What a Life!

Dad and Ben in Florida last May

Dad and Joey in Oklahoma last November.

I’m making a hat for myself. I’ve already made mittens out of the same yarn to wear when I exercise in cold weather. The intended use for the hat is the same.

Of course, I’m not using a pattern as I seem to be physically unable to do that these days. I thought and thought about how I wanted to make this hat. I finally decided that I wanted to take a stab at entrelac. If you’re not a knitter, entrelac is a special technique where you knit offsetting squares one by one and it looks kind of like basketweave.

Naturally, I did not do a swatch. I just started out knitting. [Nonknitters – a swatch is where you knit a small sample using the yarn and stitches you will use in the real project to get an idea of how it is going to look as well as an opportunity to calculate how many stitches you will need to achieve the desired size in the finished object.] The times when I have done a swatch, my gauge in the real thing never matched my gauge in the swatch so it was a waste of time anyway. My gauge matches the gauge published on the yarn label almost without exception so that is usually my starting point.

Truthfully, gauge is kind of like an insurance policy. The theory is that if you do a test swatch, you have a better idea of what the final result is going to be and you can make any necessary adjustments before you invest a lot of time in something. But if you gauge almost always matches the gauge published on the yarn label, how many times are you actually going to save yourself time by taking the time to do a gauge swatch?

Now in this instance, it might have helped me. The nature of entrelac makes its gauge quite different from the gauge of regular knitting. But I set out without doing a gauge swatch with a full understanding that I was risking having to rip the whole thing out if I didn’t like the final result.

And, ladies and gentlemen, I am not happy with the final result.

I have eightteen little squares on each round, and it’s two squares too big. When I try the hat on – it isn’t finished yet…just enough that I can try it on – there are little ripples where it caves in because it is simply too big. And I really wish I had done two more rows of ribbing. It would look just that much nicer.

That’s pretty much the conclusion that I had come to when I took it to my “knitting committee” this weekend – namely, the twice monthly knitting group I attend. I tried it on and everyone said it looked just fine and no one would notice the creases I was complaining about. Someone even told me, “Good enough is good enough. No project is ever going to come out perfect.”

And to a degree, I agree. Perfection is something to strive for, but not something one should necessarily expect to attain.

I quilt so I can have quilts, not for the love of quilting. But I knit because I love knitting, not because I want to have lots of sweaters.

Which leads to the reason why I’ve decided to rip it out and do it over…I can get twice as much enjoyment out of this project if I do it over. Not only do I have the pleasure of more knitting, I have the satisfacting of coming up with a better way of doing it as well as being happier with my result. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes the designer in me a very happy camper.

Must go…I have some frogging to do.

Today we’re going to talk about what my real New Year’s resolutions were. Yes, apparently the ones I so proudly posted weren’t the real thing.

Here’s my real resolution: Not to quit when I fail.

There. That’s it. Very simple.

Seriously. We all got sick so I didn’t get much reading done. Would you believe I didn’t knit for two entire days while I was sick last week? You know I’m really sick if I’m not knitting. Two nights ago I finally finished my “December book.” Remember I said I was going to read one book per month? It was the one I was going to finish in December. It was a good one – I would recommend it. Now I’m reading Vinegar Hill. I started it last night and it seems to be good so far.

Taking time for myself every day? I don’t always get the qualtiy time to myself that I want. Other people in the house wake up (Ben and Joey were awake at 6:00 a.m. yesterday). Occasionally I sleep in (until 7:45 Saturday morning…which is really late for me). I’m still not a member of the Five O’Clock Club which I’d like to be, but I did get up at 5:45 this morning.

Here’s the problem with the Five O’Clock Club thing. My alarm clock is actually a radio turned down really low. I don’t like to be startled by some bleeping thing when I wake up in the morning. I use the sleep button to turn it on at night while I read in bed and then go to sleep. I listen to classical music – very relaxing. I like to have it turned down low for the sleep thing. And since it turns itself off, I don’t have to wake myself up reaching over to turn it off before I go to sleep.

I’ve had this alarm clock for at least ten years, and I’ve always been able to wake up to that nice soft radio every morning at the same volume I go to sleep by. However, when I was pregnant with Joey, I learned to sleep through it. Not a good thing. So now it goes off in the morning and I still wake up whenever I wake up. Somehow I need to teach myself to wake up when the radio comes on again. Gotta work on that…

And exercise? I think January in Nebraska is the worst month to start an exercise routine, especially one that involves going outdoors. I don’t like exercising right away when I wake up in the morning. For me, the perfect time is right after Steve leaves for work. But I don’t have a double stroller, and even if I did, Joey isn’t sitting up yet, and how would I keep the boys warm? Joey is too fussy in the evening for me to leave the house. Steve’s classes started up and they’re heavy writing classes this time (no tests). He really doesn’t have time to spend the evening trying to console a crying baby.

