A Tale of Two Socks

Every year for Christmas when I was growing up, I received knitted mittens (with weird thumbs - too tiny), a hat, and a knitted or crocheted toy. On occasion, we would receive hand knit socks. These precious items were lovingly knit for us by Mummu (my Finnish grandmother). The hand knit socks were not the kind of wear-in-regular-shoes kind of socks. These were big woolen socks that we would wear as slippers. The men wore them in their hunting boots. There are precious few of these socks left. Each of us has a pair (rumor has it that mom has two pair). We are very secretive about our socks. We're not sure what colors the others have. We don't know where the others keep theirs. We don't bring them out and ooh and ahh over them. We don't openly admit we have some. We don't even wear them anymore. (Well, I believe the men still wear them in their hunting boots). Yes, my friends, I have posted an actual picture of The Socks that are mine here on this blog. They are gray with red ribbing. I am outing The Socks. Let me tell you a story about The Socks. Years ago, a family member got divorced and lost pretty much all possessions in the divorce. He shook it off as matter of course in getting out of the marriage. However, one thing that upsets him to this day that the ex- offed with: a pair of Mummu's Socks. Now, people, I implore you, take everything in the divorce: the house, the vehicles, the boats, the furniture, the tools, take it all, but don't (I mean, come on people), don't take someone's hand-knit socks. They were not knit for her. They were knit many years before she even joined our family. She never even met my Mummu. If you look closely at my pair, the heel of one of The Socks has worn out. I did not wear this heel out. I have shown love and respect for The Socks throughout my life. A former boyfriend of mine found The Socks and wore them around. I was not aware of this until he brought them back for me to mend. His comment at my absolute disdain that he had taken The Socks was that "you don't even wear them". NONE OF US WEAR THEM! So, Mummu turned 101 this past November. There will be no more socks. There haven't been more socks for many years. My brother and father have asked for socks each year for Christmas because I am a knitter. I am the knitter. I finally realized this winter that it is now my duty to bring socks back to this family. I must admit that I do not enjoy knitting socks. But, I don't enjoy knitting sock yarn socks on size 3 DPNs. The Socks look to be knit in worsted weight yarn. I will take it upon myself to produce socks for my family. I will study The Socks. I will determine the gauge of The Socks. I will count rows and stitches and increases and decreases of The Socks. I will bring forth Socks... As I type this blog tonight, this is my view: This is my shadow. I call him Heimo.

Resolutions Revisited

2010 New Year's knitting resolutions:

1) Finish a project a month. This was a resolution last year. Took me a llllooooonnnnngggggg time to get Amused off the needles, but it finally happened. I'll post pics of it later. I adore it and wear it often.

2) Convert a piece-knit sweater into a sweater in the round. Read Jared Flood's articles and instructions in Vogue knitting series (as well as having Knitting Without Tears as a reference).

3) Make socks for mom! Learn to knit socks with two circulars.

I started Simply Marilyn, from Best of Interweave Knits, immediately after Christmas and got the sweater finished in record time: two weeks! Need to seam it up, but it is knitted up. January 2010's first sweater!

This week I made a Cherry Garcia, with major modifications, for a friend who works out in the cold Illinois winters. She was most appreciative. I knit it up in Catalina Chunky baby alpaca. So soft! So warm! Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of this project.

Wicked's Cross-over collar in very fuzzy photo.

Started Wicked by Sarah and Rachel from Zephyr Style. Finished the collar and am an inch or so into the body. I'm using a very pretty tweed called Blue Passion from Universal Yarn's Deluxe Worsted Tweed. The yarn feels a bit scratchy as I knit, but it is making a beautiful fabric.

As to whether or not I made last year's resolutions...Nope. I did get quite a few finished projects in all: Juliet, Amused, the adorable Stripey baby stocking cap from Itty Bitty Hats, a Cherry Garcia for my sister-in-law, slippers for both my brother and sister-in-law, a winter hat for sister-in-law, winter hats for me, my man, and a friend, and a scarf for mom. Here are a few FOs: Pictures of Amused and Simply Marilyn forthcoming.

