PMSnowday

Take a closer look at that title, and you can see I had an interesting day.  Let’s just mix screwed up hormones and six kids and a snow day.  Actually, it went very well, thank you.  The kids are all still alive and I don’t think I yelled once.  The two youngest kids each had a friend over, which was a life saver.  They don’t fight with each other that way.

Here’s Frankie right away this morning.

His F150 was having trouble even though it was 4 wheel drive.  That snow was heavy and wet.

My plan was to quilt all day.  I was sure I was going to have all the borders on my Fanciful Flowers quilt today.  Actually, I was going to finish it on March 2nd.  I got some of it finished.  Scrappy quilts are just not conducive to being done quickly.  They’re so worth it though.

The last time I talked about this book, I strongly hinted that you really should own the Material Possessions book.  And they’re coming out with another one soon.  Here’s the scoop!

And on the knitting front, my Miralda Shawl is creeping along.  My Nascar knitting on Sunday got me part way through the beads.  I’m passing on the nupps this time.

I am really enjoying it, even if it’s slow going.

Tomorrow is another day.  And all the kids will be back in school.

Whew!!!

Not Good Housekeeping!

There’s nothing like a visit from the electrician to smack you down a notch.  Actually, several notches.

First, we went into  The Genius’ room.  She left for college after Christmas, and I just stayed out.  Now I know why I didn’t want to go in there.  The outlets in her room weren’t working.  They are now.  Hey Genius, the electrician wants to thank you for the climbing adventure!

Then I was going to show him where the circuit box is.  Only I couldn’t get to it.  The back of the storage room looks great, after you climb over the stuff at the entrance.  Everyone has just been throwing stuff in the doorway.

And then there’s Superblonde’s room.  She keeps blowing the circuit.  I think it’s because there’s junk all over and the electricity can’t get to the outlets.

The main part of our house looks great.  Just don’t head to any of the wings.  I’m not blameless either.  Here’s the chair in my room.

My bed isn’t made either.  Nor is any other bed in this house.

I have been knitting a very little bit, in between home schooling two kids.  NO!!!!  It’s not permanent.  Frankie missed school last week when we were skiing, so we had to do all his work this week (which is his spring break).  Did that make sense?  Home schooling one kid is a piece of cake compared to two.  I know people who homeschool many kids, and I don’t know how they do it.

Let’s just say that I’m knitting to stay sane.  This is what I’ve done in the last couple of days.

Impressed?   Neither am I.  What I am thrilled about is The Woolen Rabbit’s Whisper Merino Lace.  Go buy some.  Tell yourself or your husband that you have my permission.  Just say,  “The passing down crazy lady said I could”.  That should add credibility…..NOT!

I”m doing Miralda’s Triangular Shawl.  It’s worked from the outside, so I cast on 331 stitches.  If you want to read an unbelievable account of the trials of casting on this shawl, read the Yarn Harlot’s account.  I started casting on with a long tail, and it was supposed to be knit on, but other than that it went fine.  Hopefully, you’ll see beads by Monday.  There is Nascar knitting coming up this weekend.

After I clean this up!

Guess what The Crazy family is doing tomorrow???

A Parade of Poodles

They’re finished!

Four poodle skirts!

They’re not perfect, which drives me crazy.  You’d never know it if you looked at my messy house, but I have perfectionistic tendencies when it comes to knitting and sewing.  However, they’re going to be worn by a girls’ chorus for about 5 minutes.

And now for the awwwwwww shot!

Four poodles and a Bichon Frise’.

I’m off to clean up my messy house.  Yes, I’m aware that it’s 11:15 PM.  I’ve got almost three good hours left.

My Quandary

Here’s the definition of quandary:  : a state of perplexity or doubt.

I’m perplexed because I don’t know what to knit.  I thought this was going to be such a cool collage, because in real life the two sides of the skein are so different, you wouldn’t know it was the same yarn.  The efffect I was looking for in the photos just didn’t work.

This is some yarn I ordered from Sockpixie quite a while ago.  There’s not a colorway on it.  All I know is that it’s 2,500 yards and it took forever to wind.  Now I don’t know what to do with it.  Although it’s much more gorgeous in person, it’s just not talking to me right now.  So…..

The week before we left on vacation, I ordered two batches of yarn for Maplewing.  When we got home, both packages were waiting for me.  I opened the first one and absolutely loved the yarn.  Unfortunately, she’d sent me the smaller skein, instead of the 1,700 yards I’d paid for.  So, with great eagerness, I opened the other package.  I’d ordered two skeins of a colorway.  I got two skeins.  Unfortunately, they were different colorways.  I’m not going to tell you who I ordered from, because within hours of emailing both people, I had responses back with fixes for both.  Nobody is perfect, and I want to extend grace the way I’d hope people would extend grace to me when I make a mistake.

