Winter hits the south

Well, it did get cold here.  When I woke up this morning, it was about 10 degrees, which around these parts is Really Cold.  I think the news said this is coldest it has been in about twenty years.  After having a really hot and humid December (humidity in December.  sigh.  I will never get used to it.) I was ready for a break in the weather.  I truly love the brisk air.  It makes me miss where I'm from.

Cold weather is also a fashion opportunity!  I got to pull this:

out of the closet!  I haven't worn this in years.  I love this sweater.  I bought it almost twenty years ago.  I was a waitress in a tourist town (skiing during the winter, boating in the summer) and this sweater was in a shop downtown.  I have no idea why I went into that shop in the first place.  It wasn't somewhere I would have normally shopped.  I certainly couldn't afford anything in there.  I actually visited this sweater several times before I bought it.  When I finally did by it and wore it to the bar where I worked, we all did a toast to my sweater.  

This sweater, more than anything else, is why I started knitting.  The owner of the bar was a knitter, or rather, knew how to knit.  She made two pair of slippers every year, one for her and one for her husband.  Nothing else.  The leftover (acrylic) yarn from that year's slippers and a pair of needles in a zipper top bag were taped to my locker one day with a note to "just start."  Another waitress gave me an old how to knit pamphlet.  It took me about two hours to knit the yarn equivalent of an eyebrow.

Of course, I can't put anything yarn-y out without Fred getting into it.

We call this "Fredding."  He does it to new laundry, old laundry, stacks of blankets, piles of yarn, the baby.  Anything that doesn't smell enough like Fred to suit him.  

Otherwise, we spent the day hanging out and keeping out of the cold.

I was even inspired to dig out the Big Brown Blanket I started in 2010.  That is about two inches of knitting there.  As of this writing, I've doubled that amount, but there is no way that a 4' x 5' blanket belongs in a book called Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  It took me a couple of hours to get four inches.  Well, three years and a couple of hours.  At this rate, Camden will take this college.  For his Master's.  Should I set a goal?  Throw down the gauntlet?  By the end of the month?  Hmmmm.... Let's see where I get to by the end of this weekend.

Off to snuggle under a big quilt and flannel sheets!  Ah, the coziness of flannel.  Delicious.  

Happy Winter Solstice!

The Winter Solstice.  A celebration of the balance of the darkness and the light.  I think we have both in all of us, both in all our lives.  This month, we've been concentrating on the light.  We have had such joy this season.  I am loving our Little Duck, who brings us smiles and happiness.

There has been, simultaneously, so much and so little going on here.  We are practicing sitting up and tummy time, and visiting some specialists that have me in a tizzy.  I know just enough to be freaked out, and not enough to be pacified.  Nothing is wrong, but some things are not quite right.  In order to keep our sanity, we are doing what we can around the house.  For me, that means knitting.  For Mike, that means adding some light switches where there were none.  And we are visiting going to holiday parties and visiting Santa.  Because wishes do come true.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 238th Marine Corps Birthday!

The Marine Corps birthday is kind of a big deal in the Marines.  All day long, Mike's phone has been buzzing with wishes of  "happy birthday, Devil Dog!"  Once a Marine, always a Marine, and Mike has been a Marine for 22 years now, so there were a lot of phone calls and texts.

And this year we celebrated with our little Devil Pup!

It's Sunday, so Mike isn't in cammies, but Camden is!  Complete with a little Eagle, Globe, and Anchor embroidered on his onesie.

So, Happy Birthday Marines!  No better friend, no worse enemy.

Still here! And still knitting!

Wow!  Time does certainly get away, doesn't it?  One minute I feel like I've just barely moved in, and the next I've been here for more two months but still have boxes to unpack.  This house is a bit bigger than the one we left, and has a bit different layout, so I've yet to figure out how we "live" in it.  We left a one story house with a FROG (Finished Room Over Garage--how cool is that name?!) and moved into a two story house.  How do you organize that?  Do you keep two sets of cleaning rags, one up and one down?  Et cetera, et cetera.  Terrible problems, right?

