Bleah on Maturity....

Have you ever had on of those patterns that just "oh, oh, I have to make that. NOW? The new Knitty Surprise pattern is one of those for me. It fits in perfectly with my work, and I know just the person to give it to, they would get the joke but still honor the knitting work. And it looks like Fun.

But........

My stash is there and I am here. (Picture map of any scale with two dots very far from each other.)

I probably have yarn in the stash I could use for this. You know the kind, inexpensive but good yarn, perfect for a gag gift; leftover from some other project. I can wait 5 weeks until the stash and I are together, however I would no longer work with the receiptent. I can attempt to communicate with TAO and hope the right yarn arrives. (For the record...previous attempts at this have not been wildly successful. It's like asking me to get the ogee router bit.)

I could use one of my 4 project-deal-a-meal cards. But that's like using your cheat points to eat butter on brussel sprouts, you want to save it for a caramel vanilla dessert instead. It was easier when I would have either waited or just bought the yarn.

I could skip the whole thing. I do think it's funny that the pattern calls the aorta and pulmonary arteries "valves" instead of vessels.

Hmmn, what to do, what to do.

Laguna's baby sister

TAOs Raincheck gift arrived! From the Loopy Ewe of course.








The back view,




She is a little wider across the beam than the Laguna, and more solidly structured. Without an inside divider.





Laguna sized next to Zuma







What was inside for the photos; 21 ounce waterbottle, full size hand cream, phone, sock project, lipstick.<

Moving without motion

No, I'm not talking Meta-Zen. It's a long story with very little (sadly) knitting so if you came to fulfill fiber fantasies...move along.

TAO and I moved 11 times in 7 years. We've been at the 12th place 5 years now. I am FINALLY going to get my new floors.

Of course, that means now is the perfect time to paint - you don't have to worry about drips. Unfortunately, TAO took that to mean...don't worry about drips anywhere...but that's another story. So we painted. There's nothing like a marathon painting session to make you wonder why you have such a big house. I mean, that's alot of Ceiling.

Back to the moving thingy - The astute among you will realise that in order to install flooring, they must remove the old flooring, which means nothing can be on the floor. Hmmn, it's -18F in the garage, perhaps it's a good thing we have such a big house after all, because 3 rooms of furniture and counters has to go somewhere.

Since we had to displace everything, it was decided that we should shift it as though we are Moving. Really look at things and ask ourselves "Would you pay money for someone else to move this? Would you carry it up and down flights of stairs in order to keep it?" Of course there is some chaos in this as I am only home 2 days this month.

Still...it's liberating. TAO and I hoard. Especially since we've stopped purging for moving. When I come home between assignments I tend to dump/reload, leaving items behind. When TAO can't find something, he gets another one. Right now the focus is on the part of the house that is being renovated, but it feels so good that we are already mapping out changes to the garage and workshop when the weather is nice. The largest single item to go: the sofa. We meet people out in town for socializing; guarding our home space jealously. We don't cuddle there either, for a date night we build a picnic on the floor with piles of cushions and quilts and snacks. The messiest part was the pantry; sorting the food, checking dates, pitching, recycling glass, etc.

Think how relaxing it will be when it's all done. How about you...what are you holding onto that you "wouldn't pay someone to move"?

More "Free" Knitting

So I am apparently starting the year off with more "no stash acquistion" knitting. I knit this great sweater, even did some really tricky things......

For instance.......












I repaired this hole that was in the sweater from
things that went awry while traveling.
Lovely job eh?




Of course I meant to cut those ends, but figured I do that later.




Then there was the great seaming job, I mean, really look at this......















Worth every penny of a Lucy Neatby video.













Unfortunately, the finished sweater looked hideous, yes hideous, drawing attention to my flaws and downplaying my assets. Even the TAO looked and only said "Did You make That?" (because of course, it's perfectly acceptable to buy ugly clothing).

I decided that rather than have it guiltily shoved in the back somewhere I would reclaim the wool immediately. Because 6 skeins of slightly fuzzy yarn is better than bad sweater mojo. So I watched TV and unraveled the entire thing. (Angel food cake helped, Loopy on the other hand hid). Now, in 2010/2011 when I decide to make something from this yarn, it will be ready.