Back to school

My baby boys started school this past week. Two adorably feisty boys headed off the first and third grade. They both dutifully remembered their first week job: they found out their teachers' favorite colors.  Purple and green. (Last year was green and purple, ironically enough.). 

That was when I realized that I had to start on Christmas Teacher Mitts. Is it that time of year already? The past twelve months I have been busy making baby baby blankets and last year's teacher's mitts. Now that I am 75% finished with ANOTHER baby blanket, it is time to start the teachers mitts again. Thank God I only have two children, or Christmas could get ugly. 

As it is, I still feel a little bit like I am knitting for others more than myself. When can I knit on my pretty lace shawls?  Mommmmm! It's not faaaaiiirrr! I want to knit for myself!

Hopefully, no one else I know will get pregnant. At least for a while. Christmas comes rather predictably, and my children will be in school for quite a while., so no hope for reprieve there. 

Today, it is all about the knitting selfishness. And that is only if you ignore the fact that my Sweetie's hoodie is six years in progress. 

The Perpetual Overestimator

I kill myself. I always overestimate the amount of knitting that I can complete during a finite amount of time. Only Sunday, I was grabbing yellow AND green, honestly convinced that in the two hours of Knittervention, I would finish orange, and make a decent dent in yellow. I didn't really believe that I would need green, but that I might need it within a few days to a week, and should grab green while I was there. 

The reality was that even though I knit consistently during those two hours, 

Still orange. Almost done with orange, less than ten rows to go, but still orange. 

Today, it is all about the endless orange.

Remind me to bring home yellow

My sweetie and our brood are hoping to move in the next several months. We have the new place picked out. Three acres, with a full basement and four car detached garage, in addition to the two car attached garage. Plenty of room for my sweeties tools, guns and toys.

So I have been packing boxes, preparing for the day that our house will be put on the market. Our rental house has to sell first, but I am getting a head start on the house we actually live in.

 I have already packed most of my yarn.  I considered about packing my shampoo first, but I feared being mocked by non-knitting people. The stash is in specially marked Totes. Yarn associated with current projects is in a wicker hamper that my mother kindly consented to keep handy in her living room. 

But that means, when I need a new skein on a current project, I have to visit my mother. Today, when we were dropping off more boxes to stash in her basement,  I had  to pick up yellow yarn for the rainbow baby blanket.

Knittervention is tomorrow, so I grabbed green, just in case. 

Today, it is all about the advance planning. 

I can't explain it

Something happened on Thursday that I still can't explain. There was a special trunk show at my LYS. Luxury hand dyed yarn. I blocked off that time on my court calendar weeks in advance. 

I cleared it with my sweetie that I would be buying yarn. He said that if I found a good deal, sure I could buy some. I told him if I saw something there, it would not be a good deal; it would be expensive, but something I would likely never see again. 

Thursday at lunch, I walked the half mile to the store. Open trunks overflowing with lovely luxury yarns. Merino with silk, with linen, with cashmere. CASHMERE. I had planned to buy one skein, to support the dyer and the store. 

I realized quickly that I would have to buy two, to have enough to make anything. I started narrowing down the colors. Then, it happened. 

I don't know if was the fumes from the wool. Or the excitement of the moment, or what. I walked out with four skeins of yarn. $150!  I have never spent $150 on yarn in my life. 

I wrote a check from my business account. Does that mean I can count it as a business expense? I knit between court hearing all the time. 

Please don't tell my husband. 

Today, it is all about the lack of explanation. 

I love your wedges

I was hanging around the courthouse waiting for the judge to be ready for my hearing, and I heard a nice compliment. " I love your wedges."  I thought she meant these wedges:

Turns out she meant my shoes. Ok, they are cute shoes, and VERY comfortable. But the rainbow circle baby blanket is enchanting!  What is wrong with muggles?

Deadline check: halfway (very nearly) done, three months to due date. 

Today, it is all about the different types of wedges. 

Sticks before. . . . .Husbands

Mandy didn't make it to Knittervention last night.  Apparently, her husband had a rare evening off, and she preferred to spend the evening with him.  I get it, but I still had to tease her a little about here skewed priorities.  She obviously hasn't been married long enough. 

Still, we had a reasonable turnout, and it made for lively conversation and delightful knitting.  We had two people who were casting on something new.  One who was well into a baby blanket. 

And I was working on lace.  This was not the smartest move on my part.  The logical thing would have been to use that two hours to work on Mandy's baby blanket, in her absence.  Or something else that was not so time an attention consuming.  The second pint of cider was definitely a mistake. 

And yet, I was knitting lace.  Attention demanding, time consuming, under the influence of cider, and amid distractions of other knitters, I was working on lace.  A fresh page to the pattern, and without a lifeline, I was working on lace.  Sometimes, you have to knit where your whims take you. 

I haven't checked the half row that I completed last night to see if I was knitting crap or not. 

Today, it is all about the whims. 

One third in the second trimester

I am nearly finished with the fourth wedge, out of twelve. The intended mother-to-be recipient is in her second trimester. She is due in October, so I have four months to finish the remaining eight wedges.   That doesn't sound like enough time. Especially considering what else is going on these days. 

They say that selling a house/buying a house/moving is one of the most stressful things in life. I am selling a house right now. Soon I will be buying another house at the same time as selling a second house. After all the buying and selling is done, then I get to move. Preferably all before school starts in August. 

So I have a bit going on besides a baby blanket deadline. I just need to keep reminding myself that the blanket is stress relief, not adding to it. 

Today it is all about the reminders.