I still have every intention of going for daily walks again. But I think it’s going to have to wait until the weather warms up a bit. Last year, I went for daily walks in February and March – I just did it after lunch when it was 40 degrees out. Perhaps I’ll get a double stroller for my birthday and Joey will be big enough to at least prop up in it. Then I could happily walk every day (except for when it rains, of course). I miss walking. I miss warm weather.

I have other New Year’s Resolutions as well. My resolve is the same with them – to not quit when I fail. To get back on the horse when I fall off. To get back up and keep running after I skin my knee. That resolution pretty much applies to all of my life. If you look at that resolution alone, so far I’m doing pretty good.

Well, we took Ben to the doctor Saturday morning. He spent most of Thursday and Friday sleeping on the wood floors in our house (his choice, not mine). Then he threw up Friday evening, had hardly eaten or drank anything for the past three days, and would just lie on the floor and moan (or sleep). He wouldn’t tell us where he hurt, though. Steve made a bed for him on the living room floor Friday evening and went to bed himself on the couch. Around midnight he started crying again and Steve was unable to console him so he got me up and I decided to call the doctor. The doctor said he didn’t think we needed to go to the emergency room but that we should bring him by the office the next morning.

After a fairly simple exam by the doctor – listen to the back, listen to the chest, feel the tummy, look in the ears… Ah, Ben has an ear infection. Yes, he is 3 1/2 years old, and this is his first ear infection.

The doctor gave us an antibiotic to give him, and needless to say, he is feeling much better. Yesterday, he got out all of his toys and played with them – he had to use his rocking horse as a stool to get into the tote where I had stashed them in an effort to limit the number of toys in circulation and thus limit the clutter (so much for that idea!). This morning, he got ahold of one of my balls of yarn and unraveled it. Like I said, he is feeling much better…

I spent the morning thus far writing up some of my knitting patterns. Of course, they are not ready to publish yet. I simply have something that I can edit. I’m developing my own style of writing patterns, and it is quite fun.

My inspiration for this recent flourish of pattern writing activity? Saturday afternoon I went to my knitting group, and while there I passed around one of my latest finished objects – a set of mittens. These were not your average mittens, of course. They have an invisible gusset as well as a couple of tricks that minimize the holes that seem to always appear at the base of the thumb.

Right now I am knitting a little sweater for the daughter of a dear friend of mine. She saw this sweater that I knit for our new baby and wanted one for her little girl in purple and pink. Needless to say, it’s fun to knit in girly colors.

Here is a picture of the original sweater:

That little sweater is one of my first designs. It is knit in one piece from the bottom up. And yes, those are set-in sleeves you see. I don’t mind seaming, but I hate sewing in sleeves because they never line up exactly either stitch to stitch or row to row. This little sweater has short-row sleeves which are knit in such a way that the stripes line up perfectly. It’s tricky to the point of being quite clever…at least that’s what I think.

This time I am writing up the pattern as I go. Perhaps when I’m finished, I shall submit it for publication. Perhaps. Right now I’m just having fun writing it up.

Enough about sickness. Let’s talk about knitting.

I have decided to join the Stash Game of 2007.

For those of you who are not knitters…we knitters have this habit of buying yarn that we’re going to knit and then building up a “stash” which is a collection of that yarn which has not yet been knit. Then from time to time there are “stash games” on internet boards or in the blogging world where knitters challenge each other to knit only from their stash – as in, not buy any yarn – for a given period of time.

First, a few comments about my current stash.

At Thanksgiving, we inherited a chest of drawers from my Grandma Heinrich as part of a bedroom set. The top set has four drawers – two small ones that fit on one level and then two big ones below. My sock yarn fits in one of the small drawers. My remnants from completed projects fit in the other small drawer. Then I have one drawer of cotton and cotton blends and one drawer of wool. Considering the fact that some of my knitting friends have “a room full of yarn,” it’s a rather modest stash. [If you’re wondering what’s in the bottom two drawers, it’s my sewing stash.]

Another thing you need to know about my stash is that I buy yarn for specific projects – I don’t just buy yarn because I like it. That means that if I decide to knit a certain project, I have to go out and buy yarn for that specific project; I can’t just go to my stash and find something that would work, as many knitters do. So all of the yarn in those drawers is earmarked for specific projects. The only exceptions would be yarn from two specific projects that I made but hated the end result and so I frogged them and wound the yarn back into balls.