All that to say, I don’t know what to knit!  Or I didn’t until 8:30 this morning.  I pulled out this skein of yarn and these beads.

It’s Whisper Soft Lace from The Woolen Rabbit.  The colorway is New England Red, the color that Anne Hanson used for her Maplewing.  I’m making Miralda’s Triangular Shawl from Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia.  I’d like to cast on right now.  But I can’t.

*I have four poodle skirts to finish.

*I goofed off most of the day with my girlfriend.

*I have a garbage bag of ski clothes in my dining room.  I’m pretty sure that’s not where they belong.  They need to be laundered before I put them away for the year.

*The people in this house think they need to eat.  They’re getting Pizza Hut!

*18 miles is too far for Superblonde to walk to get home from drivers ed.

*I haven’t pulled homeschool curriculum for the next few weeks yet.  Yes, it’s already Tuesday.  She did do a math assignment today.  We’ll work hard the next three days.

*I haven’t finished my assignment for a school fundraiser.  I don’t want to be the deadbeat mom.

*And most important of all, I have to find some needles first.

I’ll start with the stuff in the dining room!

Perfect!

This is what we woke up to this morning.

Now we’re home.  It’s windy, rainy, and icky.  It’s supposed to stay that way for the next several days.

But our vacation was perfect.  Skiing and snowboarding!

Games and Wednesday night youth group.  Who says you can’t have church in a cabin in the mountains!

More skiing!

Relaxing!

And the food…let me just tell you, it was fabulous!  We ate ourselves silly!  If I listed everything we ate, you’d be shocked.

There was knitting too.  I should have had someone take a photo of me, in my pajamas, knitting.  I did a lot of it.

It was a fabulous week.  I’m so thankful for our week, that I’m not even going to complain about the rain that just started.

Have an awesome Monday!  I’m going to go unpack.

Behind the Scarlet Moth

First of all, I don’t think I included a photo the other day of how huge that Moth is.  I also wasn’t very clear on the fact that it’s square.  This photo is on a king size bed.

It’s 78 inches across!

I ordered my Yowza yarn in January, thinking I wanted to knit a blanket.  On March 1st, and I don’t have any idea why, I decided I wanted to start the blanket.  I spent a bunch of time on Ravelry, trying to decided if I wanted round or square.  I narrowed it down to square.  It still took me a while to choose the pattern.  I’ve already knit the Wing of The Moth once, and I almost never knit something twice.  Actually, with this, I knit it two more times!!!

My goal was to have it finished and blocked before we left for Montana.  Why?  I have no idea.  I just wanted to see it finished.  I didn’t make it and I’m glad.  I could never have done a photo shoot that cool at home.

Part way through week two, I realized I was going to run out of yarn.  After a 2 AM email to Woolgirl (which she responded to in ten minutes!) I had another skein of yarn in the mail.

The last rows were taking me 45 minutes.  I told you about having to tink one row and re-knitting it!  And then there was the bind-off.  That took about two hours.

I do have some blocking photos.  How exciting, huh?

And the big square!

I blocked it on two polar fleece sleeping bags.  I was so worried that the red would bleed on someone else’s light carpet.  I was totally shocked when I soaked this thing.  Usually red bleeds horribly.  This didn’t even turn the water a faint pink.  Have I mentioned how impressed I am with Miss Babs?

So that’s it for the Scarlet Moth, unless I take one more photo in my bedroom at home.

So, now I started a project with 3,000 yards of laceweight.  Just kidding!!!  I’ m crazy, but not that crazy.  I started a scarf.

This is the Lengthwise Cable Scarf by Hannah Wallace.  The yarn is Madelintosh Worsted from Woolgirl.  It’s still 398 stitches per row, but I’ll only use about 400 yards.  I’m hoping to finish it today, and after that, I’m not sure what I’ll work on.

We have two days left of our vacation.  The three moms are sitting around doing nothing today.  I’m going to knit, of course.  I did read a stupid novel last night though.  The dads are out with all 13 kids today.  They usually ski back for lunch and then head out again.  I’m hoping for some good photos when they get back!  It’s been a wonderful week.  I’m so blessed to have such amazing cousins.  (I do miss my sis though!!!  They were here last year.)

I suppose I should think about exchanging my pajamas for sweats!  I also need another cup of coffee.

