Talking on Tuesday

I started my Tilted Duster!!!! It is going so quickly too. I am knitting it in a nice chocolate brown worsted on size 8's which gives me 4 1/2 stitches to an inch. I finished up the back, right front and started on the left front yesterday. I can't wait to finish it.

Home again. Home again.

Yay! Well sort of. I was in Florida all last week and I fell in love with the place. My hubby did too and is going to look for another job down there. We had the best time. I love the people. The weather. The plants and animals. Florida is now my new home. Not sure when we are moving BUT it will be within the year. I did almost get my youngest's sweater done though. I forgot the last ball of yarn of course though. I wanted to knit so bad and had no yarn to knit with! That will teach me to not take enough knitting along on a vacation. I read about knitting and listened to knitting podcasts instead. Can you tell I am addicted?

I am glad to have my stuff back even though it is COLD here in Northern VA. Now I gotta get my stuff down to Florida!!! Hehehe

Knitting Obsession

I have had other hobbies before.... beading, macrame, quilting, crochet .... and not one of them has hit me like knitting has. For years, I sewed my own clothes. I even designed a few outfits myself but I had to give it up because of babies. Those baby things take up a lot of time, you know? You can't really say, " Hey, you there, Baby, I just need to sew this one last seam then I can change your diaper, so you can stop crying now." No, you can't. You have to stop what you are doing before you get to that seam and if you are caught in the middle than be careful not to pull it out from under the sewing needle. I just pretty much have to give up my hobbies whenever I had a baby. They just weren't portable enough.

Now, knitting is something that is super portable and stopable in the middle. You can be in the middle of a row, stop what you are doing stick your needle stops on the end and do whatever the baby wants or needs at the moment. You can sneak in a couple of stitches while waiting in line at the store. You can sneak in a couple of stitches anywhere, really. As long as you remember the yarn is on the right needle then you wont ever make the mistake of going the wrong way.

Another thing I like about knitting, is the design element of it. I love thinking up designs. I see a shirt in a store and take the bits I love about it and replace the bits I hate about it and viola I have my own design. I see so many designs in my head of sweaters I want to knit and they are all my own. I found EZ's Knitting without Tears and she has made making my own designed sweaters a dream come true. I can now make a sweater with my own gauge and design. No longer do I have to follow a pattern that I can't seem to get gauge on. Just make my own gauge swatch, do a little math and I can make it my own.


I looooooooooooooooooooooooooove knitting.

Enabler!!!

So I was just looking around on Ravelry and look at this sock yarn!!
You can get it at this website. Plus the name of the store is just the coolest too! I was soooooo drooling over this yarn. It is simply delicious looking! Now this is why I love socks you can by all this beautiful yarn that only comes in like one skien and make a pair of lovely socks out of it.

Oh yeah AND the sun came out again today! After 6 whole days without knowing if the big, round, yellow thing in the sky was fact or fiction the clouds finally lifted at 9:30 A.M. this morning. I think I even heard angels singing the Hallelujah chorus......

Tilted Duster

Has anyone seen this sweater Tilted Duster? It is in the new interweave knits mag. I haven't had a chance to go pick it up yet but I am in love it. I love the button closer and the half circles on it. Quite a few other people are knitting it on Ravelry, about 7 others and I love the yarns they have chosen for it. I am thinking I will use this yarn, in the chocolate colorway. I really want to use the slate colorway but since this will be my first sweater, I don't want to use black. I need to finish my mom's sock before I order the yarn and start it. I am halfway up the cuff now mom. I should be sending it off to you next week! I finished the first one while I was visiting her and she wouldn't let me take it home with me. She wanted to keep it lol. I think she liked it. It really is a pretty sock. I will take pictures when it is done.

Dog Days of Summer

I don't about anyone else but I haven't been knitting much. I finished my tofutsies socks. I also started on a pair of socks for my mom in KP's Palette in the Teal colorway. Other then that I haven't knitted much. I just feel too hot. It has been 90+ outside for the past week. I guess that is why. Haha..... Ravelry is so cool by the way. If you have a yarn you don't know what to do just do a search and see what others have done with it. That is how I decided on the Seduction Socks pattern for my mom. If you have a book and want to see how some of the designs knit up just do a book search. It is really awesome. I even donated some money to them. I am planning on doing that once a month because they are doing an awesome thing here. I hope they get some investors and make lots of money! It is a great idea and I hope that it shapes up the Internet community really. I mean Wekipedia is trying to do a similar thing but it is still tons of information on a lot of different things. It would be nice to be able to have all kinds of different Ravelrys on different topics. It's the analytical mind in me. I love something all done up in one neat package.