I may sound like a complete nerd, but I must confess I have a list of all the yarn I own and the projects associated with every skein, and that list is kept in a separate knitting section of my planner. The tab on that section is blue because blue is my favorite color and I like to knit.

There. Now, with embarrasing admissions aside, here are the rules which I have set up for myself:

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through September 30, 2007 — a period of nine months.

2. I will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

2.a. Projects committed to prior to the beginning of the stash game (as in, I bought the pattern with the specific intention of knitting a given item but haven’t purchased yarn for it yet due to indecision as to what yarn to use) are exempt. Those projects are included on my list of knitting projects in my planner so there is no doubt as to what they are.

2.b. Knitted gifts – specific gifts require specific yarn. Like I said, I don’t have yarn in my stash to use for these types of projects. One never knows when an opportunity to present a knitted gift might occur, and knitted gifts are generally small projects requiring one or two skeins. Thus all knitted gifts not already on the list of projects qualify as exceptions.

2.c. If I am knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project.

2.d. I get one “Get Out of Jail Free” card — I am allowed to fall off the wagon one time.

3. I am allowed to receive gifts of yarn.

4. Trading stash is allowed.

5. If I run out of yarn before the contest period ends, I am allowed to go out and buy whatever yarn I please as though the contest period has ended. While I do not consider this likely, in my knitting life, I will confess to coming rather close to this more than once.

Well, Steve went back to work yesterday afternoon. I think the pain of things piling up on his desk was greater than the pain he was feeling from being sick. He still was hardly eating anything I fixed for him, so you know the pain of things piling up on his desk had to be pretty bad.

As for Ben, well… Tuesday evening he had quite an appetite, and as I reported, he was acting like his evil self all day Tuesday while Steve and I could hardly move (which poses the question of whether he was being bad because he was feeling better or because we weren’t disciplining him due to our inability to get up off the couch?). Yesterday morning I fed him breakfast, but he only ate half of his usual first course. I could tell he was dehydrated because his little eyes were dark and his lips were chapped, but I had a hard time getting him to drink.

In the afternoon, the farting began. Let me just say, being sick myself was quite miserable. But smelling Ben’s farts was almost worse. Oh my goodness! He had a little bit of diarhea, but it was mostly farts into clean pants (trust me, I was checking often).

Then came the real diarhea. I’m telling you, I’ve heard parents talk about those cloth diapers where the poop was so gross the threw away the diaper instead of cleaning it even though they paid $20 for that single diaper (that price being the high end for diapers – ours only cost me $2.50 to $5 each). I rinsed that one out in the toilet…which caused me to gag but I didn’t quite barf. Then I took it downstairs and put it in the load of dirty diapers I had just started. Had someone else changed that diaper, they would have been immediately pardoned had they just thrown it away.

Needless to say, I put Ben in the tub when I took that diaper off. I filled the tub with warm water, washed him from head to toe (he’d gotten poop on his clothes and the rug when I undressed him so everything else got washed too). Then I drained the water and re-filled the tub and let him play for a bit. When he got out, I put his jammies on even though it was only shortly after five o’clock.

Oh, and let me add a little drama to the story (in case there isn’t enough for you already). I was watching Oprah yesterday. In our area, it comes on twice – at three o’clock on one station and at four o’clock on another. I was watching the three o’clock showing and it was about classes in America and how people make assumptions and treat people in the upper class versus middle or lower class. Warren Buffet is I think the second richest person in the U.S. and he happens to live in Omaha. His granddaughter was on the show, and when it originally showed, everyone was talking about it. I, however, had missed it so I was watching so I could see the clip.

So I’m watching the show and Oprah does the tag that they’re going to be talking with Warren Buffet’s granddaughter in the next segment, they go to commercial break and in cuts Katie Couric with special coverage of President Gerald Ford’s funeral.

Now I don’t mean any disrespect or anything. I watched the coverage of the entire funeral and processions Tuesday morning, from when they moved the casket out of the Capitol Building to when the plane took off for Michigan. I’ve heard the Ruffles and Flourishes, Hail to the Chief, the 21-Gun Salute with big army cannons, and watched them take the casket in and out of the hearse more than once. And they were interrupting Oprah to do it again.

So I noted the time – 3:43 – and hoped that they would be back to regular programing by the time 4:43 rolled around and I could catch that segment as part of the second showing.

I don’t know if you’ve figured out where I’m going with this yet, but it was around 4:00 that Ben started the stinky farting and around 4:40 that he had the big poopy diaper. The tv was still on, but I can’t say I saw much of the segment the second time either. So I still don’t know what all the buzz was about. And I really wanted to know. Oh well. Maybe they’ll do a re-run of that show again sometime.