Scarlet Moth

Edit:  I wasn’t very clear in this post about the shape and size of this “beheMOTH” as one commenter called my Scarlet Moth.  It’s square and it’s a blanket.  It’s 78″ across!

This is Scarlet Moth.  It’s Anne Hanson’s Wing of the Moth.  I doubled it and it ended up 78 inches square.

Miss Babs Yowza  2,400 yards.  I used about 4 1/3 skeins.  The colorway is Sandi’s Red.  I wish you could feel it.  It’s wonderfully soft.

I don’t know why I was on such a quest, but I knit this in 16 days.  I have a sore arm to prove it.

Scarlet Moth was a stinker to photograph.  It’s actually a true lipstick red.

Thank you to:

~Anne Hanson for her gorgeous Wing of the Moth pattern.

~Miss Babs for her fabulous Yowza yarn. Those 560 yard skeins were wonderful.  The color was even and    there were no knots.

~Woolgirl.  She’s my favorite crack yarn supplier.

~Jared at Brooklyntweed.  His Girasole and other worsted blankets have been an inspiration to many.  Of course, he would tell you his inspiration was Elizabeth Zimmerman.

~My Hero, for putting up with all the things I didn’t do while I was knitting.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos.

I’m in love!

OFPS

To Quote Sheri from The Loopy Ewe, “Oh For Pete Sake”!     I’ll tell you why in a minute, but first, some handsome men.

This is just two of 13 kids.

I guess I should tell you where we are, huh?  We’re in Montana skiing.  (I’m not skiing,  I’m knitting and cooking.  Oh, and eating and drinking coffee.

It was very loud a few minutes ago, but it’s silent now, thanks to My Hero.  He just left with the four youngest kids.

Have those handsome men distracted you enough that you didn’t notice the lack of knitting content?  I’ve been knitting.  A lot.  Even more than I needed to.

I have 8 rows left!  Each row is taking 45 minutes.  Here’s where the “Oh For Pete Sake” comes in.  Last night, I knit an entire row wrong.  It took me an hour to tink it and 45 minutes to re-knit it.  By then I was so annoyed, I had to knit another row just to feel better.  Today, almost everyone is skiing, and another mom offered to cook, so I’m going to get those 8 rows done.  I hope to be blocking tomorrow.  I took my blocking wires along on vacation.  How’s that for dedication?

I should tell you about our grocery shopping.  Friday night, 18 people arrived at the house we’re staying in.  On Saturday morning, 15 of them hit the slopes.  L and I, along with Superblonde, headed for Costco.  We spent $1,393 on groceries. That sounds obscene, doesn’t it?  When you do the math, that’s $8.70 per person, per day, and we have some yummy steaks to eat!  We had the Suburban loaded to the roof, with one seat open for Superblonde.  When we got back to the house, everyone was still skiing, so we got to unload it too.  Superblond is my favorite child right now!

We’re waiting for the snow to hit.  We’re supposed to get anywhere from 8-16″.  Yes!

I need to go see if I can find something to eat.  Ha!  Then. I. Must. Go. Knit.

Oh, The Possibilities!

I love winding yarn and dreaming about new projects.  Take a look at this!

Within that pile of yarn is the promise of seven projects.  One skein will finish the stealth project.  There’s a skein that should be enough to finish Cluaranach.  Anne Hanson just published Maplewing.  I may have to start that.  There are a couple more projects there too.  I talked a bit about the Swedish Heartwarmer Shawl a few days ago.  That project has purple, red, teal, and gold in it.  All the other projects I chose are one of those colors.  I didn’t do it on purpose either.

I showed my pile of yarn to My Hero tonight and said, “Doesn’t this just make you smile?”  He smiled and agreed.  Wise man!

We leave tomorrow to go skiing in Montana.  The kids are just wired!  We’re going with three of my cousins and their families.  There will be 20 of us in all!!!  I have a bunch of amazing cousins, and I feel so blessed to be able to spend time with some of them.  I’m the head cook, but I’ve warned everyone that I don’t do dishes.  That’s what we have 14 kids along for!!!

I’m mostly packed.  I need to go over our menu and make my grocery list.  I’ll pull spices and small things to take along.  I need to clean up the guest room for someone who is staying here while we’re gone.  And remember those poodle skirts?  They’re not finished.  I may work on those for a while.  I have some time after we get home, but I don’t want them hanging over my head. It’s only a little after midnight.  I have plenty of time!

See you in Montana!

Yes!!!

I am such a good influence on my fellow knitters and quilters!

Mickey did it!!!

She managed to achieve the color I was going for.

Welcome to the Red Streak Society!  Anyone else stupid brave enough to join us???