picked a Christmas gift for one of the children of which Kurt approves. When I told Kurt I got Michael a wagon, I suggested we could teach Michael to transport bags of feed from the workshop to the chicken coops. Kurt liked the idea - very much.

And while I shopped for improperly colored toys for Michael, we picked up a blue Lightning McQueen car.



The whole blue thing confused Michael temporarily. However, he discovered the blue car shoots missiles and he got over the whole red thing rather quickly.

Michael really loves his red hat. In spite of sweltering tropical weather, Michael wore his wool hat all day and then hid it under some Christmas decorations so I wouldn't take it and put it away.



Gregory loved his new digital camera, though the rest of us are starting to become very annoyed with it.



After a few hours, the constant flashing (he had to replace the batteries in his camera half way through the day) started to set off a migraine. Silly kid. He keeps taking pictures of me and telling me I'm beautiful and then shows me the face of someone much older and flabbier than I could possibly be and so I make him erase the pictures. The whole thing is quite tiring.

I managed to distract Gregory temporarily with weaving yarn.



I got him a couple cones of 10/2 Pearle cotton so he can try some of the intricate drafts he loves to pick out. Once we get the Internet actually working again, he will probably update his blog as well.

Gabrielle got her Christmas present a couple of months ago (her sewing machine) so there wasn't much for her under the tree today. We let her open the family presents her grandparents sent.



She handled the whole "limited presents thing" very well and in fact used her allowance to buy everyone else in the family a present. She maintained an "others" focus that was very sweet.

I gave Kurt the scarf I wove last week and I think he likes it.



He put on the scarf and the socks I knit for him immediately. With the sweltering heat, the woolen gifts seem out of place. It is hard to believe we were breaking ice off the windshields just a couple of days ago.

Kurt gave me a lovely gift today.



600 yards of textured alpaca yarn. He actually tracked down the one yarn store within 50 miles and bought me yarn. I love it. I'd like to weave it into a scarf I think and I'm wondering if I can use wool knitting yarn for warp. Like some Jaggerspun wool and silk lace-weight perhaps.

Superpowers Lost

I can't believe how fast I've been knitting. I finished a couple Christmas watch caps in record time, Michael's red hat being the latest.



Michael loves the red hat so much I cannot find a place to hide it where he can't find it. I put it on the back of my dresser behind the baby scale until I could wash and block it. Michael climbed up a stack of Christmas boxes, climbed on my dresser, ferreted out the hat, brought it to me and asked if he could wear it. He figures if it is red, it must be his. By the time he gets it on Christmas, he will hardly be surprised.

I started and finished another pair of socks for Kurt to replace the giant ones I sent to my brother.



And of course I finished the weaving I blogged about a couple days ago. I had really given up the idea of completing a present for everyone on my list by Christmas and yet I finished late Saturday night. Illness had given me knitting superpowers!

With my new superpowers I dared the impossible. Late Saturday night (or early Sunday morning in some parts of the country), I cast on a sweater for Michael. Never mind that I've never even finished a pair of socks in 4 days, I had superpowers.

And then it happened. Not kryptonite. Not catastrophe. Health.

I regained enough energy I could no longer justify refusing to cook for my family or do basic housework. They too were regaining health and looked to me to provide for their basic needs. All of a sudden, my knitting time shrunk back to a normal hour or two a day of constantly interrupted and distracted knitting. Despite all of the optimism I can rally, I start to suspect I won't finish Michael's sweater by Christmas.



Part of me believes a project undertaken without a pattern can be completed faster. So I am making up Michael's sweater as I go based on the E.Z. percentage system in her book, Knitting Without Tears. I have a couple skeins of compatible yarn in a few Fall colors and think I'll knit a stranded design around the yoke, if I can find one or create one I like. I'd like something with leaves. Today is Tuesday. I have until tomorrow night to finish. Sadly, I don't think I could do it even if I got my superpowers back.

