A Post Wherein I Will Not Mention the Weather, Cause We All Have It.

Yaps enjoys Dad as a pillow.

Let's just say it's a, drink hot coffee and snuggle cats day. Perhaps cats you steal from others, so you can all be warm. 

Favorite project of the moment, my Herbivore, by Stephen West The Yarn is Tanis Fiber Arts  Cashmere Sock from Eat Sleep Knit, in Mallard.

I'm plugging along on my three live knitting projects and trying to come to grips with the horrific number of snow-days, and my alarming amount of newly grey hair. It's alarming. The phone did not ring at 6 this morning, a call of doom to parents all over the Ann Arbor School District, and I jumped out of bed to do the, "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!" dance in my ratty nightgown. I don't know when I stopped caring about cute nighties, but I have. I said it. I confessed. I am not ashamed. Okay, I'm somewhat ashamed, but this new knitting thing has me all happy and if it's a nighty, or yarn, yarn. End of story. Yarn can be undone if it all goes wrong. A fight in a nightgown sours the nightgown forever. Leaving it as the, "Nightgown we had that fight in." Okay, Gene and I rarely fight and when we do it's loud on my end only. Still, one cannot take such chances of bad mojo on a nightgown, when one can have a spiffy hat instead. So says me.

Boneyard Shawl. Pattern by Stephen West of  Westknits. Cascade Yarns Pima Cotton. No give and painful to work with.

Herein I could post pictures of what it looks like outside, but stare at a white wall for several hours, and you have the general idea. I love it. I am the Goddess of winter, the hula-hooper in the snow (I should get my husband to photograph me hooping outside). Old, big of butt, and happy in my snowy world of snowy-wonderfulness. I love it. As long as I don't have to stay out long, or, heavens forbid, attend Herne's fifth grade winter survival day. Next Thursday he goes into the woods for the day with his class. It's done every year and we are prepared. Too bad Herne is not. He needs boots. Not a problem, but it's been so cold he has not wanted to go outside except to transfer to the bus and back. No recess outside, too cold. He has not had to encounter feet frozen weather. He has mittens, several hats and a toasty coat and socks. Just not boots. Thanks to Amazon Prime, I can have a pair here in time. They will be on sale and hopefully JJ can wear them next year. Herne is alarmingly tall now, for his smallness at birth and it's bugging me. I have asked him to stop growing, but he won't. None of them fall for that, but JJ. Poor JJ is small. Not little person small, but not far from it. If the kid makes five two, I will be astounded. Five foot two inches is not really a great height for a man, but I look his grandfather in the eye, so it is very possible. Short gene's kid. Sorry.

I managed to cast off my Loopy Ewe bookmark. I've had the pattern forever and it is a nice palate cleanser in the matter of larger things.

This week I'm working on four shawls. All of which I should post pics of. Okay, now I have to stop, take pics and post them. There. Labelled and everything.

I am 18 answers in to the Hitchhiker shawl by Martina Behm. There are forty two answers in all. Question, are you nerd enough to know what this refers to, without looking it up? The Yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere, in Wilderness

Stay Warm!

Darien hides under my computer desk, that hangs over my chair. Often laying on my arm and blocking all circulation.

Yarn and Fabric Stash and Rule!

Rules? There are no stinking rules. That's my rule. Seems to me that every January crafters everywhere decide this is the YEAR OF THE STASH DOWN!! Meaning, they all have intentions of buying from a large event, or not at all. Some do manage, more don't. Come on, it's a cheesecake world and you are talking about having only plain lettuce.

Angel snuggles my hand dyed Gracious Gray Alien, yarn. 

I have a different approach, not better, I am not better, just different. Buy with intent. I have more patterns than I can use. I love patterns. Each one is a novel of shape and form and I read them, like I do cookbooks, like a novel. "Oh, the Cuban stew in ___ cookbook reads like a spicy love story. Yum!!"

