In Over My Head

This past week I have started on so many new knitting projects, I think I may be in over my head. I have three sweaters on needles, rarely do I ever knit sweaters. I don't know for sure how many socks...

This is the start of the Gathered Pullover in the Winter 2007 Interweave Knits.

The first of a pair of 9-5 socks for the Loopy Ewe sock KAL- at least one is totally finished!
A start on a Plain Vanilla Pullover (from Knit Picks) Not sure why I picked that light of a color...
I cast on Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty.com yesterday. I'm doing it for the Loopy Ewe Dream in Color sweater KAL. I think if it's a KAL I'll actually have motivation to finish the sweater- it has to be done by June 1st! I love the yarn, but I have yet to meet a skein of Dream in Color that I didn't like. I'm in real trouble now that Sheri stocks more than sock yarn at the Loopy Ewe. Sock yarn from indie dyers was a big enough addiction, now indie yarn for sweaters too- drool!
Two pattern repeats done on Cookie A.'s Monkey socks- also from Knitty.com. These are for a swap so I actually have to finish them in a reasonable amount of time.
Finally another pair of Jaywalkers. I got some Paca Peds- superwash alpaca sock yarn!!! The Loopy Ewe strikes again. I love alpaca. Anyway, I had to try it out as soon as it came, it's alpaca for crying out loud how could I just let it sit and wait to be knit with??? I liked the Jaywalkers I knit before so I decided on that pattern since I already knew what to expect.

Holy links Batman! I sure put a lot of them in there:)

That's six projects that I started recently. That doesn't even include what I already had going, plus I have to rip out and re knit a pair of gloves for a customer since we had a tiny miscommunication about ribbing...

Told ya, way over my head.

To top it all off today is my daughters 11th birthday and she has her very first dance tonight. Makes me feel old.

A Valentine!

I got the best present for Valentines Day! A new niece. She was born at 4:04 in the morning after keeping her mommy up since Monday morning with contractions. She was 6#11oz and was 19.5" long and has bright red hair just like my sister. Her name is Alayah Corrin. Don't know where that came from... I haven't even seen pictures yet, and I'm feeling a bit impatient about that... I was supposed to go for the delivery, but naturally it was snowing and by the time she called I probably wouldn't have made it since it's at least a three hour drive. I only had one hour left of my shift at work (couldn't leave early since the ER was slammed) so I would have been lucky not to fall asleep driving too. We were planning on going to visit this weekend, but both of my boys have the stomach flu (there's a rather nasty strain of it in town right now we've seen tons in the ER) I don't really want to chance getting my sister or the baby sick, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

My other sister is scheduled to have a c-section on Monday. She doesn't know what she's having. Maybe it will be a boy. The balance of grandchildren is a little heavy on the girl side. The only boys are my twins, there are three girls now. My poor dad, first three daughters and no sons, then a bunch of girls for grandchildren. He loves Christmas shopping for my boys!

Knitting...I'll probably start on some baby stuff. I can't help it. I'm working on 9-5 socks for the Loopy Ewe KAL. I'm almost finished with the first one and I'm hoping I don't run out of yarn. There's still time to get in on the KAL. If you're on Ravelry search for it in groups and join us! I'm thinking about starting an afghan too. If I can get it done by the 26th... A really good traveling nurse at work is having to leave before her contract is up she has to leave due to a terribly ill mother in law. She's awesome and we'll miss her. She's hoping to be able to come back again, but I still want to do something for her. She's been incredibly kind and caring to everyone the entire time she's been with us, and she's always in a good mood and is tons of fun to work with.

What else am I knitting... I started on a Gathered Pullover from Interweave Knits and a Plain Vanilla Pullover from Knit Picks. Both for myself. I rarely knit anything other than socks for myself, so the sweaters will be a change. I have about two inches of the body done on each of them, I'll probably be knitting them next winter still.

