Lindsay's Mint Leaf February Baby Sweater

 Knittin' with the Kittens

I have made several versions of this pattern in the past few years.  To spice it up this time I picked out a lace pattern with a 14 stitch repeat, Beech Leaf Lace.  I was inspired by the minty color of the yarn.  It came from my friend Stacy's stash, which she generously handed down to me not too long ago.  I don't usually buy acrylic blends, so this Plymouth Dreambaby DK would never have found it's way onto my needles otherwise.  I was pleasantly surprised by how soft it is, and the color is just lovely.  Moms appreciate wash-ability in baby items, so being an acrylic blend is a good thing for this application. I hope it still fits the baby, who has been waiting very patiently and probably doesn't even need a sweater during this second warmest spring on the record books...

 The sleeves were done last, in the round.  Which is not how EZ says to do it, but it worked ok for me.

 Finally, after languishing for a month waiting for buttons, the sweater is finished.

Kitties can not resist knitted things.

Here is the link to my project on Ravelry.  If you are a Raveler, send me a message or something!  I don't have the social networking aspect of that website quite worked out, but man, can I make use of their incredible pattern library!

For the Kitties

Someone, before we lived in the house, decided to refinish the banister. Rather, they started to, but gave up partway through the process. It is not pretty, and I honestly can think of about ten thousand things I would rather do than get into the toxic work of stripping the rest of the paint off the woodwork. I have been ignoring it, for the most part, since we moved in. However, someone got a nasty sliver from it not too long ago, because as you can see in the above photo, Jack Burton just LOVES to sharpen his claws there. We can't have people getting splinters every time they come downstairs, that is a public safety hazard. Rather than execute the kitties, I decided to cover the problem up with a half-baked idea and some slapdash craftsmanship.
One day my friend Bryan said "I have some goat hair fabric in my possession!" and like magic the goat hair fabric appeared in my living room. I draped the square over the offensive banister and that was that for a month or so, till the kitties figured out how to knock it off. Then last night I decided to more permanently attach the scratchity fabric, so I located the HEAVY DUTY staple gun, a big ol' pair of scissors, and when the scissors proved too fainthearted to cut through the fabric against the grain, my trusty Dozier Folder.
Last year I wrapped the newel post with some macrame cord I found at Goodwill, to maybe give the boys someplace more satisfying than the banister to scratch. I tried to unwind it, only to find that it had become one with the gnasty half removed paint underneath - so I incorporated it into the new design. I think it gives the project a little bit of a "really crazy people live here" feeling. Also it will help the fabric stay up once the cats find and pull out the staples. I hope. But there are a lot of staples.

So far neither one of the kitties have tried it out. It will last longer that way.

Oughta be Knitting, But...

So I signed up to teach this knitting class. I can't lie, after the first session I was a little dispirited. It is one thing to teach your kid how to knit over a period of several years. It is quite another to teach ten (mostly) strangers to knit in two hours (which was supposed to only be one hour). It didn't turn out quite like I hoped. Still, they invited me back the next week to give it another go, and so I have been trying to find a different approach to teaching the class (one that actually helps the students learn how to knit). Friday I go back to try again, keep your fingers crossed for us all! I feel like if I can surmount this first hurdle, I can share all the cool knitting tricks I have picked up over the years.


Yesterday I felt like I needed to do something really creative and spontaneous. Trying to pick apart the mental processes of knitting so I can teach them to other people... it is just kind of hard for me (which is why I am doing all this in the first place, honestly.). I was reworking my lesson plans, my approach to teaching the knit stitch, and every time I wrote something different down the internal critic sliced at me. A step back, a different perspective, a diversion, was just what I needed, and so I decided to dye some yarn.

I have been reading about dyeing yarn for a year or more. It is one of the knitting peripherals I have been avoiding on purpose. Like my Dad, I have a tendency to get really into something and then about halfway to mastery, get seduced by something else. I didn't want to have to make an investment in dyes and tanks and dedicated equipment, and moreover I didn't want anything to take me away from the knitting I am working on - sweaters for Keith and Delia, gifts for loved ones, my fruit and veggie projects... Oh well, too late now!

It took about an hour, not including the trip to Krogers for my dye. Hello Kool-Aide! I followed, more or less, this tutorial from Knitty, all the while thinking about the hand dyed skeins I have met and loved. The flavors I used on this hank were Black Cherry, Lemon and Orange. I already have at least two more colorways floating around in my brain, and with Kool-Aide coming in at about twenty cents a packet, I think I can even pull it off before my next paycheck comes in!

The yarn I dyed was Homespun Yarn from Bemidji Woolen Mills in Bemidji Minnesota, purchased several years ago from the Needlecraft Barn in Morgantown. It weighed in at almost 3 oz. AND IT STILL SMELLS LIKE FRUIT! Rohn actually ate about 4 inches out of the top of the ball after the photo shoot before I could stop him. He loves yarn as much as I do, but in a slightly different way.

