It's all in the timing

I know, I haven't posted in ages. Ages of ages. I know.

It's because we're moving. Granted, we're just moving across the hall to one of the renovated apartments in our complex (full-size dishwasher and a ceiling fan in every room!!!), but we're also moving with practically no help (one friend came by to help Caz haul the big stuff, but he was only over for about two hours, meanwhile I couldn't help out because I was watched our two and his daughter) and with twin toddlers in the mix. Luckily, the apartment management folks have been very understanding - they gave us the keys to the new place early and aren't going to destroy us utterly or fine us into oblivion for not being completely out already. However, things are getting grim-looking again, so... we shall see. There may be a dreaded all-nighter in our future.

Anyway, though. Into all droughts a little rain must fall. Or whatever that saying I've just mangled is. Or, in the words of Jane Siberry, it can't rain all the time.

So yesterday, while I was leaning against the wall staring at the destruction and bleakly pondering our fates, Caz answered a knock at the door. It was the mailman, with a box. A box addressed to me.

Caz was all, "I didn't know you'd ordered more yarn..." and I was able to look at the label and go, "Ha HA! I didn't! This yarn is FREE*!!"

See, it was yarn from my kindly Dye-O-Rama pal, aka Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique! Four hundred yards of lovely** green merino sock yarn, which I haven't had much time to consider the fate of but feel a pressing need to make it into something extra-special. It's beautimous. But wait! That's not all! She also sent me a skein of gorgeous green organic cotton yarn that she also hand-dyed! A whole box of greeny goodness, just for me!!

So not only do I have a lovely, generous dye pal, but one with super-amazing timing to boot! There I was, all "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms", and then in swoops a yarny gift for me to make everything seem so much better! I'm all a-quiver.

Thank you, Tara! And true to my word, I didn't go looking for you at all, so it was a complete surprise.

* Okay, okay, so it's a swap so it's not /technically/ free. Let's not pester the poor guy with details right now, eh? He's had a hard coupla weeks, too. And besides, dyeing yarn is just fun, and I already /have/ the yarn I will be dyeing, so... it's all good, right? Yeaaahhhh.....

** Pictures. You're wondering about pictures, right? Well, I would totally have included them, if uh... I could just remember which box the camera went into....

Don't Knit While Sleep-Deprived

So, yesterday was one of those crazy-ass days. Some friends of ours were moving into their new home, and since I certainly couldn't help haul stuff around with my two kids in tow, I offered the next-best thing (or possibly the first-best thing), to watch their daughter while they did the bulk of the moving, so they could focus on getting that done and not have to worry about what she was up to.

Of course, then Friday night one of my online parenting groups erupted into controversy and so I got all riled up and didn't go to sleep at a nice sane hour like I should have, since I was facing a day-long 3-under-3 cage match, and there wasn't going to be anyone available to tag me out. (Who knew I could sling a wrestling reference like that? Not me, that's for sure.)

Then, for some inexplicable reason, I woke up at 6:30 Saturday morning. Six-thirty!! Since I wasn't due to get up for another 90 minutes, I peed, sipped some water and put my pale ass back in bed, knowing I was going to need every spare wink I could get.

Little did I know my brain had other plans. What followed was an hour and a half of fitful, restless sleep punctuated with dreams that ranged from the wack-ass to the deeply unpleasant. When my alarm went off at 8:00 I was groggy, confused, and really not ready to face the day.

In the Annals of Bad Parenting, I will be known as She Who Set Three Toddlers Worshipping At the Altar of the Glow-Box For Almost Eight Hours Straight. I'll be going to the Special Hell, with the people who talk during the Mommy Matinee.

However, cast not the stones, my friends - I am paying. We watched Bear in the Big Blue House: Potty Time With Bear FOUR TIMES yesterday. Four times! I still have the Toileteers song stuck in my head, in addition to the theme song and snippets of dialogue. (Bear says "potty" with the weirdest John Ritter-(rest his funny soul)-on-dope inflection.)

If I don't find a new earworm soon (gah! I hate that phrase! Always makes me think of Wrath of Khan *shudder!*), I'm going to be up at midnight listening to Laurie Berkner stuff, just trying to have something new in my brain.

Anyway, so at one point I tried putting my two down for naps, and so it was just me and my friends' daughter. So, in order to keep from passing out utterly, I tried knitting. Decided to work on one of my easier WIPs, which happens to be a dragonfly dishcloth I found here thanks to Carole's mention a week or two ago.

I printed out both the dragonfly and the alien patterns, because at a playgroup a couple weeks ago, my boys managed to break our hostess's lamp. She insisted it was just a garage sale item and not to worry about it (and it was pretty "vintage"-y, so I'm taking her at her word), but... you know, I worry about it anyway. I figured trying to replace it was doofy, but maybe a couple quick washcloths, right? Just a little something. Plus they looked fun.

So anyway, I was about halfway through the dragonfly cloth when I sat down yesterday afternoon with my friend's daughter next to me and began to knit. The first few rows went fine, but after that, things started to seem strange. Where was the head on this dragonfly? I'd done the lower set of wings, and had been at the lower edge of the second set... but where was the head? I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I set it aside thinking I would have to double-check the picture online later (since our color cartridge is dead I had just printed out the text of the pattern) to see what the heck was going on. Surely my memory of it was faulty.

Later on, after our friends came along and retrieved their daughter and left my tired, achy husband in her place (really, a bargain - our friends' daughter's favorite word these days is "no", and I was reaching the end of my ability to stay upbeat in the face of all that "negativity"....), I decided to take another stab at my washcloth. I sat down with the two-thirds completed washcloth and my pattern and was immediately confused.

What? These were not the directions from earlier in the day, what was going on here? And then I went, "Ohhh, I must have picked up the wrong pattern." And I looked at the top of the page and sure enough, it said... wait. It said Knitted Dragonfly Cloth. What the heck?

And then it hit me. I hadn't picked up the wrong pattern then, I'd picked up the wrong pattern earlier in the afternoon, and knit 12 rows of the wrong pattern!!! I'd been knitting an alien forehead onto the upper wings and head of my dragonfly. I was like a yarny Dr. Moreau!

There was nothing for it but to do the Frog Of Shame.

I frogged the dozen or so rows and put it back on a needle and stuffed it toward the back of my WIP box. (Yes, I have a big Rubbermaid bin full of WIPs and WAIPs (Works Almost In Progress) and other shameful things - don't judge me!) I'm hoping tomorrow I'll have the courage to face it again.

Can't blog... clown will eat me!

So, once again, it's been ages since my last entry. There's been a lot of knitting going on, really (especially thanks to Springtime Startitis, which will have to be another entry later), but I just haven't had the wherewithal to blog about it much. But I have been taking pictures. So I'll blog it someday. Probably. Eventually. Unless I forget.

Anyway, here's a quick teaser for you:

One of my Springtime Startitis (which has been very sock-heavy) projects came from Nancy Bush's Knitting On The Road. I decided to do the Hiuumaa Mismatched Mates.



But I'm not so much a brown sock kinda girl. The feet, they gotta flash. Or be in plain white cotton sport socks. I couldn't tell you why in a million years, but it is what it is.

So I decided to use a coupla different colors from my stash.



Think anyone will notice?