Quietish

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about and/or complaining about my lack of time and my inability to do everything I want to do. I’m often frustrated that I can’t keep up with all of my interests. Last night however, I was surprised to sit up and realize that the “regular” day I had been having was actually very productive.

I started the day by trying a new hairstyle with Jamie. Tall pigtails right in front to keep her out-of-control bangs out of her face. Once she was at school, Cian and I got some coffeeshop time as well as knitting time. I had finished some fingerless gloves the day before and celebrated by starting a new shawl project.

The afternoon was relaxed but also managed to not be lazy. When I’m home with the kids I do things here and there, but yesterday I also managed to grab up the guitar and practice a bit several times. I had a cat in my lap or a dog in my lap at various points. Oh yes, fuzzy puppy/kitten time is indeed essential. I also had kids in my lap or sitting on my legs here and there, too, naturally.

I cooked dinner. For the third time this week. I will wait while you regain consciousness.

After dinner we had family TV time (which is actually pretty unusual for us). Pokémon. I cross stitched. CROSS STITCHED, people! I did maybe 2 square inches of stitching in all of 2007. This is huge!

With the kids in bed, I fit in my nightly walk accompanied by an audiobook. I came back and stitched some more.

What I did to deserve a day with more hours, I don’t know. When I spend some time drawing and writing in the next few days I will have everything covered this week. Who knows, I may even feel like I have something to post about.

I have a really full life without even trying too hard. That is exciting to me, and I hope that I can make a habit of not worrying too much about things and letting them happen.

Happy 2008, everyone!

My whole weekend, yesterday, and today, have been full of completely random things to keep me occupied. I can detect no clear theme. I haven’t yet managed to complete the little project I was working on with Luna (heh, right) but got busy with a few other things.

First, I dug out Fortunate Traveler and pulled it out of the Q-Snaps it has been unwisely confined to for months and months. It is spending some time relaxing and I plan to make that my project for the evenings indefinitely. Here’s a pic, because it’s actually had some change since the last pic I posted.

Hopefully this means I’ll have some interesting content for my cross stitching friends, if any indeed have stuck around. I’ve been a neglectful and boring stitcher, it’s true. Well here, I’ll show you my little stitched Gryffindor crest to help make up for it.

I got the pattern from the Harry Potter Crafts yahoo group, where they are still currently holding a bit of a stitchalong.

By the way, have you noticed that it’s July? This means that we have LESS THAN 3 WEEKS ’til the release of Deathly Hallows, and even less time ’til the release of the Order of the Phoenix movie. As scary as that thought is, I’d like to point out that there is still time to do a little HP crafting. Please check out the above-mentioned yahoo group, as it is a great place for ideas, encouragement, and fun chat. Don’t forget the Leaky Crafts section for ideas, or the Crafts forum on the Leaky Lounge either. Eeeeeee, Harry!

In a spectacular show of just how short my useful but unstable ability to knit one thing at a time lasts, I managed to cast on 2 shawls. One is very simple and is out of my cone of Gourmet Yarn laceweight (no pic yet, it really is very plain and simple.) The other is for the Mystery Stole 3 knitalong.

I am still snickering every time I think about having cast on the Mystery Stole because up until Sunday I hadn’t once given it a thought. I wasn’t planning on starting anything new for awhile, you see. But then I came across someone’s progress picture on Ravelry, which led me to look at about 100 other progress pictures (side note: Mystery Stole 3 has surpassed Monkey has the top pattern there. Amazing), and before I knew what I was doing it was the wee hours of Monday morning and I was casting on the first “clue.” I’ve finished that part and now await Friday morning and the second clue. (Psst, you can sign up for that yahoo list until the 6th)

Ok, that’s enough for now. I’m off to find something to do with myself. I’m sure inspiration will randomly strike.

I’ve gotten a fair bit of work done on Calla and I expect I’ll have her done sometime this week, especially since Justin is out of town again.

Calla is one of those projects that feel like it’s crawling even though it’s actually probably going pretty fast. With this finish being on the horizon and only having one other thing (simple sock) on the needles, I’ve spent some time wondering what I’ll work on next.

I have the yarn for Justin’s sweater, which I had decided I could put off til the end of Summer or so. I have the yarn for Eunny’s Deep V Vest but don’t particularly feel like working on something I won’t wear til October at the very earliest. I’ve also sort of been itching to start another big lace project. It’s been awhile and I love me some lace.

At the same time, I’m feeling a bit blah about starting anything major just now. It would be nice not to have a work-in-progress hanging over my head. I uploaded some of my completed cross stitch pictures (just the ones with dragons so far) to Flickr the other day to show the Leaky Crafty Witches, which has got me thinking about working on cross stitch things for awhile. Over the last month I have been putting stitches into a Gryffindor crest for the SAL Harry Potter Crafts has going, and I can’t even tell you how long it’s been since I picked up Fortunate Traveler. I’d love to make some headway on those.

I’ll get it figured out.

In the meantime, my WOMBAT score has arrived. I got an E, which is fine. I would be more interested in the scores if the quizzes required more actual knowledge than guesswork and speculation. Justin, however, got a P because he guessed at random through most of it the morning it came out while Mary and I were on our way to MuggleFest.

Staying in tonight to avoid the torrential rain. Sigh.

some non-knitting craftiness.

Finished some previously-stitched ornaments.

I had completely intended to work on stitchie ornaments throughout the year, at least one a month. I fell of the wagon on that way back in February. But I still have a handful I can give out at Christmas.

