Just a Quick One (You Know You're A Knitter When...)

Leonard finished his first sock in fingering weight yarn. He had a lot of challenges to get up to "real" sock knitting.  His view not mine. His first pair of socks were actually felted slippers. He made the Fuzzy Feet from Knitty.com. His second pair got stalled out after the first sock was completed. It was a worsted weight pair but the yarn was not a good choice and he wasn't using a pattern and cast on too many stitches so the sock was so big it ended up fitting over a cast. We frogged it.
The reason Len was knitting such big yarn was because he had really bad cataracts and couldn't see. Then he had surgery and suddenly my stash of sock yarn was in immediate danger of being poached. Shelley and I got him some lovely blue/green sock yarn of his own as a present. And now Leonard has a fabulous sock, that fits, and is technically his forth sock. He's still counting them individually... silly man.
The punch line of the joke is, he's over on the couch casting on his second sock and is grumbling and swearing because he's having trouble with the join and I go over to help. As I lean over in my very skimpy nighty to see what's wrong he sits there and counts stitches and examines his joining technique and not once does he do the descent thing and look down my cleavage. He has now graduate to full knitter status!

You know your a knitter when you have a chance at a cheap feel and would rather finish your knitting.

Today is My Birthday

Leonard, me and Ryan at the Seattle Aquarium

 Len has been hassling me to blog, so here it is. We're going to start with a bit of miscellany about what I've been doing the last month or so and then work up to an actual post that may have a point to it.
Since the last time I blogged I have babysat for my Mom. Had Ryan and Jarret for a while. Jarret went home to his Dad's but Ryan stayed. We had a good time. We processed a ton of cherries and ate a ton more. We baked. We painted. Ryan filled an entire sketch book. We did some illustrations for Homeward Pet. If you go into the shelter you can even see one of the "Staff Pick" signs up on the bulletin board.

Knitting at the library

 I went to the library with Leonard while he taught Word classes. I even managed to score a new Nevada Barr hardcover for $2. Between Shelley's Kindle and the library I should run out of things to read sometime next millennium.
As far as knitting goes it's been a low knitting month. I'm almost done with the pink summer socks. I've finished the sock monkey for Teresa and most of the baby sock monkey too. The baby monkey just has arms and a tail yet to go. That's it. I haven't worked on any other knitting.... sigh. I do have some funny things to say about knitting with babies but that's going to be another post.

Steampunk brooch for Ryan. Cold riveted and hand sewn on an old button.

Ryan and I did find something new to bond over. We discovered a similar taste in fashion. Not mine, I have very little fashion sense when it comes to dressing myself, but hers! We went through the fabric I'd been collecting for when she got old enough to dress like everyday is Halloween. I had some fabulous burnt out velvet with skulls and scroll work, and black lace and ribbon. We had a little gothfest and made a dress, a necklace and choker, bracelet, pins and brooches. And I still have fabric left over, I just need to get my sewing machine fixed. Yep, you read that right, the whole project was hand sewn because I'm to lazy to replace a part in my sewing machine. I even have the part, but in my defense I have no idea of how to get it in there and then get it working once the part is in. In the whole fit of sewing enthusiasm I also fixed and re-hand tied an old quilt. It looks so much better with all new yarn ties and no giant holes in it. It was queen sized so you could have lost a whole herd of sheep in there and never found them again.

On my birthday I like to think about all the stuff that has happened in the last year. Most people do this at New Years but I never have the time around the holidays to think of anything but baking. So here's my year in review:

1. Had several months of major health challenges, followed by abdominal surgery. This pretty much took up my year until February.
2. I knit a large and industrious amount of bibs, baby sweaters, and toys.
3. My Mom adopted a newborn baby girl, giving me a new baby sister and someone to foist off all the knitting goodies on.
4. Len adopted a new cat from Homeward Pet.
5. John went and adopted a cat from them the next month.
6. The next day I started as a volunteer. I work cats and reception. They like me enough that they haven't fired me or anything.
7. My iTunes library has expanded to over 10GB.
8. I'm finally getting a divorce, yeah!!

I love knitting. I love life. I love my family. Next year is going to be better. 38 was ok. 39 is going to be lovely. 40 is going to rock on toast. I think I'll do a recap post every year on my birthday.