Spring Cleaning

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

OK, I realize I am trying to force spring to happen. Daffodils and now this.
I am used to being very organized. The difference now that I am back to work after staying home with the girls is that I am no longer willing to bring home hours of work each night to finish.
So I decided to list every current project, personal or work:
I eventually ran out of post it notes

.
I got this idea from skimming “Getting things Done” by David Allen. Apparently he’s a guru of such things. I didn’t even know such things had gurus. What can I say, I broke up two girl fights in the past week, I don’t get out much.
Then I grouped everything into three piles…must do, maybe and manana (later). The idea is you develop a system to track all ongoing projects so that you do not have to actively think about it. You create routines to check your system, and have a less cluttered brain.
My poor brain needs all the dusting it can get. I have to teach recursive algorithms next week…enough said.

I needed to focus on. In the middle of the pictures is the calendar I use to organize house and kid stuff. (click here to see it better). I might eventually try to rework it along the lines oprojects.Anyone
Anyone else have any ideas? I can’t be the only one a bit overwhelmed with the to do list…

Busy Bag

aturday, February 17th, 2007

We have officially entered birthday season. Little sis and I just got back from one today. We have 2 more this coming week.

As always, our budget is pretty well stretched. I also prefer homemade gifts. So this year we are giving Busy Bags.

These are just bags I made from leftover fabric. Then the girls and I pack them with things to keep kids busy…crayons, blank books, stickers, plastic animals, etc. I got a great deal on all this stuff from Michael’s a while back, so we are fully stocked.

These are pink and white stripped on the outside, ad blue gingham inside, left over from Halloween 2005:

The girls in Florida

I decorated this one with silk flowers. I remove them from the stem and sew on with a button.

I might redo this one…I want one for myself!

Movin' on up...

Image from the Doggie Bookplates pdf. Available at www.handmademom.com.

The blog has moved to it's new home:

Handmade Mom Blog

Still me and my knitting, plus all the other crafty mom stuff. See you there!

The best

I am finishing up some leg warmers for big-sis. Friday is wacky sock day at school, and we really do not have any wacky socks.

Here's a preview:


And the best description of kitcherner's stitich on the web? Here you go. I love the pictures with the huge needles...makes it easy to follow.

We're supposed to start getting some wintery weather the next few days, so even if it is a snow day she'll need something warm. Fingers crossed...we could use a snow day.

I plan on posting the pattern when I launch my new website in Early Feb. I decided to start collecting my sewing/knitting/crafting patterns all in one place. I am a bit nervous about it, and heve spent the last week obsessing over the HTMl and CSS stuff.

Fingers Crossed...

Big News!!

OK, quick bit of news here. Yesterday the girls and I stopped by the craft store, and what did I see next to the Cascade 220??

Cotton Ease.

I know I have been out of it for a while. I am busy crocheting the world's most tedious baby blanket. Taking forever...but the baby could come any day now, so onward we crochet.

Still, you think I would have heard some fanfare about its return. I am not in that much of a bubble.

The official site: http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/yarnInfo.cgi?yarnPage=1694582 At the store it was about $4.50. I don't remember the old price, but the colors seem better.

I really wanted some of the lime and violet, but held off. I am behind on projects as it is.

Has anyone else spotted it?

Oh, and a total side note...someone asked about the color of our dining room walls...it is one of the Behr colors-“rain washed”. We love it, matches everything. They have a fun paint matcher online:

http://www.behr.com/behrx/workbook/

It is so much fun to play with colors...I actually use it a bit to match up yarn colors...why don't any of the yarn companies offer something like this for their lines?? I could spend hours playing with the colors.

Thanks for all the kind comments about the Piggle Hat on Knitty.com...this has been one of the most exciting things to happen around here lately.

Happy Holidays!

We're decking the halls here. Tree is up. Cookies are made. Holiday knitting is almost done.

I am even almost done with the girls' Christmas dresses. No, I am not staying up unitl 3 AM. I have had a few unexpected days at home because little-sis has pink eye.

As a working-mom side note, pink eye is not such a bad gig. You have to be home, no one questions the need to be here. They would prefer NOT see you until it is over. On the other hand she feels fine (it's a mild case), so there is not a lot of grouchy sick kid. Basically it has been a very relaxing few days of being mom. Dad takes over tomorrow so I can go in and catch up. That's the downside to teaching...coming up with sub plans is so much more work than just being there to teach! I have four preps this year, so it is not easy to come up with enough to fill an hour and a half class.

And a small bit of self promotion...have you seen the new Knitty?? Yup! I have a pattern in there! My kids have hit the "yeah, that's nice mom" stage that comes right before outright eye rolling, so I figured I'd tell folks who might care. This might just be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me (well OK, close to it anyway) so I am trying to enjoy as much as possible.

I am doing some personal knitting right now also...I mentioned a week or so back a bag I was working on to be felted. Here's little sis in the before shot:


It's in the machine now, so we'll see how it turns out.

This is a test. I am just experimenting with posting a picture. Actual content to follow.

