April 23, 2008

MAGKNITS

I finished my Magknits t-shirt yesterday, and I am loving it. I already have plans to make another.

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It's not easy to take a photo of yourself with the camera timer and try to get the dog to look cute, your new sweater to look cute, and to not look like you have a bald spot. Two outta three ain't bad, right?

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April 19, 2008

VACATION KNITTING

I knitted two socks last week on vacation.

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Yeah, I never said they matched.

The red one has the StL Cardinals logo on the heel. The black one is made with that fun Tofutsies yarn made out of crab shells. I just really wanted socks made from seafood.

And I imagine someday I will make the partner for each of these socks. But right now, there's work to do. I thought my baby knitting was winding down. Both my cousins had their babies last week, so that only left one more preg lady to knit for. And then I got two wedding invitiations in the mail. And found out someone else is pregnant.

It never ends.

Also in knitting news, while on vacation I went to the Toy and Miniature Museum. I knew that some of Althea Merback's work was there, so I dragged my husband's family to see tiny knitted gloves. This was the sweater we got to see, but there was so much more. It was The.Best.Museum.Evah. (My husband laughed when I said that; "You've been to the Louvre," he joked.) But some statue with no arms has nothing on a six-inch-tall working printing press. Or tiny working musical instruments and cameras. My in-laws are lucky we showed up two hours before closing because I could've spent all day there. And the whole time, I kept wishing I had the AirForceKids or Sir Rowland there with me; they would've loved it.

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April 17, 2008

LENDING A HAND

I read yesterday at CG that a blogger I've never read before, Dispatches from Blogblivion, has fallen on hard times. I noticed his wife has an Etsy shop, so I went and bought a cute crochet pattern. If anyone is so inclined to get a crochet pattern in exchange for a little charity, her Etsy shop is here. Looks like I will be crocheting little birdies at some point in the future.

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March 28, 2008

GREEDY KNITTING IS GOOD

I want to do a knitting update. But I can't. Everything I am making is a present for someone who reads the blog. I can't ruin the surprises. But -- get ready to gasp -- I am getting ready to start making something for myself soon. It's been a long while. I am going to make one of these Magknits shirts for summer. For me. Mine, all mine. Also I am itching to make socks. I plan to give these more-fun-than-cables socks a go while we're in the car heading back to the Midwest for block leave.

Mmmm. Selfish knitting.

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March 17, 2008

SEEING GREEN

I donated these preemie hats to the hospital last week. Isn't the "kiss me" one cute? That was my mother-in-law's idea.

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And happy birthday, Oda Mae!

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March 16, 2008

KNIT HAPPENS

You know what sucks? When you start a baby cardigan and then set it aside for about a month while you work on other things. Then you return to the cardigan and make the second front panel, only to find you used the wrong needle size. So you have a whole section made with size 3s instead of 4s. Oh, and despite the fact that you double-checked, you don't have enough yarn to finish the sleeves. Grrr.

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March 01, 2008

CRAFTING

I actually managed to sneak in a little bit of knitting for myself lately. I am working on another DNA scarf.

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And my buddy Heather shows up this week for her husband's homecoming ceremony (hooray!), so I have 110 squares for her Hand-Crafted Comfort.

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February 28, 2008

UNEMPLOYED

Oh man, I just got laid off! It's a corporate decision to stop offering classes, so there's the end of the greatest job ever. I will really miss those knitting classes. It was fun while it lasted.

But how on earth will we ever live without the $900 I made last year? Heh.

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February 25, 2008

MONKEYING AROUND

I spent four hours today sewing toes to feet and making up the monkey face. He's done, and he's pretty cute. Too bad he's not going to fetch $200.

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Remind me to never knit stuffed animals for strangers.

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February 23, 2008

MONKEY TOES

The new swear word around our house is "monkey toes."

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I'm still working on the spider monkey I started back in November, a project which has been sitting in pieces on my coffee table, mocking me for months. The hitch? Individually knitted toes. Twenty of 'em. Individually sewn on to individual feet. A nightmare of sewing and weaving in ends.

But now the twenty toes are made, and it's time to buckle down and stuff them (eek) and start sewing them to the feet. And sewing the feet to the legs.

Time to get this monkey off my back. Hardy har.

(And yes, I know that the toes look like, ahem, swimmers all lined up like that. Or feminine products. That wasn't the look I was going for when I took the picture.)

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February 06, 2008

WORTH IT

How do I love my pal Erin? Let me count the ways...

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Erin's first knitting project was this baby sweater, intended for a pregnant friend. But I wasn't there when she started it, so she didn't know that she could float the yarn up the side of the work instead of cutting at every color change. When she finished all the pieces and saw the tangle of mess she had to contend with, she picked the whole thing up and placed it in the garbage can.

Luckily, I was there at that moment, and knitting -- no matter how heinous -- does not belong in the garbage. I took it home and dumped it in a box of yarn, where it sat for three years.

And if Erin had adopted a girl, it would've sat there until eternity.
But Erin had a boy, and I had work to do.

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I cursed those tails as I wove them in, but I did it because I couldn't wait to hear the awe in Erin's voice when she realized that the first knitting project she ever made would actually be worn by her new baby.

And it was totally worth it.

"Tucker, look what your mommy and Aunt Sarah made for you," I heard her whisper over the phone.

Yep, totally worth it.

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February 03, 2008

FOOTBALL

Liveblogging the Super Bowl...no, just kidding. But I thought the Declaration of Independence segment was touching. Makes me feel so proud and embiggened.

And I am about to burst, I ate so much junk. Yum.

FYI, Super Bowl knitting includes another SWS Danica for Love My Tanker and a dishrag for my brothers' new apartment.

