Birthday Frog

Here is Mimi opening her first birthday presents.

Here is Mimi eating her first birthday cake.
Here is Mimi looking really cute and adorable on her first birthday.
Here is Mimi wearing her first birthday sweater. Oops, notice that there is no picture of the birthday sweater? See how the "blue paradise" does not compliment her lovely olive complexion or set off the sparkle in her eyes? Note that she is wearing nothing hand made because her mom is a big loser who let her first birthday deadline blow by like so much breath on her birthday candle? Bad mommy.

My only defense is that she has been sick all week and extremely needy making it dang near impossible to get any knitting done. Seriously people, I can manage about one row an hour, if it doesn't let up soon, she'll probably outgrow it before I get it done. The other bad news is that I was doing both sleeves at the same time...I dutifully pinned them together so that I would know which direction I was knitting and things were going swimmingly...were is the nominative word here. At some point I decided I would count stitches to see how close I was to decreasing and I found that I had 48 stitches on one sleeve and 57 on the other. Huh. Then I counted rows, 21 rows on one sleeve and 25 on the other. Something was most definitely wrong. Any guesses? I must have knit one side at least four rows and four increases with out touching the other one. And all that pinning was supposed to stop that from happening. So, I frogged back to where I thought that I messed up and took one off. I also had some mishap where I shaped the neck on the shoulder side (rip rip rip), and I decided that I could space my buttons 1 1/2 inches instead of the 1 that the pattern called for and ended up messing up and having to rip back there too. Now I am mere inches from finishing the second sleeve and there should be collaring and sewing tomorrow...of course the sky could open up and a gigantic anvil could fall from the sky right on top of this sweater and I won't even be surprised. In fact, I will actually be somewhat surprised if this doesn't happen...could it be unsafe to dress my daughter in such an unlucky sweater?

I do believe that watching 24 may be hazardous to my health. (I can't say it does a lot for my knitting either.) I am compelled to watch. It is like a sickness. The only cure it to watch each week. I am watching against my will. What will I do when the season ends? I have the first season on hold at the library, I will systematically secure and view all episodes for each season until all the holes are filled and I know exactly has happened. I'll do Jack Bauer proud. There are six seasons, twenty four hours per season, so I should be caught up in...well, about three and a half work weeks. 144 hours. It is a huge undertaking, but it must be done. I am willing to undergo the pain and suffering that will most certainly plague this house during those long hours, but if I don't know what happens I WILL EXPLODE!!

Knitting is a mere diversion to occupy myself during the long days between episodes, but I have been making some progress. I am nearly done with the second half of the front, and I know that I predicted that I would be done by this evening (relax, I only have about five inches to go, and I have already decreased by a good amount) but Mimi has been extremely needy these last few days, which makes it hard to knit. It is really her fault that her birthday present won't be done, she has no one to blame but herself...I will start sleeves tomorrow. I also predicted that I would make a surprise birthday present, but in the interest of getting her bigger present done, it ain't gonna happen. I wanted to, but didn't get the book that I needed in time. Oh well. She'll get more use out of her jacket anyway.

One other thing, here is a good reason not to let Jack put his fingers in your mouth:

the good life

All shopping, all laundry.
No knitting...well, not much anyway.

Mimi has been sick for three days. I thought that she was feeling better, but she had another episode this afternoon. With out turning stomachs, I'll just say that we have been going through a lot of towels and sheets and changes of clothing. Plus I am getting a better arm work out than I do in my Pilates class since she won't allow me to put her down.

Having a sick baby has been slowing down my knitting a bit, that and driving all over the city trying to get my husband dressed properly for a "business-casual" job. What the spank is business casual, you ask. Dockers, Polo shirts, more Dockers, a few button-down shirts, under- shirts, the works. Seeing how he was working with a bunch of scientists at a national lab, you can imagine how high up on the list fashion was. Who has time to dress up when we they are busy saving the world through the miracle of cold-fusion? Never mind dressing up, who has time to match their socks in that environment? So now poor J has to re-wardrobe himself, no easy feat. We have spent two days in and out of stores while he tries on tons of clothes. For me, shopping is a dream come true. For him, it is living a nightmare. But he has been a sport, even buying a very cool pair of corduroy pants, because I insisted that they were sexy. They are, too. Now, normally, I would be knitting all the while that I am in the car, but the other day at the knitting shop one of the ladies said that she heard that if you knit in the car, you really should sit in the back seat, because of the danger of the air-bag deploying and causing you to impale yourself with one of your needles. Yikes. So, until I decide to throw caution to the wind or I am knitting with rubber needles, I may stop knitting in the car, because I can't very well sit in the back with out getting serious car-sickness.

I will be done with the right front of the jacket (barring some unforeseen tragedy) by this afternoon, and my hope is to finish the other side by Sunday afternoon. Then the sleeves (which are only about 10 inches long) and the collar will be done by Tuesday (God willing) and then blocking Tuesday night, sewing on Wednesday at the free-stitch at the knitting shop. Anyone want to wager that I won't be done? I hate to plan ahead too much seeing how things are going. I am not going to be too disappointed if it isn't finished because I am ahead of where I thought I would be by now. It helps to read or listen to books on CD, but I have also picked a very mindless repeating stitch that knits up pretty quickly. There is also another project that I may have to put the sweater down to work on. It simply MUST be done for her birthday, it won't do for any other time. But I'm not going to tell you what it is just yet. You'll have to tune in next week to find out.