The picture is a bad sketch that was done as an experiment with the drawing tablet we have.

Chill dude

Thank goodness, it's finally getting chilly here. I even got to wear wool out of the house today.

Everyone I know will think that I've lost it. I generally hate the cold and prefer things on the 90 degrees and humid side of life.

But, we've just moved back "north" to VA. After a year and a half in Florida I have been really missing the seasons. We sort of had a fall down there. Three days before Christmas the leaves fell off the trees, and then by New Year's Day they were growing back again. Not much foliage to enjoy.

So the leaves have been great. I do not even mind the raking. In honor of all this chill I have tried to wear something hand knit to work everyday last week. I think I made it, but I did cheat a bit on Tues...the long wool scarf I was wearing kept getting snagged on the remote tablet thing I use to do class notes. Not effective teaching strategy. It did amuse though, let me tell you.

What a work week too...the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always hectic, but for kids with rough home situations it can be total chaos. And for the record, yes, I was the idiot teacher telling the kid to hand over the cell phone that kept ringing, only to find out it was a house arrest ankle bracelet going off. Embarrassing!

I do not want to send the wrong idea. I teach at a great school, with really wonderful kids. But any school, public or private, is ultimately a human endeavor, and we are not collectively speaking, perfect.

In knitting news, I finished the World's Worst Hat for my brother. Seriously. Ugly.

It started off fine, but somewhere towards the end I stopped counting right or something, because it puckers something awful. I am almost tempted to write up the pattern as a cautionary tale...the hat not to knit. It is disappointing too because I managed to do a two-needle tubular cast on in the round...no small feat let me tell you. I will eventually frog and try again, but I cannot face it yet.

So that's been pretty much the week. Choked myself on a scarf. Shocked by teenagers, and knitted a record-breakingly bad hat.

None of it perfect, but pretty good nonetheless.

Sewing here

OK...I AM knitting these days, but right now I am in the middle of my third ball of patton's wool for a felted bag. The bag should be great, but right now it is just a huge heap of knitting, nothing interesting.

So today I'll post some sewing updates:

This is the coat I just finished this weekend for little sis. The lining is a sage fleece. It matched the pink better than the pics show. The outer fabric is actually some upholstery fabric I found. I had visions of some wide wale corduroy, but they had none when I went looking last week. I wandered into the home decor section and there it was.

I had some difficulty getting pics, she was not having a photographic moment. I'll try to get a better lit shot soon.

It still needs buttons, and I haven't decided how to do those yet. It's just starting to get chilly, so those can wait till this weekend.

Oh, and unlike the photo the pattern does line up. That was the hardest part...cutting it out. I love knitting, but sewing is done so quickly, there is a lot of satisfaction in that. The funny thing is I am so much more likely to goof it up, since I get impatient and don't think things out. Knitting gives me time to catch up with my thinking.

I am the queen!

So the other day at dinner, our resident three year old announced that she is "the queen of cheese".

We are not sure why, but she's "creative" and we try not to stifle. I think the husband congratulated her, and we all moved on.

But really I don't think I did. Deep down I want to be the queen of something. Something substantial.

At work I am often called the queen of the nerds, which is nice, but not quite lofty enough.

So today, I am declaring myself "queen of the world's most neglected knitting blog".

I have actually been knitting, but blogging has been nigh on impossible here recently. All "personal" pages are blocked at work. I have managed a work around that lets me read a lot of my usual blogs, but I cannot comment, or see pictures. This is all a bit of a killjoy.

So, actual knitting news:

I came very close to getting a visit from the Fiber Protective Services(FPS) folks this week. I have this grand alpaca I got to make a holiday present for someone TBA (translation: they might read this) I tried about 7 different patterns with this poor stuff...and frogged, and frogged, and frogged...

Then it dawned on me that I was abusing the yarn. It didn't want to be a scarf. It wanted to be a hat. So in about 6 hours it turned into the Shedir hat by Jenna Wilson from the Knitty special issue on breast cancer. I loved this hat until I blocked it, and then the entire family avoided the kitchen for a day and a half while it was blocked.

Note: Wet Alpaca Stinks!

But totally worth it. It is a great pattern that I will probably do again. I did 7 repeats instead of 8, which worked out fine. I have visions of adapting it into all kinds of snappy snowflake-like patterns.

More news...I will have a pattern published soon. Details to follow.

I am in progress on a felted tote for fall, that will probably be ready right in time for spring, the way things are going. I just finished a pair of baby pants in pink Wildfoote sock yarn. I love this stuff.

I have a pile of gift ideas for Christmas, but none can be serviced by my immediate stash, so they are on hold. The sump pump died this week, so no new yarn for a while.

I my defense I did protest spending my hard earned yarn-money on a new pump, but when the husband suggested sopping up some of the eight inches of rain we've had this week with woolen items I came to my senses. My poor stash has been in enough danger what with the FPS folks looking into the alpaca situation.

The queen has responsibilities after all. It's not all merino and bon-bons.