Return from Blog Hiatus, part one

I have been on a long hiatus from my blog. There have been many changes in my life since my last post. Where to begin? Where to begin? Since I don't want to sit here typing all night, I'll start slowly and significantly:

Big change in life #1: My lovely man and I bought a house together. Our two households have become one. I now live with boys. (said man and his son) (and three male cats). Which is different. Very different. For example, tidiness is no longer a given in my life. There are evenings when I follow a trail of items from the door to the bedroom. Now my female brain begs the question: "If you were headed to the bedroom to begin with, why not wait until you got there to disrobe and/or drop items from your grip?" But the biggest difference is just how lovely it is for us to be a family here under one roof. All the little weirdness of males is nothing compared to all the wonder of being together.

Lots of work has gone into this house to make it ours. We moved essentially two blocks from where we originally lived. Three years ago I moved across country from Arizona to Illinois. I have to tell you, I think it was easier to move across country than to move two blocks! Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth you drive, carrying loads. Apparently the mindset is that since the move is that close than it should be easy to knock out yourself. After a week of this, we hired a crew!

The entire house (except for one room) needed to be repainted to my taste. Lovely lovely man allowed me to choose all colors and his basic line was "if you like it, I love it". Gotta say, I love my choices of room colors. Then the unpacking. Then the decorating. More unpacking. Unfortunately we have a full basement, so too many boxes were disposed of (outta sight) down there, so believe it or not, we're still not fully unpacked. Lots to discard and donate and re-box left. The plan has been to use the cold days of winter to accomplish this. We've had a couple cold months of winter here so far and few efforts have gone into this, but there's still plenty of winter left, right?

Here are some before and after shots:

Above is living room before we started painting and decorating. Below is living painted Santa Fe Boulder and decorated. Dark chocolate half wall before:

After:

Dining room to kitchen view before: After:Above view to dining and kitchen before; below is after. There are a some additional changes that have been made that are not photographed yet, but I will continue to update as we go. It's a lot of fun putting a new home together! It's a joy to come home to a new home together!

Ribbed, For My Pleasure

Amused is starting to look like a sweater. I am now on the k2p2 bottom. Row after row of k2p2. 8 inches to be exact. The pattern calls for 6 inches of ribbing, but I've decided to add a few inches. This much ribbing seems endless. But I love the end result. What girl wouldn't want 8 inches of ribbed pleasure. For those of you who weren't sure...I'm talking knitting.

I'm Crazy Comfortable Right Now!

I made a purchase recently of lounge pants (sweat pants without the elastic). These are hands down "the most comfortable pants in the world" (to be sung to the tune of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in true Bing Crosby fashion). Now, I don't know if y'all are like me, but when I make a discovery like this, it makes a huge impact. On my comfort level. On my happiness. On my particular brand of crazy. So, thinking that these pants would eventually have to go into the washing machine and then I'd be without the most comfortable pants in the world for at least a few hours, I decided to purchase another pair. Off to Target I ran. While at Target, however, I realized that these pants would, over time, wear out. It's not that I'm hard on pants; I'm really not. But it will happen over time. And I think it's safe to say that we all know that when they do wear out, Target will no longer be carrying them. So, we can all guess what I did. That's right, I bought several (I will not write the actual number out of fear that one of you will turn me in for a full psychiatric evaluation and quite frankly with my schedule right now, I don't have the time). Two are now in wearing rotation. The others are waiting patiently in the closet for their day.

My Cat Has a Drinking Problem (but I'm going to heaven)

People, I am living in a house with special needs cats. Seriously. I've already shared with all of you tales of my youngest kitty who has applied for Poster Cat of Cat Allergies, and I'm pretty sure he's going to win that one. Well, he is not alone in either 1) quirky cat behavior; 2) health issues; or 3) some combination of the two.

I have a beautiful tabby boy named Toivo. He is a rez kitty. I found him on the Navajo Reservation walking home for lunch one day. I picked him up, put him in my bathroom so he wouldn't give any weird cat illnesses caught on the rez to my Jacob, and decided I would return home at the end of the day and find him a home. Guess I didn't realize at that moment that I'd already found him a home. Toivo is my big boy and he's a big baby. His health issues, you ask? Well, he has inflammatory bowel disease (that's right). This could be due to the fact that he eats plastic and lately CARPET! He likes to pull up single plies from the carpet and EAT THEM. Little tasty treats, apparently. A friend mentioned that I should pull a bunch up, keep them in a baggie and toss individual pieces to him as rewards for good behavior. Nice.