Poem of the Day

I woke up this morning and these two guys were asleep at my feet. My precious little boys, I love them so.

exactly right

by Charles Bukowski

the strays keep arriving: now we have 5
cats and they are smart, spontaneous, self-
absorbed, naturally poised and awesomely
beautiful.

one of the finest things about cats is
that when you're feeling down, very down,
if you just look at the cat at rest,
at the way they sit or lie and wait,
it's a grand lesson in preserving
and
if you watch 5 cats at once that's 5
times better.

no matter the extra demands they make
no matter the heavy sacks of food
no matter the dozens of cans of tuna
from the supermarket: it's all just fuel for their
amazing dignity and their
affirmation of a vital
live
we humans can
only envy and
admire from
afar.

"exactly right" by Charles Bukowski, from The Night Torn with Mad Footsteps: New Poems. © Black Sparrow Press, 2001.

Lifted from The Writer's Almanac

Things that are making me happy Right Now

Pizza with garlic & onion sauce, topped with spinach, mushrooms, ricotta, roasted beets and Havarti cheese.


My fern is growing!


Elizabeth Zimmerman's puzzle of a baby sweater pattern, and the magical internet community of knitters called Ravelry which helps me make sense of it. Oh, and the Araucania Nature Wool that is such a pleasure to knit up.


My Distinguished Scholar daughter, who brought home some stratospheric WesTest results, decided to scent our last batch of homemade laundry soap with her lemon balm from the garden, and also gave me a foot massage.


The wet orange leaves all over my neighbor's driveway and the smell of earth after rain.


Our little PurrMonster Rohn, jumping up onto my lap on purpose.

Kitty in the Cupboard

Jack has this habit of opening cabinets, and now he has a new pair of cabinet doors to open. We were discussing what to keep in the buffet (which was supposed to become Delia's new dresser, but after much heaving and swearing getting it into the house, we determined that we would never get it up the stairs!) but Jack has his own plans for the space.



The matching dining table is so rad, because is shrinks right up. It lengthens out to seat 8 when all the leaves are added in, but for just the three of us we are going to keep it tiny.

Thanks Mom, for the grown up furniture!

Ron the Cat Becomes a Man

Toys and Games

I sat down this morning at the computer to read up on Feats for my D&D character, since I earned enough points in last night's game to make 12th level. Nobody who reads this blog cares though, I know, but I also made the revelation last night that the game is actually MORE fun when there aren't 24 beers sitting in the fridge when we start playing! But I never actually made it to the D20 Resource because I got sidetracked first by catshit.
Yes, catshit. Every cat owner knows how annoying it is. Lately here at Edgehill House we have experienced the drastic comparison between the eliminations of one 5 lb dog and that of 2 16 lb cats. Since I have been using fabric tote bags at the grocery store lately, my supply of plastic t-shirt bags has declined. I reached into my plastic-bag-holder the other day and came up empty. Into what shall I scoop the contents of my cat-litter pan? Oh My! So I get one of the little blue baggies that are attached to Tycho's leash, these are supposedly biodegradable. Great idea, yes? I guess so, but it just illustrates for me how much waste my cats create. I bet half the weight of my household garbage is made up of catcrap! The sheer volume of catshit is three to four times that of our daily dogcrap, and the dog usually goes outside!
This morning one of my cats takes a constitutional while I'm websurfing and drinking coffee (and the same thing happened last night while my Gamer friends were all sitting around my dining room table eating Windmill Cookies). Jehesius Chee-rhist! I was embarrassed last night and annoyed this morning, in both cases it required my immediate response. Sometimes people have suggested (very diplomatically) that we move the catbox upstairs, to the laundry room maybe... I have tried this, and the cats just crap on the floor where the litter box used to be. So we live with it, and let me tell you how it has been "enhanced" by a cat who sneaks in and eats dog food whenever he can. PU!
So anyway, first I was distracted by my stinky cat box, then I was distracted by an email about TVshows I don't even watch - there was a picture of Christian Slater, I was compelled to click! Stupid marketing... And then I was distracted by a link to the new toy I want for Xmas... the ASUS Eee PC.
I saw this toy at Target, it is in fact right in the toy department (except across the aisle in Electronics, which is just toys for adults). It is a tiny computer, about the size of a trade paperback, weighing less than 2 lbs, that would Fit In My Purse. It runs on Linux and automatically connects to any open Wi-Fi connection. It has just enough processing power to surf the internet. I want want want it. I want it like my daughter wants a Wii. I will have it, eventually. My Geek Friend Steve(n) tells me that Mac is releasing a mini-notebook this coming Tuesday, and then he spent 15 minutes showing me how his iPod did everything I could want and more. So I will look at Apple's offering (Dell also has a teeny meenie, but it costs more than the ASUS and runs Windows), but I am still attracted to the immediacy of walking into Target with three hundred dollars in cash and walking out with a little friend to take to the Riverstone, where the Guinness is draft and the Wi-Fi is free. Keith says then he will be able to write a book about being an internet widower.