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February 02, 2008

KNITTED ITEMS IN ACTION

Yay, the hat I made for Tucker fits!
(I am used to making preemie stuff, so newborn stuff looks gigantic to me.)

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January 25, 2008

T FOR 'TIME TO LEAVE THE WOMB'

Erin should change her blog name to Erin Raves About Sarah...and I'll change mine to Trying To Be Humble And Not Link Every Time Erin Raves About Sarah.

But she got her baby gifts...

Incidentally, I was thinking about Tucker while I was knitting. But that's a lot of knitting, and I was definitely also spending some time thinking about the episode of South Park where they burn a cross on Will Smith's yard but say that they're burning the letter T. I kept repeating the line as I knit -- "T, for 'time to leave'" -- until my husband was about to go batty from hearing the same lame joke for two weeks.

Also I was thinking about what a bonehead I am for making a burnt orange blanket with an f-ing T on it to send to a family stationed in Texas. Of all the dumb moves. I was 2/3 through the blanket before I realized that everyone is going to think they're University of Texas alums.

And yes, my sewing machine tried to murder me.

Round three of Erin's presents will be on the way shortly, hopefully before the baby is born. One more week!

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HAND-CRAFTED AWESOME

I am mostly finished with this round of baby knitting, so I have thrown myself into crocheting squares for Hand-Crafted Comfort. Some of the ladies from my preemie knitting group donated yarn to me, and it all seemed to be red and blue. I threw some white in, and voilà:

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I made 35 of these new patriotic squares. Coupled with the 16 for my autumn-themed blanket, that means I'll ship at least 51 squares to Heather soon.

Hey, 51.

But Heather's in the process of moving -- her hubs is returning from Iraq soon! -- so who knows how many I'll have by the time she gets an address. I still have a lot of that red and blue left, and I love the freeing feeling I get when I'm using up extra yarn that's been sitting around for a decade.

(Yes, I have yarn that's been sitting around for a decade. If by "sitting around" you mean PCSing with us five times and being dragged across the Atlantic.)

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January 07, 2008

UPDATES

Butterfly Wife updated that she sent out her 696th card to wounded soldiers at Landstuhl. Not too shabby. So I thought I'd give a little update.

To break the monotony of baby knitting, I have thrown in a square or two.

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These 12 will be sent off to Heather for Hand-Crafted Comfort, her organization that assembles afghans for the wounded at Walter Reed. I haven't kept track of how many I've made total, but I am keeping track of certain colors because I am trying to make enough to provide an entire afghan. I've made 35 so far towards my own blanket. And isn't this just the greatest way to make a project: I do the fun stuff and then mail everything to Heather so she can assemble them, sew them together, weave in ends, and cut tails? Awesome. Why can't all my projects be like that?

And someone else mentioned the other day that we haven't had a pupdate in a while.

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This morning, Charlie had an upset stomach. Apparently he decided the best thing to do was to go all the way downstairs, crawl under the Christmas tree, barf, and then lay down in it. Our dog's a genius.

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January 05, 2008

HOORAY

The SpouseBUZZ knit-along is complete!

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January 01, 2008

A KNITTER'S SORROW

Knitting woes are universal:

I am convinced that all that jazz about the big Christmas Knitting Deadline and the Will it Fit/Will They Like it Debate fluffs up the project so much in our minds that if, when the recipient finally opens their gift, they have a heart attack and go totally blind from from the joy of it all that our knit-gifting experience will never be exactly what we expect. I mean, really, let's be honest. A heart attack and total blindness--add to that a small amount of some sort of incontinence or maybe a swoon or two would fall just a tiny bit short of what we'd expect, once we add up all those skyscraper dreams, etc. that we graft into all those stitches, bulky or not.

I can so relate. This year the two things I knitted for people in my husband's extended family, they didn't even understand what I had knit them. I had to mail their gifts, and apparently both of them spent a week staring at the items and wondering what they heck they were and why I'd made them.

My husband keeps telling me to stop knitting for non-knitters. But when you're a knitter, you can't go out and buy a pack of onesies for a baby gift; you have to make something for baby. So I have to live up to that expectation while balancing the fact that it takes about 60 straight hours of knitting to make a baby blanket.

So I keep going. I'm 3/5 of the way through little Tucker's gift. And it totally doesn't match the nursery. Sad.

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December 28, 2007

BUSY AS A...LADY KNITTING FOR TOO MANY BABIES (WAIT, THAT'S NOT CATCHY)

The other night, I couldn't fall asleep because I have too much knitting stress. For pete's sake, Erin's baby gets here in a month and I haven't even started! Not to mention the other babies popping on the scene in early 2008. I have knit myself into a corner and need to get out fast.

So I got out of bed and worked from midnight to 0200 to finish the project I had so selfishly started for myself.

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(It's Nakiska from Knitty, unblocked of course because blocking takes time.)

Now that that's out of the way, I'm on a strict baby knitting schedule, five or six hours a day. My husband looked at me today and said, "I think maybe you shouldn't knit so much." He means well, really he does, but I don't know what he was thinking when he said that. He says he only meant that it's a hobby and I shouldn't get so stressed out about an activity that's supposed to be fun and doesn't even bring us any income.

But Erin's baby can't knit for himself.

Back to work.

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December 23, 2007

1820 STITCHES TO GO

I'm a mere 13 rows away from finishing my huge knitting project so I can gift it. Thank heavens. It was meant to be 30,100 stitches made with love and appreciation, but at this point I just can't wait to put it in the mail.

And then I have to make this spider monkey, which someone is paying me to make.

And then I can concentrate on the other five projects I have sitting on my sofa...

The other day I got this ridiculous idea that I still had time before Christmas to make everyone I know a pair of these little mitten ornaments. Thank heavens I talked myself out of that before I even got started. I still want to make them, but everyone can get them next year.

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