Chocolate Sheep v2.0

Today’s post title has nothing to do with anything, except that I have an exceedingly charming 3.5 year old son who has been making this statement to me with such regularity that I don’t even duck any more.

Jack the Wonder Twin has been three and a half for about a decade. I look at his older brother, who does seem to age, or at least move from grade to grade, to remind myself that three will become four, four will eventually become five, and at some unknown point all the years will pass by in a flash and I will be sitting in my rocking chair wondering where the time went, and missing all those carefree days….

….being threatened with assault five or six times a day.

We really are trying to reach the “gentle Jack” part of his personality, but to be honest, it’s really a hit-or-miss proposition. I have already apologized to the preschool teacher for next year, but promised her that Tom will be worth the wait.

Anyway.

CHRISTMAS!!!

It was Christmas Day before I realized that I had, without realizing it, knit scarves for my father, my son, my husband, and my brother. Wowzers. K2TOG, eh? I also knit for my brother’s puppy, who I didn’t get to meet, but my brother seemed to be really impressed, so that was cool too.

Father-scarf: Acrylic (Red Heart from stash), One-Row Harlot pattern, grey with three narrow scarlet stripes at each end. (Go Bucks!) Note to Others: Harlot’s pattern is not reversible when you add stripes. Leave an end unwoven before you make the second set of stripes so you remember which side of the scarf is the front. I touched it before I headed home and was told, No, you’re not taking it with you.

Son-scarf: Wool (Cascade 220), Ravenclaw House Scarf from Charmed Knits. Got an “oh wow” but he doesn’t seem eager to wear it. He did ask for matching gloves (yes, gloves) and there’s enough yarn left over so why not.

Husband-scarf: Wool (Plymouth Galway Colornep), Irish Hiking Scarf. He loves it and wants a hat.

Brother-scarf: Acrylic (Grey Heather Wool-Ease), my own design. This was the garter-stitch piece with the stockinette columns that spelled out his name in Morse Code. One narrow red stripe at the beginning, two at the end. If he ever loses it, it will be easy to prove that it’s his. Presuming, of course (as he pointed out) that anyone else knows Morse Code.

Now, let’s see… my haul… my dear dear husband surprised me with The Little Box of Sweaters and (without knowing it had been on my Amazon list for two years) Zen and the Art of Knitting. Which isn’t at all the book I thought it would be, but I do enjoy it very much.

And my woodworking dad… built me an umbrella swift out of oak, cherry, and mahogany. It is a beauty and I have it clamped to a bookshelf near my computer so I can just reach out and touch it. Oh my goodness. I thought maybe he would make me a niddy noddy but when I saw this I was in shock.

So. What am I working on now? Well, for an extra present for my husband I cast on for socks for him on Christmas Day. I’m at the point on the foot now where I know I won’t have enough yarn to make it to the toe without breaking into the next skein. Which means I’ll have to find another batch of yarn in the same dyelot to finish. They’re Patons Kroy, the jacquard pattern in tans and blues. Not really his style, but it’s a motivation to me to whip through a pair of socks and soak up some mojo. (Harlot basic sock recipe.)

I also decided to make him a wool hat (last year’s acrylic hat was too big and of course couldn’t hold its shape) and wondered what Knit One, Purl Two would actually look like in the round if you knit it on stitches that weren’t a multiple of three. (I picked 64.) It’s pretty nice so far but I think way too small for him. But it will fit someone!

Oh yeah…while I was visiting my parents I knitted a mitten for Jack, finished the Big Secret Project, and started that sock. While traveling to my parents’ I worked on the Packer Hat and got the Fair Isle lettering done. Now I just have to knit myself out of a corner (more on that in another post) and knit the top of the hat, then pick up stitches for the brim. No prob, Bob.

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Three cheers please, last night I made it across the second edge of the T-shirt quilt. So, the top and bottom have their bindings sewn down (with some fudge room at the corners where I’m not sure how the final finishing will go). SO, I have to pin down the other two sides and keep cranking, then it’s back to Christmas knitting full time as soon as I get that quilt in the mailstream.