Back off Me...

Or back handed compliment

or back to the future

or back in the high life

or back in time

Any one of those will do...is anyone getting the theme here??

I finished the back of the baby jacket today. Yipee. I can only be the slightest bit bitter that I would have been done with both fronts by now if I hadn't had to frog the whole thing. But as I suspected, I am much much happier with the better version. Mimi is going to be looking dandy in no time. The fronts knit up much quicker, though there are two of them. Then the sleeves will probably be done at the same time to save me from "second sleeve syndrome". I am praying that the whole thing will be ready to be blocked and sewed by next week. I also picked out buttons today that are just so cute. I went with flowers because I figured that I might harvest them for something else when she outgrows the jacket. There were the sweetest baby faces inside of flowers, but I felt that they were a little too much. So, what do you think?? The pattern only calls for five buttons, so I will have one left over. Maybe I'll make a little hat and put it on it or something cute like that.

J went shopping for new shoes today, a couple of trips to Goodwill and he should be ready for work. I think the shoes are down right dapper. He is putting his best foot forward, ha ha . That's punny.

Ok, I must go knit. By the way, is it appropriate to post pictures of my children on a blog? I think that it may be, so look for Mimi's birthday portrait in the future, wearing a nice blue sweater...

10

To distract you from my lack of knitting progress (I've only knit about six inches, I have six more to go on the back! Waaa) , I will give you ten reasons that knitting is better than fishing:

1. Knitting can be done anywhere, at any time, not just on boats and shores
2. You don't have to leave your family at home to knit
3. Knitting is cheaper, most everything can be done on ten different sized needles, and it is only as expensive as you want it to be
4. Knitting takes up much less space than fishing, and fly tying, and fly rods
5. You can create items that everyone can appreciate most anyone can use when you knit, not so when you fish
6. Knitters are nicer to non-knitters than anglers are to non-anglers
7. You can carry on a conversation, read, parent, be a somewhat involved spouse when you are knitting
8. Knitting doesn't spread things like New Zealand Mud Snails and Whirling disease
9. No one ever loses when they are knitting, it is not a competition, everyone shares their ideas and their secrets in knitting. Fishing is totally exclusive, and secretive
1o. No one ever drowned while knitting

In the frog pond or Bad parent award

It took fifteen hours to create this:

(In case anyone cares, that is the entire back of a sweater, an entire 14 inches, right up to the shoulder shaping...)

It took five minutes to do this:

'nuff said.



We got B's hair cut today, and he was unhappy because I told them to take off the sideburns. After they were gone, he admitted that he liked the way they look on Andre the Giant, and that he felt like he looked like him with his sideburns on. Gotta love the nine year old self-image. I mean, the guy was like fifteen feet tall and wore lamb chops, but whatever. I felt bad, even though the hair cut was great and he looks so much less like an orphan...and speaking of orphans, two-year-olds do not mix well with nearly any public setting, least of all Goodwill. So I walked about twenty paces in front of the tear-mobile, otherwise known as the stroller while Jack and Mimi both screamed through the entire store. It was not lost on me that the dirty looks that I would have gotten for not being able to control my kids were looks of sympathy for my poor husband and his poor children. Why is that? It is so unfair. It was as if they were feeling like he was a widower or something, while I would have been labeled as a bad mom who had bratty kids. So irritating. I like to make people really uncomfortable when they give me dirty looks by saying in a very loud voice "Please quite crying, you're making that lady over there give me dirty looks. She won't stop staring at us until you are quiet, we don't want her to look at us any more, so stop crying so that she can mind her own business." That usually does the trick.

I am about to go and cast on an mere 92 stitches, which will remove a whopping four inches off the back of my sweater...don't look for me till Monday unless I can make some serious progress before then...

*By the way, I am not angry at the clerk form holly berry house. It is not her fault that I am an idiot and I certainly did have some idea that knitting involved math, she probably thought that I would have done it...Isn't it ironic that I chose a hobby that includes so much math, when I spent every year since kindergarten right up through college trying to avoid it. The universe always wins.

Ok, so, uh, ummmmmmm...

I cannot even begin to relate the pain to you. It is that harsh and that depressing. Let's just say that we will never again tempt the wrath of the gauge gods. After knitting for about fifteen hours, I have discovered that 1. Swatches are wrong, 2. I should have went with my original calculations, and 3. The sweater that I have worked nearly a third of is going to be too big. Well, too big might be an understatement. It is gargantuan...ginormous. It may fit me...if it were long enough. But seeing how the row gauge matched up, well, it might fit Gimli the dwarf better. I am so bummed, I will have to frog the entire thing and it most certainly won't be done for her birthday, but on the bright side, she can probably wear it before she turns five...or before she grows as wide as she is tall. Excuse me while I go stab myself in the eye with a size four adi turbo knit...