Yesterday morning, winter blasted through the area. It has been warm for a week or so with temperatures in the mid 70s during the day and mid 50s at night. The Weather Channel predicts a return to warm weather tomorrow. We've spent the last 30 hours trying to cram in all the cozy, warm fuzzy Christmas stuff we could.



I turned on the fireplace (a gas fireplace just seems wrong though I sure love not having to haul wood) and made hot apple cider.



I use the apple cider found in the grocery store produce section as a base for my cider. I scrub an orange and stud it with whole cloves. It all goes into the cider in a crock pot. I also add a few sticks of cinnamon. I keep it hot in the crock pot and we help ourselves throughout the day until gone.

I love cold weather (the kind we have on the Gulf Coast, not the real kind). I love being bundled up in a shawl sipping cider or coffee and knitting. Even if my fingers do get slow from the cold. And they are cold and slow right now.

There probably isn't any way I'm going to finish that sweater by tomorrow.

December Marches Onward

We've survived the first third of December and sort of survived Gregory's chocolate birthday cake.



In fact, we finished the cake yesterday. However, in the wee hours of this morning, Gabrielle woke me up telling me she was sick and couldn't breathe. The family always gets sick around this time of year after the kids start eating sugary stuff on Thanksgiving and it continues through Christmas until the end of January when Kurt and I have birthdays. I haven't faced the scales yet and hope not to have to do so for awhile. But I did finish 3 of the size large skirts I started.



They ended up being a bit too big and I like to think it means I am getting smaller. I took an inch off of one of them and wore it to church last Sunday. I would like to see the day when they are all way too big to wear.

Yesterday I managed to plow and disc up all of the weeds in the back yard gardens before it started raining. I'd like to start planting again in a couple weeks, but everything is very muddy right now. It seems things always end up very muddy this time of year. You would think all of the 4 foot high weed debris I plowed into the ground would improve drainage.

I finished another pair of socks.



These are a better size than the last ones and are to be a gift for one of my husband's friends. I decided I am probably not going to be able to knit Michael a sweater for Christmas this year since I haven't started it yet so I will be starting a hat for him soon. Red is his favorite color and I have a cone of red yarn in my stash. Considering how late I am in getting started, I suppose I won't be doing much Christmas knitting this year. I think the MS4 being so much later than other mystery stole KALs threw me off schedule this year. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Mysteries

Broadband. Wow. What a great idea.

Kurt takes classes at the university and they expect students to access the Internet. Gregory and Gabrielle have a computer based curriculum which requires Internet research for projects. Dial-up made school more and more difficult for everyone. Excuse enough. A quick trip to our new super Wal-Mart brought wireless broadband Internet into our lives and we may never be the same. Right now we're still updating our computers. Nothing could be automatically updated with our slow Internet connection.

To celebrate our technological advancement, I updated my blog template. I started blogging in the beginning of time as far as blog technology is concerned. So many advancements had been made since then. I generally don't like change, at least not since Hurricane Ivan made me deal with so many changes all at once, but I like this change. But change brings struggle and I keep struggling to figure out how to make things work. My blog template now makes things easy yet I only know how to work with the html I needed before. More growth and learning are in store I suppose.

I've been knitting mysteries lately. I finished both of my MS4 stoles and have blocked one of them.



It is pretty enough. It is quite long and plenty wide for a stole so I might actually wear this one. The color is lovely and I like the beads.



I have a hard time adequately photographing lace. It can be challenging to display it and not photograph little messes around the house at the same time. Oh well.

I finished another mystery too. I'm not sure what I was thinking as I knit Kurt's Christmas socks.



But my husband does not have big feet. These socks are a good 2 inches too long. I knit these while boiling cane juice into syrup and perhaps the fumes affected my judgment. Or perhaps the Lord thought my brother David in bible college in Germany needed them more. (He has big feet.) I had planned to make socks for my brother and worried about having enough matching yarn. I had actually selected some other yarn for his socks. But now it looks like the problem is solved and I am finished.