My Loopy Swap partner Ellen got her package yesterday. She loves her Mingus socks and they fit her! I'm always so relieved when my swap partners get their packages and say they like them.

Time to go and do sick kid laundry and hang out the the poor little guys. My daughter doesn't have school today so she's home too- at least she isn't sick yet!

Cute Boys and Socks

I don't really post pics of my kids, but this is too cute. They fell asleep like that. Do you think they're close?

My Twins. Chase in red and Aiden in blue. Too bad they're not that sweet when they're awake!

Mingus socks, pattern by Cookie A. Knit in Numma Numma Toasty- Red Raspberry Jam.
A close up of the pattern, for some strange reason it's hard to see.
Without the flash. Doesn't help much.
9-5 socks in Claudia Handpaints- Chocolate Cherry. The detail is hard to see again. I really like this yarn. The Numma Numma and Claudia both came from The Loopy Ewe. Where else would I get it???
Last but not least Knight Bus socks. Just a plain old sock patern in some pretty cool yarn. It's from an indie dyer- Shelby B. I have a rather large collection of her yarn, I think I have all Harry Potter themed colors, but she does other lovely colors as well.

See? I really am trying to get some projects done!

Swap Things and Early Morning Mayhem

I just spent the morning wrapping and packing up my Hot Cocoa Swap package. It's all ready to send off to my partner. My knitted buddy came out pretty cool, but I can't post pics until after she gets it.
I am far past the halfway point in knitting my Loopy Ewe swap project. I have all her stuff ready to go but the actual project (it's only the whole point of the swap...) and the edible goodies. There little boys in my house got into my knitting room and stole all the treats- they made rather quick work of them too. I guess I could always send the empty wrappers...
I am very nearly ready to send my HSKS4 package too.
As for the fourth swap- Hogwarts Sock Swap 3- I am waiting for a few "owls" to arrive at my house so I can get started.
The morning mayhem??? Oh yeah, it was great. The twins- five year old boys were in rare form this morning. They wanted toast and yogurt for breakfast. No problem, right? Well, we had two yogurts one peach one strawberry- not good. The youngest of the two snagged himself the coveted strawberry so the other one literally screamed and cried and was so hysterical he almost made himself sick because he did not want peach. Yeesh, it's just yogurt people! So evidently to get back at this brother when it came time to get dressed the one stuck with the peach stole the red shirt and put it on for the day. Red is his brothers very favorite color. Cue next major fit. The blue shirt- same shirt, different color- is just not good enough to be worn. My son was all ready to take his sister to school wearing jeans and Spider Man shoes with a coat. Um...no! So to make the long story short, I listened to at least one little boy throw a fit from about 6:45-7:35 this morning. We got back home from the trip to school and I took some Motrin. What a way to start the day. The good news is that my daughter actually got out of bed the second time I went to get her up. Usually it take about 5 tries to get her up.
It's lunch time now. I hope it goes better than breakfast!

Some FO's

Yep, I finally have finished knitting a few things. I have both of my Jaywalkers done- it took me forever because I kept putting them down to work on something else! I knit them in Lime & Violet yarn which I love. I messed up and made the first one in one size and the second in another. Guess that's what I get for waiting so long to finish a pair of socks! Something sort of funny happened to them though. The first one I knit had stripes on the leg and pooling on the foot, the second one is exactly the opposite. I didn't do it on purpose, I don't know how I could have or how it happened at all. It's ok, I like them this way. Like my boys, they are fraternal twins instead of identical. They are way comfortable, one of my favorite sock patterns. Didn't they turn out pretty...


I finished my moms Christmas socks too! They are the Snapdragon pattern knit in Scarlet Fleece Antique Watermelon. Both the yarn and pattern can be found at the Loopy Ewe, of course. The pattern was a fun one even though it is a toe up pattern which is my least favorite way to knit socks. The yarn was nice to work with and is really soft and squishy, it was complete murder to wind into a ball though. Whoever was skeining yarn that day was either quite angry with the world or was smoking crack, I don't know which.

