Monday, December 29, 2008

Dream....dream, dream, dream....

I know when I'm getting excited about something when I dream about it.

I don't usually remember my dreams, mind you. But this morning before I woke up, I was having a dilly and it had a lot of knitting content. I was packing for a trip I was taking for work (I don't work outside the home, though I have been looking.) The trip was going to occur on a bus (fancy travel bus, not school bus) and we were supposed to meet up at the local high school. We had to wear a black suit with a white shirt, though when I looked at what everyone else was wearing, they were getting around this requirement in very creative ways. But not me, I had my suit...if only I could find it.

I had to get to the high school by 11:30 so I wouldn't miss the bus leaving. So I'm frantically packing, telling Dan he has to get ready to take me there so I wouldn't miss the bus. I'm looking through my knitting projects trying to decide what to take with me...the poncho? the sock? Oh, take 'em all, I decide. Where are my snips? Do I have my instructions?

I'm trying to charge my phone, which changes it's backsplash and announces it belongs to Sparky's Taco Shop instead. Wha'? I don't even know where that is, much less why my phone is doing this! And come to think of it, this is my OLD phone, the one I got through AAA with the black and white screen...how very strange!

I'm frantically looking for all the stuff that needs to go in my suitcase, my knitting tote, etc. and my husband is leisurely getting himself ready. I keep telling him, "Hurry up! We have to leave, it's almost 11:30 and they aren't going to wait for anyone!!!" It's 11:25 and he is just getting in the shower! I'm never going to make it!!!

He gets mad and I get mad, each time I think I'm ready, he's not and when he seems to be, I think of one more thing I need and the result is I wake up grinding my teeth. Weird.

So what does this mean? Is the bus trip wearing the black suit symbolic for death and my husband's stalling tactics to prevent me from going on that trip? Or is a subconscious expression of a desire not to leave the home to work (my favorite explanation, obviously) and my husband is trying to stall that as well? Or is simply the result of too much thinking about knitting before bed?

Anyway, interesting that I had so much knitting in the dream. It's not the only knitting dream I've had lately, though I can't remember the others, only a vague impression that there was knitting somewhere!

Here's the Happy Sock, happy to be finished and even happier that it's mate has been cast on and has a modest inch to it's name:



And I pulled a UFO out of the big knitting bag and worked on that as well:



THIS is Laurel's poncho, using Plymouth Encore and Knitting Pure & Simple's Women's Poncho pattern (#246). I am 18" on this sucker and have 7 1/2" to go before I can do the border and bind off. Then it's just a matter of knitting the hood. Laurel is not as eager to get this garment as she used to be, but let me know, in that infuriating way that teenagers have, that she is still open to receiving it. Oh, thank you, thank you, Laurel, for letting me have the priviledge of knitting for you! Pheh!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Happy Sock

Yes, I could not resist starting a new sock. It's all because of these:



These are my sad sad socks. My last pair of completely wool socks. After this photo they eventually just got way too felted to wear (you can see here that they already stood up by themselves!)...I used to force my feet into them, but at some point, they just got felted beyond my ability to do that, or my feet got fatter. I like to think the former.

So with the advent of winter and no warm, cozy wool socks to keep my feet happy, I felt (oops! the F word!!!) I mean I thought it was a good idea to make a new pair. I went down last week to rummage through the stash, where I was sure I had another skein of Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool and so I did and so I did. Start knitting, that is.

I went with my favorite Ann Norling sock pattern (#12) and proceeded to cast on. The wool felt a little under worsted weight, but remembering how quickly the other ones had "bloomed" after wearing (the bottoms felted the first day just on contact with the sole of my Birks), I decided that I would stick to the worsted weight directions. The colorway is "Columbine". And I really love how they are turning out:



And since this yarn knits up so quickly, I can be confident that this sock will soon be a happy twosome. And not be left a lonely singleton sock, like so many others.

Well, I'm going to go do the toe of this sock and cast on the next one ASAP! And resolutely NOT look at anything else in the stash, nuh uh, no way, no way....

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

More than a year!

Since I posted to this blog!

I have been knitting a little bit in that year, but I haven't been finishing much is my lousy excuse.

A while back someone asked about this:




Yes, I finally did finish this mitered baby blanket a year ago in November! It took FOREVER. Sigh...I worked on it betimes while I was lunch monitoring at the kids school. It was gifted to the crisis pregnancy center this past spring.

So it's been a long dry season, knitting wise. I've taken a bash at the poncho I started for Laurel, but that is also taking a long, long time and is not the most inspirational knitting. And I did a dishcloth, somewhere, sometime. But recently I began to feel the urge to knit again. And since my children's school has a mitten tree for needy children in the lobby and I don't really have the cash to buy anything to donate, I decided to dig some yarn out of the long-neglected stash and whip up some mittens. And since the pattern I used (Sirdar 294) with Kool Kidz Chunky, of which I had a few odds and ends leftover from other projects, knits up really fast, I was able to make a hat as well.




I've already cast on for another pair using the hot pink yarn that you see tying the mittens and hat together so they can be hung on the tree. I took these up to school today when I was lunch monitoring and found a nice spot, front and center, to put them. They are the only hand made items on the tree. I have until Thursday to get some more done and hope to at least have the mittens ready by then.

Well, it's off to cook dinner for my husband's birthday and to bully my son into doing his homework! A mom's work is never done!