Next month I am putting knitting on hiatus (except for mittens) while I put together an even more important and long-delayed project. However, since I’m one of those poor unfortunates whose soul feels she can cross it off the list as soon as she’s talked about it, I don’t dare talk about it. When it’s done I will be promoting it heavily, so don’t worry, I won’t let it pass you by.

So, hmm, what else is there to talk about? This week has, so far, been about tragic losses. Not mine, but people I am just one link away from in the Kevin Bacon game. A beloved pet, a newborn baby, a classmate from high school. Love and pain are being all mashed together, and that’s not even counting the tragedies I’ve been finding out about on blogs.

I don’t have any answers. I just wish I could knit faster, and I wish that knitting faster could heal the world.

Tonight: The All-Night Knit Night, or whatever they’re really calling it; you would have to check the store’s calendar here, at the Sow’s Ear. I have already been out on the roads today (long story; let’s just say I had a lot to atone for, and I did all my atoning this morning), and while I think I will stick to the bigger thoroughfares, I’m still planning to go. With knitting, a DVD, pajamas, a beverage, a book to return, and goodness knows what else. I think there will be more than one bag.

And I’m not even staying overnight…. and you should hear Dale-Harriet. I swear that woman is about to burst!

Some significant dates are coming up. Little Miss is turning FIVE next weekend. Great Gosh A’Mighty, FIVE. (I will spare you the birth story but it actually was pretty funny.)

And…my first Blogiversary is coming up too, on December 21. That is ever so slightly before I’m outta here for the holidays, so instead of a contest or a giveaway, I’d like to request that if you’ve ever visited this site on a regular basis, please leave a comment to say hi. I look at my blog stat numbers and think “wow” but most of the comments are from the same six or seven people (whom I love dearly, thank you very much). I’d like to get a peek at some of the others, if that’s not asking too much.

Knitwise, I got all those pesky ends woven in the other day, started another mitten in boy colors this time (still acrylic), kept cranking on the (shh!) Ravenclaw scarf, screwed up the Red Scarf (I think I fell asleep while knitting) and actually got the old pictures out of my digital camera and onto my computer. I think Tsarina Lisa will be holding my hand to help me rectify my imageless-blog situation soon. Goodness knows she’s trying her best.

Time to go peek at Ravelry for just a second (yeah right), re-pack my stuff for tonight, and pace around the house in anticipation until my husband kicks me out.

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I bound off a project last night. Woo-hoo! Then I started weaving in the ends. Grr this acrylic, it’s never going to felt together like wool. And once I finished one end, I was all excited until I counted the ends on the other end of the scarf. Eleven. Thank you, STRIPES. But I can take care of all that today and it’s one more present completed.

It also means I didn’t work on the quilt. So I *must* get back on the quilt bandwagon tonight and press on, hard.

In the meantime, the kids are shocked (”shocked, I say!”) to discover it’s COLD outside and the WIND is BLOWING. This will be a long and entertaining winter, for sure. I am looking forward to when they finally accept the concept of layering. (”Long sleeves? But Mom, I’ll be wearing a jacket!” “I don’t need gloves, I have pockets!”)

Three of my four children were, indeed, born in Wisconsin. I was one of those “uphill both ways to the bus stop” kids back in rural Ohio and you’d think being raised in Wisconsin would help pass that right on. Apparently, they’ve had it too easy.

But they also have a half day today. So Little Miss gets home as usual around 11:45, then Eldest is dismissed at noon and we’ll see how long his bus takes to get here. Usually about an hour. We’ll see how much I can get done on Secret Projects before they start arriving.

Oh…. did I mention I knitted a pair of mittens this weekend? Everyone was impressed. And now all the boys need pairs, too!

P.S. I just remembered my LYS dream from last night. I was just looking for a pair of straight needles in the most disorganized yarn store ever! I think things were arranged by manufacturer, all far away from each other. There was a deli or something in the middle of the store. The colors of the needles and the yarns were beautiful, but for goodness sake, why have a dream like this??? It was so frustrating! Ever have an LYS dream? “Tell me your dream, and I’ll tell you what it means.”