This is my season of learning.  Learning how to be a mama, learning how to balance a master's student's reading list, learning how to not do everything, and learning how to not feel bad about it.  Mike's position here is more time consuming, more that he realized it would be I think, and even he is learning how to let go a little.  Everything isn't always put away anymore, and sometimes the dishwasher stays full for a couple of days.  And some things we delegate more than we used to (pizza can be delivered, too, not always made at home).  But we are all fed, all clean, all happy.  Even the four-footed ones.

Despite the nursing theory reading load (and don't get me started on how I feel about nursing theory) I have managed to get some knitting done!

Five pair of socks.  This is kind of cheating, because I had finished up the knitting on these in the spring but left the Kitchener on all of them to the end.  Ten socks to Kitchener all at once.  I don't think I will do that again, but I now have great muscle memory on the Kitchener stitch. 

A pair of fingerless mitts.  The entire pair is completely finished now, so there will be a post on what they are and what mods I made.  Besides, you can't really tell what that pattern is because that yarn is LOUD.  But the color is as per the recipient's request and she loves it.

I started some vintage crewel work.  This is a kit I bought for about eight dollars from Etsy.  It's from the early 80s, I believe.  The pattern is cute, but man!  The colors!  Really atrocious!  The sun is a strange raspberry pink color, and the flower is hot pink.  If those two colors were toned down a bit it might be better.  I've been thinking about raiding another (Etsy-purchased) crewel kit for more appropriate colors. 

These vintage bark cloth kits are not the needlework to have during a great movie.  The needle makes a loud "whoosh" noise when you pierce the bark cloth and drag the yarn through.  "That's a loud craft" is how Mike put it.

Lest you think I have not been knitting little things, get a load of this.

That is a picture of the cutest baby in the world wearing a hand-knit, Mama-made hat.  Could I love him more?  Every day I think no, I could not possibly love him more and then I wake up the next day and he steals my heart again.

It was a great Halloween.

I've also been knitting!

In addition to hanging out with the little duck, moving, and studying, I have been knitting.  I have a sweater started for Camden (and yarn for a couple more), but I had to put that on hold for a bit while I did some deadline knitting.  The chick I drove back and forth with the school all of last year is pregnant and her shower was this past weekend.  Since I couldn't be there, not only did I have to finish this, but finish it early since it needed to be mailed.  Nothing like putting a little pressure on myself when I have 478 pieces of household goods to find a place for.

Of course, among those 478 pieces of household goods are probably 78 boxes of yarn.  Maybe more, maybe less.  Could I find what I wanted?  No.  So I had to order online from Eat, Sleep, Knit.  And of course, I threw in a little extra.  Since I was, you know, paying for shipping and all.

The yarn on the left, the purple, became a Baby Tea Leaves (Rav link).  The other two are for Camden.  I'm thinking that the red might be a charming little sweater vest, but I'm not sure.  It is all Madelinetosh and it is all lovely.

I had to wind the yarn for the Baby Tea Leaves the old fashioned way, between two chairs.

Because my craft room looks like this, and I can't find my ball winder and swift:

It wound up nicely into a roly poly little ball.

Which eventually became this:

That is after a blocking.  I made the smallest size, which I think is listed as "0-6 months."  It is so wee and adorable.  The next time I make it, though, I need to bind of the button band a bit more loosely.  As you can see, I wasn't able to properly straighten it out along the bottom edge.

But really, who is going to be looking at that when this is on an adorable little baby!  And the mother, being a non-knitter, probably won't even know it shouldn't really be like that, if she even notices.

The color in the last picture is off.  I wanted to take a final picture before I packaged it up and the day was overcast.  The color is much more clear and vibrant, and the previous pictures are actually pretty true, color-wise.  The pattern was great, too.  Clear instructions, easy to follow.  I'm already planning two more, one in the same size and another to fit a five year old.  Partly I just love working with this yarn!