I love the way they turned out and I hope my mom does too. Now to get her package together and sent off so that it can make it to Ohio before Christmas since she can't come home this year. I'm going to try and send her a little Christmas in a box. I hate the idea of her being lonely on Christmas.

This year I have Christmas Eve off and work Christmas Day, well night really but you know what I mean. Usually it's not too bad to work on the holidays. Most of the patients are so glad to have someone there to take care of them when they have to be in the hospital and away from their families. The hospital can't close on Christmas. A fact some of my family and In-Laws just don't get. Oh well. The kids will be done opening presents and will have gone through several sets of batteries for their new toys by the time I have to leave them for the night, so the fun part of the day will be over and I won't miss much.

I still have one gift to finish knitting for my sister. Then an order for a customer, a shower gift for the same sister, and a baby blanket for another customer- all need to be done either by Christmas or shortly there after. Guess I better get my fingers busy!

I sooo didn't get my wish

I don't know why, maybe the hospital gods are unhappy with me. I got called in to work last night, my night off, 30 minutes before I had to leave to get there on time. So much for my wish. The ambulance didn't behave either like I wanted them to. Another crazy night, weird stuff came in too. Tonight is my night to work again, I'm not going to hope it's better. Maybe if I want it to be worse it will get confused and get better.

Yesterday I had two sick kids. This morning I have three sick kids, a sick husband, and a sick me. I hate summer (ish) colds!

On the bright side the Loopy Ewe did a sneak up yesterday that I managed to catch as it was happening. I actually got to watch all the new yarn come up! I don't need another inch of sock yarn of course, but I broke down when I saw all the Wollmeise. I wanted to see what all the fuss is about since the sock knitting addicts out there can't seem to get enough of it. I tried to buy three different colors before I got one that hadn't sold out already. That stuff must have been flying off the shelves- well you know what I mean! So I can't wait to get it, I hope it's worth the extra $ on the credit card. That's order number three from the Loopy Ewe, so I'm on my way to being a Loopy Groupie! I think it was dangerous for me to find Sheri and her sock knitters heaven...

Bring on the FO's!

I am finally totally finished with all of the gallery bags! I took photos of all but two of them since I promised I would post them before I sent all of the bags off. The bags are getting priced, tagged, and shipped today! Here they are:

That black one has needle felted swirls on it and some fun handles, the gray one has lots of cables and bobbles, and the green one has all those flowers, leaves and vines attatched to it after felting- they go all the way around the bag. My fingers suffered greatly due to the needle felting, I may be too clumsy to realy be allowed to use them!

The brown bag up there has a wet and needle felted covered button attatched that I made. The red one has a black needle felted star on one side.

Some of these guys you have seen before, the purple one with the flowers and the navy one with the white embroidered stars. That big purple on with the fabric covered button was knit out of yarn that I spun myself! The flower on the stripey bag is held on with a pin back and can be removed and worn.

I spent the weekend finishing those guys up. Almost all of them have inside pockets, and the ones that needed it have magnetic snap closures. Now to get them ready to go... If anyone is interested they will be at:

Madison and Main Gallery

927 16th Street (right by UNC)

Greeley, CO

The Art to Wear show starts on September 4th and runs through October 26th.

Other knitting news- the Hufflepuff socks are finished! I can't show photos because that would ruin my pals surprise. I'm still waiting on some things for her package to get here- from Australia. I hope she likes everything.

I restarted knitting The Burrow socks now that the others are finished. I didn't get very far due to a trip to the ER with my son. The one who never gets hurt split his forehead open on his twin brothers head. It was quite the crash. Usually it's the other one who gets hurt- staples in his head three times. So the one who got hurt last night got three sutures after having to have anesthesia to calm him down enough to let anyone touch him. He HATES the doctor! I do so love going to work on my night off!