Website I found

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this morning called Sticks & String. He was talking about a friend of his who is blogging about living with depression. David also said how he was very surprised by this because she is so creative, bright and a fun person to be around. I know a lot of creative people who suffer from depression. All through history in fact many of the greats, whether it be painter or musician have to deal with this. I read a book once about personality traits and the one that is the most creative is called Melancholic ( I believe that is what it was called. I can't find the book. I guess I have lost it.) this personality trait is the one who is most prone to depression or melancholia. I took the test in the book and I scored even in caloric (likes order, to be in control, analytical) and melancholic (creative, attentive to detail). I also unfortunately have the depression. It started after I had my first baby. You know the baby blues that are suppose to go away after 3 weeks or so? Well, they never went away. I didn't know it at the time that I was still depressed. I was too busy really to notice how I felt inside. What with being a single mom having to work full time and a social life, I just never thought about myself much. Then, one Sunday, we had a guest speaker at church. He talked about depression and I realized 2 years later that I had been depressed all this time. When they had an alter call at the end of the service, I went and was prayed for. I had my eyes closed while they were praying for me and when I opened them it was like a film had lifted off of my eyes. Everything before had looked like it was grayed out somehow. I hadn't noticed this because living in it seldom does one notice what they are used to. Even the brightest yellows were somehow muted in my eyes. When this grey film was lifted I could see again. Everything looked bright. I could see again.

Fast forward 7 years to my 2nd baby.... I got the dreaded baby blues again. This time I breast feed so that helped some but the depression didn't go away. I don't think it helped that I was married to a man that was emotionally bankrupt and had no compassion or gave any thought to anyone but himself. It didn't help my depression that by the time my 2nd son was 2 I was going through a divorce and also finding out that my son was autistic. I guess it also didn't help that I had no job, no car, and no house to live in. Let me just say that if God wasn't there always watching me and that I had praying family and friends, I would not be here typing this blog. My sons would not be alive and breathing and I would not have met my wonderful husband. I got to the point in my depression that one day I almost didn't turn off the car when i pulled into the garage. God used my beautiful babies. They were the only reason I turned off the car. I saw them grown up and living for God in that split second after I thought about not turning the ignition off.

Now I rarely have thoughts of suicide. I rarely even have bouts of sadness but they are there always in the back of my thoughts. Its always sitting there on my right shoulder. Trusting God has done a lot to alleviate the pain. I don't want to take drugs, although I probably should, but I am trying diet and exercise instead.

One thing that has helped me is crafting. Making things with my hands has always helped with the pain. It helps me forget myself as I make things for the people I love. I am now using yarn and 2 pointy sticks. I am knitting away the pain.

Here is a website called Stitchlinks that tells how knitting is therapy. I didn't even know that all the crafting I have done over the years is my therapy but I do now and it endears me to it even more.

Drum Roll Please.....

I finally got invited to Ravelry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh wow this thing is as awesome as everyone has said. You can look up anything knitterly that you want. It will show you peoples blogs. It shows you yarn porn. Anything and everything. I really think it's the new Google of Knitty things. Its the new Knitepedia! It is awesome. I have waited 8 weeks! I tell you it is worth the wait.

Check out what I did....

My first attempt at dying. It turned into an accident color that is very pretty. I had the yarn all soaking while I went out to get the dyes. When I got back from the store, I realized I had forgotten to buy the sponge brushes. I tried out the dump it all in method. I think it turned out pretty nice. Ok so the color I was going for was burgundy and bronzey brown. Instead it turned into this sunset color. I think it is a nice "mistake". Tomorrow I will be painting the dye on to see how that goes.

Blogging the night away

I was checking out the many many blogs that I read and I found out one of my fav bloggers is having a contest. Check out her cute blog here.... Robyn's Words ..... I also got my dying yarn today! I am going out to get some things to start dying tomorrow. I am hoping to set up a shop on Etsy if all goes well. I am excited. I have love dying things since I was a teen. I used to dye clothes. Or whatever floated my boat. I wanted to get into silk painting but it was just too darn expensive to do. Now that I am into YARN my old love of dying is calling to me. I am going to do the painting on dyes on this batch. I love the effects. Dying yarn is so neat. You never really know what you are going to get. Even when you knit it up it looks totally different. I will be posting piccies of my new endeavor. Yall wish me luck!

The things I did this weekend.....