Back from a "break"

Yes, it has been some time since I have been here.  I have some valid reasons, though.  

First, I finished Phase I of the nursing program I was in, meaning that now I am active in Phase II (the Master's portion) while simultaneously studying for the NCLEX.

Second, we moved.  Mike was transferred to MCAS Beaufort, so we are now living in South Carolina.  Mike has been down here since mid-way through July.  I got here in the middle of August.  We received our pack-up about three weeks ago.  I've only just today finished putting the books on the shelves in the living room.  Don't even ask about the craft room!

And third, I've been spending a lot of time with this guy:

This is Camden, and he joined our family in June when he was a month old.  He is the sweetest little boy ever and he has me wrapped around his tiny little finger.  He is a tiny little guy--he is just over three months old and is barely out of newborn-sized clothing--but he brings us so much joy.

The dogs love him, too.  Frosty is never very far from him.

My days are finally starting to fall into a pattern, so I am hoping to get here more often.  I have a lot to share!  I've been knitting a LOT and have some really fun and interesting things planned for the fall.  So here's to being "here"!

Finally, some time!

Oh my goodness, have I been busy!  Not that we all aren't, but man oh man, this last few weeks has just flattened me.  We have almost finished Summer I session.  Rumor had it that the summer sessions were easy, especially compared to the past two semesters.  I don't know where this information came from, or who started those awful rumors, but they were completely untrue.  We had a researched clinical encounter paper due, a reflection journal, three days of clincals, and one day of class every week.  And wow! those clincal encounter papers were no joke.  They were each over ten pages.  I couldn't face the computer after writing those every week.

But enough complaining.  I learned so much.  This was our community health rotation, and I was at the health department, a uninsured clinic (the MERCI Clinic), and the soup kitchen.  It was truly amazing.  I found it really inspiring and gratifying to working with underserved populations.  I hope to work in a hospital after I'm licensed, but after being at the MERCI Clinic I know that I want to volunteer time with something like that.

So I haven't had much time to knit lately.  I've worked on a few things, so hopefully I can get those on here soon.  My Little Oak cardigan is about halfway through the yoke.

I'm loving the way the leaves are starting to pop off the yoke.  The variations of brown in the yarn are just enough to give the sweater some interest without getting in the way of the detail on the yoke.  I've decided to add some ribbon backing to the button band (once I knit it).  I want something to give the buttons a little more stability, especially since I'm giving this to a non-knitter.  I don't want it to seem "too delicate" for every day use.

The monkeys are a printed satin ribbon.  Perfect for a little fun cardigan.  I can't wait to finish this.

In other news, I've been trying to play in the yard a bit.  I was turning the compost bin and sifting through the almost-dirt to see what I can pull out.  (I throw a lot of stuff in the compost bin "just to see" what will happen.  I don't use the compost on any flowers or vegetables, or I would be a bit more concerned about proper balance of nitrogen and green vs. brown compost.  Mainly, I'm trying to keep organic, compostable things out of a landfill.  I compost things like pizza boxes and movie popcorn bags.  I tossed the hepa filter from the vacuum in there, just in case the filter was paper, but it wasn't and I pulled it out six months later--looking exactly the same.)

But my point here is that sometimes I find interesting things in the barrel.  Like the plastic liners of to go cups and ice cream containers that some people don't even realize are there.  And this:

This is a pile of hems and elastics from a bunch of clothing that I tossed in the compost barrel a few months ago.  Clothing that was too worn out to go to a charity shop, or not really appropriate for a charity shop (boxer shorts, underwear), or clothing that I had cut up to use as dust towels around the house that had finally become too worn to use even as dust cloths.  I love this.  I really, truly get excited about seeing this.  The pile of clothing this came from would probably have filled a small trash bin.  Now it fits in two hands.  That is, really, very very cool.

And, to end, a cute dog picture of Charlie.