Mommy guilt

I recently scored a hank of self-striping Vesper sock yarn. I have been coveting this yarn for a very, very long time but I can never seem to get it. But on this one day I managed to be home when the site updated, remember my pay-pal account info, and find a colorway that I really loved.

I was so happy when the yarn arrived that I left it out as decoration. That's how much I adored it. I planed to knit up some cute striped socks as soon as I finished my February Lady sweater.

That happened last night.
As soon as I wove in the very last end on my sweater, I started winding the hank of my sweet Vesper yarn. I had some trouble with the swift and got a huge tangle. In all it took almost an hour to get the ball wound. But that didn't damper my excitement about my soon to be knit socks. Even discovering that this was hand wash and dry yarn couldn't diminish my love for it.

After another half hour of wrangling, I managed to get the ball split into two even balls and matched up the stripes. Right as I finished up, Anders walked in.

Now this child rarely notices my knitting or yarn in particular. He never comments on what I'm working on. And although he is quite appreciative of what I make for him, he has never come out and asked me to knit anything for him.
Until last night.

Last night, he walked in and went straight to the red, blue, and lime yarn I had just wound, picked up a ball, and asked, "Whose yarn is this? I like this yarn?"
Selfish mother that I am, answered that it was my yarn and then proceeded to cast on 72 stitches for my striped stockinette socks. My dear son who is the most selfless creature I have ever known, didn't seem to be disappointed at all.

However, after 6 rows my mommy guilt kicked in and I ripped out all the rows. I immediately cast on 60 stitches for a smaller foot and knit until bedtime.

He's thrilled at the progress.

The Army Giveth and the Army Taketh Away ... plus some knitting

ZD was all excited about his upcoming change of duty station, even though I was a little reluctant to move to a place where all the "trees" were better classified as tall bushes.

Well the General is not as big a fan of change as ZD is. So the change of duty station is not going to happen for quite some time.
Nope.

So I'm back to wondering if we'll ever end up somewhere that I can wear all those neat hand knit things. I'd love to make some mittens and sweaters that actually have sleeves.
Because I live in the sweltering South, I'm limited in what I can knit and actually wear for more than a two week period in February.

Here's my one and only sweater.

The color is off in this picture. It's really more of a lilac.

The Details: This sweater, which is more like a glorified vest, was knit in the round from the bottom up. (I love that.) It made out of KnitPicks shine which is a cotton. This puppy weighs a ton, but it doesn't stretch out of shape through the day like most cotton knitwear is prone to do.

All in all, I love it. It was fun to knit and looks great on me. I may pick out that that bind off edge at the neckline and do a few more rows of decreases and make the seed stitch trim a little larger. The boat neck is my only beef with the entire pattern. Oh, the pattern is from the Fall '09 issue of Interweave Knits and was simple enough for me to understand.

Here's a little closeup of the heart-shaped cables up the front. These were so much fun after I learned how to cable without a cable needle.

This little seed stitch section in tactically delicious. My niece has requested a sweater made entirely of seed stitch so she can pet it all day.
And since the weather has finally gotten a little cooler, I might be able to wear it for a couple of hours.

A bit of knitting and a lot of corn

I've decided that since this my blog, I'm going to post what I want on it. Which means I'm going to talk about my 4 boys, life in the Army and occasionally I'll talk about why I think home education is great and a little bit of my knitting. I'm also going to continue to delete the cowardly anonymous comments.
Really, if you're going to post nasty comments about a 6-year-old child, at least put on your big girl panties and put your name on your nastiness.

So I knit some stuff.
Actually, I knit a lot of stuff but I've only taken pictures of a couple of lacy things.

Hi ya'll! Here's my first bit of lace. I had never knit a shawl before. Hats, socks, scarves...I even knit a sweater. (It was kind of a cheater sweater. I'll drag out some photos later on.) This particular shawl was great for me because I knit it with sock yarn. And it was ridiculously easy. Other than that, I can't tell you anything else. I can't remember the pattern, the yarn color, or what size needles I used.

Here's my second piece of lace. I can tell you more about this one.