His latest health issue began around a year ago. I have a ground floor, an upstairs and a basement. The bedroom is upstairs. Because I have no children and my cats are my life and I get weird notions in my head occasionally (largely because I have too much time on my hands), I decided to put a water dish upstairs in the bedroom for the kitties. May I say, in my defense, that the other special need kitty, Estelle, has weight issues, and I thought it might be a relief to her to not have to navigate the stairs to get to the water dish. I know, I know, I wasn't thinking that the stair climbing would be good exercise for her. Hindsight is 20/20, people. Well, Toivo thought that having a water dish in the bedroom was TERRIFIC! He started getting all his water from that dish. Then, he started protecting that water dish. Now, he has to have some level of activity, so there were occasions that the other cats would drink from that dish. He was having none of that. So, apparently, his resolution to this was to drink all the water himself. Here's a little anatomy lesson: Cats are supposed to have highly concentrated urine. Their bodies are set up to drink little water. So now, Toivo, in his territorial madness, has created his own health problem. His system flushes from all the water, the urine can't concentrate, his body realizes that, so he craves more water in an attempt to produce urine, he flushes his system, the urine can't concentrate, his body realizes that...you get the crazy cycle that's going on here. Yup! That's my boy. I'm not going to tell you how much I spent at the vet's office with tests and whatnot to figure this out. All that lab work. To learn he's basically neurotic. Lovely.

Here's the deal. Kindergarten teachers are going to heaven. That's just gotta be a fact. Have you seen a kindergarten classroom? I tried; I tried, because I, too, want to get to heaven. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not cut from that cloth. Those little guys, cute as they are, would drive me to all sorts of hysteria if they were my full-time job. But, I'm thinking that these cats are definitely my way in.

Everybody Needs to Feel Important

Life has been very stressful for me of late. I should actually knit more under stress, but I don't. Knitting can be such a zen experience and calming, but when I'm mega stressed, I just don't seem to grab the knitting bag. My lovely kitties have been all over me today. My little shadow Heimo is such a dear. He sat in my lap and gazed at me while tears ran down my cheeks over the stressors in my life. I rewarded him with hugs, or maybe I rewarded myself with those hugs. We all need to feel important in life, and my cats always make me feel important. Always. They remind me that when I'm feeling unimportant and insignificant, that I am indeed important and significant to them. And that counts. And that reminds me that I am significant to myself as well. I have been working on Amused. There were a few snags I had to work out mathematically to get the fit I want. We'll see if I do indeed get the fit I want. I have no pictures to update, but hope to get a few more inches knit over the next few days and then I'll try it on and snap a few to post. It's a top down sweater, which allows me to try it on as I knit. (need to lengthen my cable so that it doesn't pop off the needles when I do.) Oh, and Heimo and I will need to ball a hank this week. Oh joy.

Broken Resolutions and School Burritos

Well, that resolution went flying out the window! Amused is still on the needles and I have spent ridiculous little time knitting. After I get off this computer, I plan to work some rows. It's not that I've been amazingly busy or anything. I haven't. Did get the house scoured from top to bottom this weekend, went to the movies and shopping and dinner with a friend, but that's it. Not the "I can't believe I'm too busy to even knit a few rows" kind of lifestyle. Just hasn't happened. Also, February is a short month, so yeah, can't expect to finish a project in February, right? Maybe I'll get this off the needles by the end of March, when it will be too warm to wear it. Let's hope the end of March will be too warm to wear a sweater! I'm a bit tired of the cold winters. Last year when I was still newly transplanted from Arizona, the snow and cold was fun and a bit of a novelty. Yeah. The novelty has WORN OFF! I'm not hating it, but I'm definitely ready for warmer temps. In a completely unrelated story, I have a "from the mouths of babes" to share. I was teaching the after school program at our school the past two months (which is now finished!!! Yippee!). I would have the kids meet me by the restrooms, they would take their restroom/drink break, we'd head off for our snacks and then begin the computer lab programs leveled to their particular remediation needs. Anyway, one afternoon last week while on the computers, a young man (4th grader) came up to me holding his belly with grimace on his face and asked to use the restroom. He was gone for quite some time. When he returned I asked him if he was sick and he said "No, but that's the last school burrito I'm ever going to eat!". The fifth grader sitting next to him, without even looking up from his computer screen, concurred "they'll get you every time, dude."