I know I promised pictures but I didn't take any. I am still feeling hectic from our busy weekend. I finished one of my monkey socks and now am working on the toe of the 2nd one. I washed my first pair of socks and they are so comfy, even with the odd toes. They feel kind of squishy when you walk and spongy. I have never had wool socks and I must say I like that walking on sponge feeling you get. Kind of like the are you gelling commercials. If everyone wore hand knitted wool socks we wouldn't need those jelly things in our shoes. I am here on out a firm believer in wool socks. I know what everyone has been raving about.

Well this Saturday we went to my all time favorite store in the whole world. IKEA. I loooove this store. They have the greatest deals on furniture I have ever seen. The whole concept is that it is modular. You put pretty much everything together except of course if you are getting a sofa. You then just put the cover on it and attache the hardware. I got the neatest desk. It has a glass top and etched into the underside of it is the word love in about 10 different languages. The go in all different directions. It is really very cute and screamed Melinda take me home when I saw it. Underneath it keeping it up are 2 pine unites that hold various things. It doesn't have a lot of storage but it will make due for now. We also got a rug in different shades of blue for the office. It practically covers the whole floor and it was only 50 dollars. I got 4 curtains for the front room. They aren't in the color I wanted but they cover the window and that's what I wanted for right now. I got tired of feeling so naked without anything across them. I also got 4 pillow covers 2 red linen ones and 2 orange and white canvas ones to go in my living room. I had the pillows from the other couches but they are ugly brown and needed to be covered. Oh and I got the cutest tote that holds a knitting project perfectly. It has a pocket in the front that will hold a magazine. I have been looking for a tote for my knitting for a few weeks now and I couldn't find anything I liked that wasn't too expensive. I didn't want a knitting bag that said hey I am a knitter. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I just don't like the look of knitting needles stuck into weird slots all around the outside of your purse. I like everything tucked neatly away from view and also harm or the elements. This bag is the perfect size and it was only 4 bucks! Have I said that I like IKEA? It is an awesome store.

Well that is all for today. I will post some pictures of everything when it is sunny outside. I have new yarn to post too.

Hmmmm what should I blog about today....

I realized that I hadn't blogged yet today. I was so busy..... lets see I washed towels.... I knitted.... I folded said towels.... I knitted..... I washed the curtains in the kitchen.... I knitted.... I hung the curtains back up... I knitted.... I read a little of new book which was about knitting.... I cooked dinner.... I knitted whilst dinner cooked.... I ate dinner... and then I wanted to sit down and knit some more but realized I have to blog because that is one of the rules I set for myself.

The Monkey sock is coming along. I turned the heel and started on the leg. I really like the way it is turning out. I hate picking up stitches and this way I didn't have to. You kind of knit in the round and do the gusset by increasing a stitch on each side of the sole of the sock. Since I am using the magic loop method I just do the increases on either side of the 2nd needle. Then when you get to the right amount of increases. Which are about 15 for my foot you turn the heel by doing a short row. It magically turns into a heel and then you just knit in the round and thus the leg starts. Pretty simple. I like it so much better then the pick up stitches method.

On that note my hubby just reminded me the season premier of Lost comes on tonight in 1 hour! Whooo Hoooo. Ok now Lost is one show that I do not knit through because I can't knit and not look at my knitting all the time yet and I don't want to miss one minuted of Lost. I have to go get ready now to watch one of the best shows evah!

Mommy Survey

I saw this on Knit and Purl Momma Blog

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? No
2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? No
3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? I was nervous but got used to the idea after I fell in love with the baby
4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? NO WAY~
5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 19
6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? After puking my guts out for most of 3 months I took a pregnancy test
7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? My mom
8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? No
9. DUE DATE? Oct 15, 1991
10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? 4 months straight
11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Chocolate
12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Strong smells
13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? Male
14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? At first yes, but then I fell for all things boys!
15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 25
16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes
17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew
18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? No.
19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Chesapeake General
20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 5 hours
21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? My boyfriend at the time.
22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? I think my whole family was in there but I am not sure lol I was so out of it and there were so many people in there.
23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural
24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? No
25. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 9 lbs 11 oz
26. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? Aug 15, 1991
27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Jerath Ian
28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? He is 15 years old.

Now I tag anyone who reads my blog

What I am working on

Here is a picture of what I am currently working on. I have to tweak the sock pattern a little. I have a high arch and it doesn't really fit my arch. The sock kind of bags in that area. All in all it is a pretty comfortable sock and I am happy with the way they turned out. I will try a lace pattern with the second pair. Also I will try it toe up. I like the toes on those better. They look more like socks should instead of all pointy at the toe.