The red yarn is Socks that Rock (Brick) that was double stranded. The multi-color is Noro Iro in some unknown colorway. The pattern is from the Fall issue of Knitty, Colonnade. I knit the red for a few extra rows and knit the multicolor for a few extra rows. I also added extra toggle buttons and totally skipped that i-cord stuff. (The thing has holes in it for the buttons. Why make more.) I wanted this to be more of a poncho than shawl. I figure it will be nice on those "too warm for a coat" days. I totally love it and I'm really glad that I finally found a use for all that Iro.

And what have the boys been up to?

(See, I do discipline them.) We headed out to the Corn Maze with a couple of the cousins. There was much corn, lots of stuff to play on, and many, many little critters to hold and pet.

All the boys want ZD to build a "Corn" box for them to play in.
Matty wants us to install the zip line that we own but is still sitting in a box in the garage.

The oldest one has embraced his naturally curly hair and started using my shampoo. (ZD says he looks like he has a perm.)
Sammy....well, he's being the bold, grab-life-by-the-horns kids that he's always been.

And Anders has decided that he wants to be a farmer. (Good thing we have a farm for him) He has a special affinity to pigs and chickens.

Much fun was had by all.

Watch what you wish for

My sister is notoriously hard to shop for.
She tends to just buy stuff she wants instead of waiting for gifts.
It's infuriating, especially at Christmas time.

Yesterday, while hanging out at hers and Mom's house, I told my Mom..."I think I'll knit her something. She can't buy that. Maybe I'll make her a nice pair of socks, or a wrap, or something. I wish I knew what she wanted"

Mom agreed that would be a great idea. We could foil her holiday time shopping habit.
She's a crafter and would appreciate a hand knit gift. She would know just how much time was put into it and wouldn't just view a beautiful pair of superwash merino lace socks as "just a pair of striped socks."

But what exactly to knit her. She's pretty picky about clothing items.

Half an hour later, sister comes home from work. As she walked in the door and saw me knitting ZooDad's giant log cabin blanket, she blurted out, "I want a knit sweater."

Mom and I just stared at each other.
My sister never asks for specific items, ever. She's always very vague when asked about gifts. She sure never ever asks anyone to make something for her.
"OK, so what kind of sweater do you want and what kind of yarn." I took the bait.

We spent the next hour looking through her closet and the knitting mags I happened to have in the van.
She doesn't think she's going to actually get a sweater, but she really does want one.

I've already ordered the yarn and picked a pattern.

Now Mom wants me to come up with a gift idea from her.

Plan big...you can always scale down

Penny and I are knitting new socks together. We're having our very own Knitting class on my living room floor. (There is furniture in the room. Penny and I just seem to be floor sitters.)

We have big plans. Very big plans. We are knitting 2 socks on 2 circular needles. And they are toe up socks with a provisional cast on and a short row heel. With some fancy patterning.

All we have is our own general knowledge, our tenacity, some written instructions, a few web site pictures, and total lack of fear.

Fearless knitting.
Don't question whether or not you can do it. Just plan things out the best you can, search out the information you need, and then drive on...full speed ahead. Expect mistakes and make a plan B just in case.Hmmm... also sounds like my plan for homeschooling.

Fearless Learning.
Don't question whether or not you can do it. Just plan things out the best you can, search out the information you need, and then drive on...full speed ahead. Expect mistakes and make a plan B just in case.

I guess I should make this my mission statement. Zoo Full of Boys. Be fearless.

Here's where I prattle on about the knitting

I just started this in October. But since I have an obsessive personality, I have really thrown myself into it.

I've crocheted for years. My grandmother taught me and my older sister filled in all the forgotten details. But crochet can only get you so far. I mean, you can make some great afghans and seriously awful toilet paper covers, but you can't get the variety of pattern that you can in knitting.
So I taught myself to knit.
So far, I have made 3 hats and 5 Christmas stockings and one lone sock

Here's four of the five stockings.

The boys have their initials purled into the pattern. I had planned to do a color change but I just haven't figured out how to do that in the round.

And here's my first completed knitting project...evah! This is the one were I learned that knitting in the round is far superior to knitting straight and then seaming.

And here's a couple of my cuties. One is sporting a new boucle Acorn hat. The other is supposed to be wearing the hat above. Do you see it? Look closely. Can't see it? That's because it is most likely stuffed with Hot Wheel cars and toy animals instead of being on his little smiling head.