Sweater show

Sunday night I finished the raglan sweater for myself:

I really need to wash and block it so the sleeves will stop creeping up my arms, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

And Wednesday after lunch I started this little green number and finished it this morning-- a mere 47 hours later. I think that's a new record for me and sweater making. (Probably because it has short sleeves, but let's not diminish my victory shall we?)

A quick and easy knit on big needles with bulky yarn, it is very cosy and I plan to wear it today.

We can thank Dorian for the photos which made the first sweater look lighter and the second look darker. But you get the gist of it.

The little stinker

Last week when Dorian slept until 10am, he got up and announced to me that he had "slept as long as a skunk." As baffling as this initially seemed to me, I did have to concede that I don't know how long skunks sleep and that 14 hours may be right on the money.

Then today, Dorian asked me to blow on his pizza because it was "as hot as a skunk on fire." At least it didn't have the accompanying smell.

My awesome idea that will never come to fruition

The other night it came to me-- what the world really needs is a knitting band. A band that plays music about knitting, and-- get this!-- has a pattern in each song. So if you listen to the song (which would of course be amazing in its own right and feature cookie monster vocals like this) and follow the knitting instructions, you would end up with a sock or a hat or something.

This is pure genius, I know, which just makes it sadder that it will never happen. I just don't have any musical talent. Having a 94% average on Medium drums on RockBand just isn't enough. Maybe I should pass the idea along to Kelley Deal.

Boo to that!

Friday night, I was almost finished with my sweater. I was so close I could taste it. Then I noticed a mistake and I ripped back 10 rows. I redid the ten rows and then I did 8 more, but something was nagging at me. The yarn, which is somewhat variegated, was doing a sort of stripe thing. But I thought it might not be that bad, which is why I knit 68 of the 92 rows.

And then I looked at it in the cold light of day and it was striped alright. No doubt about it. The only problem being that none of the rest of the sweater is striped. And I didn't set out to have a sweater with one striped sleeve. No, sir. And thus it was frogged. (When you rip it! rip it!) Almost 3 hours of knitting undone in about 30 seconds.

Lucky for me I had another skein and it seems to be working out much better. Maybe I'll even get to wear it tomorrow...

But I'm thinking I maybe need some more stripes in my life and I might need to make one of these, just in a different colorway. You know, because I didn't get enough yarn the other day. It's a miracle I make it out of that yarn store empty handed most weeks.

Fits like a glove... but it's a sock.

After the multiple distractions of samples for the yarn store, I finally finished sock #1 of my mystery socks.

As I have said before, I think I would like the finished product better in a more solid colored yarn, but that isn't what I used and I do love this yarn anyway.

And because I was done with one sock and one sleeve, I obviously deserved to cash in my chips at the store and take my yarn that I get in trade for the samples. More distractions!

Now the question is: More selfish projects, or do I actually make things for others for the holidays?

I'm not dead and the computer isn't broken.

I just haven't felt much like blogging lately. I'm trying to wind down from all the PTA rigmarole and remember what to do when I'm not counting other people's money and having meetings and answering endless emails. (Hint: it involves laundry. And having coffee with Amanda while we both fight falling asleep in our armchairs.)

Not having all that to do certainly doesn't mean that I'm not busy, but it has been a more positive kind of busy-ness. Like the boys' birthdays happening last Friday and today. 7 and 4 is a little crazy to think about, but sounds about right. And Rob's birthday falls in the middle, so it has been a week of birthday celebrations, including a trip to the Montshire Museum on Saturday.

Poor DeeDee has been a little under the weather. Friday he was very sensitive and a little snippy. And Saturday he slept until 10am! (I'm not sure when I will stop thinking that oversleeping is a sure indication of my children's deaths, but if I don't get over it soon I'll have quite a time when they are teenagers.) He was healthy and happy when he did finally wake up and was fine Sunday and Monday. But this morning he didn't want to wake up for school and fell asleep again before dinner and then at 6:30 announced it was time for bed. (He did find time to open his presents first.) He doesn't have a fever or anything, but has complained of some leg pain and a headache, and I wouldn't put it past him to be growing again.

Sebastian has been doing well and we had a good parent teacher conference yesterday, which was much better than the other four where either his teachers didn't know what to do with him, didn't think he belonged in their class, or provoked me into an argument. He even won a little prize at All School Sing for doing some extra math problems, so he was excited by that.

I have been trying to fit in the knitting time and am about 10 rows from finishing the first sleeve on my sweater, just have the toe to complete on the first mystery sock, and finished the knitting for the purse and purchased the lining fabric and buttons and just need to buckle down and get it done. Of course, all that has been interrupted by another design for the store. So I am also in the middle of a lacy cowl done in this yarn.

And Jeremy is up to his usual nonsense, monkeying up the English language. In one day he managed to admonish the children to use a "food towel" (napkin) and to ask why all my "hair bops" (rubber bands) were lying around.

As Dorian would say, "The End. That's it."

What I learned at the swine flu clinic

• I made the right choice in not vaccinating my children. Sebastian would have lost his mind in that situation.
• Holding down a child who is not your own is somehow easier.
• Managing 160 children in grades K-6 who have just received vaccines is not easy, but it is possible. At least I didn't have them all at once.
• 4th-6th grade boys will choose a picture of a seahorse to color over all the other choices available, including monkeys and dinosaurs. Who knew?
• Out of 160 kids, only one had absolutely horrible behavior, but she did write me an apology so I'll forgive her.
• And out of 160 kids, only one needed to call her mother. She was a 5th grader.
• Older kids found this to be a fantastic opportunity for bragging, ie. punching themselves where they got the shot to prove it didn't hurt, and for picking on the ones who cried and/or limped off. (Why a shot in your arm would cause you to limp I do not know.)
• Kids whose parents were there were much more likely to cry, scream, and attempt to kick the Health Dept. workers in the head.
• Third graders think that if you get the shot you will die in 30 years.
• A parent thinks the next shot is administered in the lip.

One clinic down, one to go.