It is Always Something

I had big plans for yesterday. After working so hard this week with the sugar cane and finally finishing a new dress for Gabrielle, I was going to burn off the weeds in the garden and play catch-up in the kitchen and make salsa and sauerkraut.

I should have known when my only hairbrush broke first thing yesterday morning to go back to bed and skip the day. But I wanted to be productive. So fighting nightmarish paranoia, Gregory and I went outside to burn off the weeds. The weeds look like dried prairie grasses and there is dry brush everywhere, for miles. I just knew I'd start a forest fire or burn down the pool deck.

When we finally started after a great deal of time wetting down the areas we didn't want to burn, we couldn't get the weeds to burn. We dragged tons of pine cones and dried branches over and built bonfires strategically throughout the garden. The branches burned. The pine cones burned. The dead weeds did not. They did however, scratch us up and give us allergy symptoms. In the end, we allowed the fires to go out and dirty and smokey, we returned to the house for showers.

I discovered the dead hot water heater right after stepping into the shower. Praise God it was hot enough outside to prevent a cold shower from feeling like torture. In fact, I suppose the timing on the water heater's demise was good since a cold front is due to blast the area with winter weather today. But we sure don't have the money for a new water heater.

I probably should have figured out something was going wrong when my laundry room and home to the water heater kept flooding yesterday. But Kurt blamed it on a probable hole in the hose to the washing machine. (Kurt still thinks there may be problems with that hose since the flooding stopped when I turned off the water to the washing machine. I suggested we focus on getting back the hot water before chasing other problems.) I really should have stopped to think when we kept running out of hot water the last few days. We never run out of hot water.

Wondering if we could put Christmas off a couple months without the kids noticing, I called Kurt in Foley. He arranged to take the day off today to fix the water heater. (Living in a small town is so different than living in a city. When things break, you can't just call someone to fix them. There may not be anyone with that job description in the area. No wonder people in the country are more self sufficient - they have to be.) We planned for Kurt to pick up a new water heater and bring it home. Then I called my friend Darlene and told her my tale of woe.

Darlene tried to convince me our power company gave away free water heaters. I told her I thought that unlikely and I convinced HER there were no free water heaters. So Darlene's husband Mark got on the phone and told me to call the power company for a water heater. I still couldn't imagine it. So I called Kurt to try to get him to call the power company. He wouldn't do it. So sheepishly, I called, expecting to be embarrassed.



The power company actually does give away water heaters! Granted, I had to pick it up and we have to install it, but fortunately, Darlene's husband has a pick up truck and the two of us got the water heater home. I'm still amazed. Of course Kurt immediately pointed out the lack of an energy star rating. Moreover, the water heater's label clearly shows it is a bit of a power hog. Kurt figures the power company is actually selling these things on time. You pay for it with higher power bills.

Right now Kurt is in the middle of figuring out how to install one of these and I am hoping for a hot shower before too long - especially since we are supposed to take our sugar cane for juicing this afternoon. The whole thing worked out well because we need Kurt's pick-up truck for the sugar cane and but for the water heater, the truck would have been in Foley. Today was the only day we have access to the cane juicer. God is good and truly does work all things for good!

The old water heater looks exactly like the new one. I'm wondering if we could build a smoker out of the old water heater. It looks like a smoker. I wish I had more tool skills. I have lots of good ideas and little talent for implimenting them.

In the meantime, I finished Gabrielle's Christmas hat.



I also started a new pair of socks.



I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming. Knowing how much I want to make before then, I really need to focus. And it would be nice if things would stop breaking around here.

Pondering Christmas

I finally got the care package of warmth off to my brother in Germany. I'm so glad I finished. He tells me the weather has not been too cold yet so perhaps I am in time. Now it is time for me to start thinking about Christmas knitting.

I loved the patterned watch cap I made my brother David so much that I immediately cast on another one in pink and white for Gabrielle for Christmas.