The other day I threw in the towel and went to Sears in search of a replacement for my crappy Walmart-Special sewing machine. I am now the proud owner of a lovely, but not too fancy, Kenmore, minus all the computery bells and whistles. I’m quite happy. I named her Madam Malkin. To celebrate, I put together a cute stuffed dog from a kit I’ve had since before I graduated high school. (My step-grandma bought it for me I think so I would quit bugging her and I’d have something to do.)

The pattern called for a bandana, but I decided to knit him a collar instead:

when you’ve had lots of finished objects over the weekend!

Letsee, what do we have to show first? Well I’ll start with this, the progress I made Saturday night at the GY knit-in.

If you see me often enough, you might recognize these as bits of the yarn I’ve used for the sweater for Jamie. You will also remember that I have complained for every single moment I’ve knit on this thing since I started the sleeves. And that I generally didn’t work on it if no one made me.

And then you might say “Wait, does that mean it’s done?!” Why, yes. Yes it is.

And it fits! I’m so happy! And Jamie is too, despite the odd look on her face.

Pattern: “Pullover” from Dale of Norway “Kids Designs for Sizes 2-14 Yrs.” NR 160
Yarn: Dalegarn Falk. I did some color substituting in this sweater; I used white instead of a pale pink that GY didn’t have in stock, and chose the blue to replace a gold color that I just didn’t particularly like with the other colors. Then I switched all the color symbols around a bit to make them work.
Comments: See above comments. Although I will have to say that I love the finished product and think this is a lovely project to try out fair isle on. I just should have picked something either a little quicker to finish or a little more challenging. But that’s me, personally.

So that was another tick off of my knitting to-do list. Then I started my scarf for the

And promptly finished it.

Yarn: Colinette Prism in “Blue Parrot” on US size 10 needles (big! Eesh!)
Comments: I alternated between blocks of garter stitch and blocks of yarn overs. And as you might be able to see near the bottoms and before the fringe, I added a buncha “Chips” by Trendsetter Yarns. I hope my pal will likey!

The most exciting thing is that this leaves me with just one lone project currently on the needles. I’ve looked forward to this moment for some months! I will now get to work on Peacock whenever I want to and feel absolutely free to work on The Fortunate Traveler in the evenings.

I’ve been meaning to get a picture of TFT up on the blog for awhile, and finally took a pic today. I just left it in the snaps since the places I’ve done any work on lately are showing. I will fill in the most of those parts of the dragon before moving down to the text again for awhile. And so on. I want to get tons done on this piece before the year’s end. But I might have mentioned that already, I can’t remember.

And lastly, since I skipped Self Portrait Sunday yesterday, a pic of my feet keeping Callie company while she waits for some Tuna:

P.S. I know, I know; More pictures from Shimelle’s class, soon.

Well I look now and see it was only one day I skipped, but for a bit it felt like I had been neglecting the blog.

Anywho, what I did over the holiday (Labor Day in the US):

Slept in.
Stitched on Fortunate Traveler (progress pic coming soon!)
Worked on a pattern for some cute toddler socks (pattern coming soon!)
Stalked Callie and watched her closely.

Speaking of Callie, meet Meeper:

He insisted on some screen-time and I gave it to him because he’s put up with a lot between watching Callie get to eat special food and dealing with crazy puppies periodically running around his living room.

Today I have to catch up and do yesterday’s Learn Everything page before then doing today’s.
But most importantly, I need to run (run, run!) to Barnes and Noble and buy The Beatrice Letters.

when they plan to be locked in a hotel room in the (middle of nowhere) Ft. Smith, Arkansas with little kids and no car for a week.

A: The following…

1. books
2. toys
3. puzzles
4. PS2

Of course.

5. HP and the Philosopher’s Stone for bedtime reading.
6. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess
7. a chessboard

In other words, geeky stuff.

8. Fortunate Traveler

9. Castle Sampler (it’s Justin’s)

10. Jamie’s unfinished sweater

11. sock for Cian

12. Branching Out that they’ve been working on here and there for their Grandma, but had not posted yet.

13. Peacock that is too big to spread out enough to get a good picture of.

and most importantly…

14. their whole stinkin’ desktop because they hate the laptop that is available.

Leaving tomorrow for Ft. Smith, as you may have surmised. I obviously shall have access to email and stuff.

Having fallen off the monthly-ornament stitching wagon, I’m slowly working towards redeeming myself.

Freebie from The Workbasket
I saw CraftBorg listener, Michelle, had stitched it and made it my newest small project.

Now, back to knitting…
Edit: Scratch that. Chewed some fingers entirely too much today and I can’t knit. Chess it is.

CraftBorg, Episode Six is out!

I have finished sweater pieces!

Methinks I’ll be assembling today. Happy, happy.

And if I get done quickly

I can make this into an ornament!

from reading here on the ole blog, but I have actually been somewhat crafty.

Worked a tad on Fortunate Traveler. Just needs a little more backstitching and then I’ll move onto another section:

I’ve done two Mason*Dixon dishcloths in the last week. Uber fast and interesting. Meaning not boring.

And while Gilderoy2 hasn’t gone as fast as Gilderoy1, it’s still moving along nicely.

Things currently itching me:
Quiltmaking. Although more the piecing than the actual quilting.
Sewing in general. Bags especially.
Spinning. I’ve been neglecting my poor spindle.
Dollmaking. Right now I’m thinking either crocheted or knitted, though.

I wonder if I will get around to any of these, any time soon.