Christmas knitting is so challenging because the kids are always around. Gregory has asked no less than 3 times what I am working on and I have dissembled. Gabrielle has not inquired so far.

I'm still working on my two MS4 stoles. The first one is for me and I finished through clue 5 before the KAL ended. I have one clue to do and then the grafting. The stole has been sitting idle since I found out about the grafting. However, the second stole is supposed to be a gift and so I have taken it from clue 2 to almost the end of clue 4.



Once I have both stoles to the same place, I will tackle clue 6 and the grafting. I am not looking forward to that day. (Week? Month?)

I finally pulled the first skein of yarn made from the mystery fiber gifted to me by Denise last year off my spinning wheel.



I love this yarn. It is Navajo plied and was both spun and plied on my Wyatt Pegasus wheel. I still have another bobbin full of singles to ply.

After I finish my mystery fiber, I think I may spin the Romney Michael and I dyed when Kurt moved to Foley. I love the way it turned out.



I still don't know what I can do with a pound of this, but I would like to make something for me since these are some of my favorite colors.

The kids finally re-skeined their yarn and they both have fabulous skeins from our dyeing day. Who knew you could get such nice colors from food coloring.



They want to make socks, but their sock knitting is going slow. Sock knitting wasn't as easy as they thought it would be. They are still knitting their flat, garter stitch pieces and I am glad they are still interested in knitting. I suppose one is never too young to start a knitting stash.

After church last week, I brought home some more of the material Mark scored from the closing factory where he works.



I gave everyone a chance to get what they wanted and then grabbed the remaining pink fabric. Now my fabric stash is larger than the storage facilities I have for it. I guess we'll have to move.

I'm thinking I'll do some sewing for Christmas. The only problem with sewing is that it is even more obvious than knitting. Gregory wants a vest for dressier occasions (like Christmas) and I was thinking I'd like to make them brother, sister, brother outfits for Christmas. I just can't figure out how to do stealthy sewing though. But Christmas is coming and I really need to get a plan together for it.

Lousy Dial Up Internet

How pathetic is it when you cannot view your own blog because it has too many pictures? Dial-up Internet is not my happy place. I need to knock some pictures off the main page of my blog so I'm going to do an abbreviated Christmas warm up post with few pictures.



Here is a picture to prove I still knit. Eventually I will post our Christmas pictures. For now I thought it time this blog had some knitting content again.

I knit Michael a sweater and hat for Christmas. I also made him a matching pair of mittens. They are not in the picture because they did not get finished until after Christmas. It seems kinda crazy now to think about giving my kids mittens when we live in the south, but we were reading the "Little House" books and I felt very mittenish then.

The sleeves to the sweater are the perfect length despite what the picture suggests to the contrary. However, I started a pattern that claimed to be just the right size for Michael. I hit gauge. I changed the pattern quite a bit, but I didn't do anything that would affect the length of the sweater. After getting through most of the square patterned panel, I knew the sweater would never fit. And because I didn't get the yarn until a week and a half or so before Christmas and I didn't want to sew on sleeves or do anything too time consuming. (Like starting over.) So for the top of the sweater I completely abandoned my pattern and knit an E.Z. raglan style sweater instead. That made the sweater long enough for Michael but put the patterned block in a funny place. You know what "they" say about necessity. I hunted around in my collection of buttons. I found some cute little alphabet buttons which when sewn above the pattern block, made it's placement look more intentional. Most important, it allowed me to avoid starting over.

For Gabrielle, I knit a poncho, mittens and matching hat.



Gabrielle is not wearing her hat because I didn't finish it until after Christmas. It was a little extra present for after the holidays and not necessarily a late Christmas present.

I knit Gregory fingerless gloves and a matching hat from Lorna's Laces camouflage shepherd sock yarn. Gregory likes camouflage and soldier and hunting stuff.



Kurt received socks once again, which I apparently never photographed. I've done a few other projects as well over the past couple of months, but apparently I forgot to take pictures. Oh well.