Patterns are potato chips. One pattern can be inexpensive, some free, but if a designer is good, I try to support them. I will buy the patterns I love. I hoard them. The knit and crochet patterns are all listed in my library on Ravelry (www.ravelry.com) and include an impressive list of designs that are some, "Yes, I will have the skills to make that, If I reach 200 and can still knit," and some, "I can do that now." So, this year I pick designs I aspire to, and buy for those patterns. I have some in my stash, but not all I need and some stash I may never use. That does not get knit into any ole thing. I am selling that to other worthy knitters. Maybe what I intended to do with it would not look good in that yarn, maybe it's an independent dyer and I want to make something I don't have enough for. I can sell it and get something that works for a, "I am doing it this year," project and buy with intent. I will make three sweaters. I have enough good yarn for two. I will decide on the third and buy for it, or dye yarn for it. Probably the latter.

Sock yarns? I can always use them, but thanks to gigantic feet, my husband has fat feet and I have very long feet with toes that could probably knit, they are so flexible, that I need more yarn than the average human when I make socks. They are not as cost effective as other things, but fun and interesting. Hats? I can never have too many and they make wonderful gifts.

Wolverine always appreciates knit items. Especially the ones I love. Really, is your outfit ever complete without cat hair?

So instead of stashing down, I am stashing useful. If I don't have enough sock yarn, it's going to someone with smaller feet. If I don't 100% love the yarn, it's being gifted, or sold. I'm passing it on. I refuse to knit with something I hate. It might be the feel. I am very tactile, or the look, not usually that. You never know. I'm just going to be more selective. Dyers are businesses who need to keep going and independent dyers need to keep income flowing in. I want to support them. To encourage creativity and growth of small companies. This is a way to do it. Make things I will use mindfully. Not just knit for the process. I am a process knitter. Finish more, get what I love and wear what I make. Gift more of what I make. It's nice enough. Not knit with something I bought five years ago that met my criteria then. I am not who I was. I am becoming. We all are. Goals change, life changes and my kids are not knit-worthy. While I'd love to make them hats and mittens, they don't care. I'm only going to knit for those who appreciate what goes into the process. I think those are reasonable goals for life. Do what you love, love what you do and work for those who appreciate your love and time. The rest can have a gift card.

Bosco Sticks of Death, or why JJ hates Mondays

It's Bosco stick day. Apparently, this is a food so foul, our child who will eat ANYTHING, including pate and snails, will not deem to look at them. We were unaware. Three schools, three different lunch menus.

Bosco sticks, or the mere mention of same (I believe these are what you would order as a deep fried cheese appetizer covered with bread crumbs, but I am not sure) will turn our happy, sort of, child into a force for evil. No coaxing, begging, pleading will allow entrance onto the bus on Bosco day, without an alternate lunch.

We forgot.

"I am not going to school today and be forced to stare at that disgusting lunch. I mean it."

A calm voice, no drama, but a will of iron and a backbone of titanium met us in a wet towel and dripping hair.

The problem is, JJ looks like an angel. He is all smiley and blonde, with HUGE blue eyes the color of the sea right before the sun is about to set on a clear day. You just don't expect the evil drawn out, splatted down and dared in front of you at the mention of something with cheese in it. Of course, this would be the same school lunch program that believes ketchup is a vegetable. No one really bought that. Except Ketchup makers.

So, there would be no school until a trip to the store for a lunch. Meaning, he was late.

"Mrs. Liedel. This is JJ's school. Is he not coming in today?"

"Bosco sticks."

"We'll see him when his dad brings him in. I think they're here now."

Yep, JJ hates them and even the brand new admin knows.

Much forehead slapping and cursing under my breath. If you don't put cheese on his food, he won't eat it. However, a cheese stick? No way.

Kids.

2014!

It's cold. Figure that out yet? I mean everywhere, but Alaska (for that states norm) and Hawaii. Do you know what people with remitting repeating MS like more than remission? COLD!!!! WOOHOOO!

Okay, I am more cold than I would like to be, but I'll take it over an attack. However, the children are home and not nestled. Unless that involves lobbing insults and hurling used yogurt cups at one another. I believe, hope, pray that tomorrow will see school return (the Superintendents office has not called us, and my e-mail remains joyously free of notices of closure, for now) and I will be able to get back into the swing of work, knitting and not screwing up because I had to stop and break up a fight and life in general.

My new studio is DONE! Okay, it needs a couple of things out of storage and since the area is not heated, the storage, I won't be getting that for a few days. For some reason, my husband does not want to go there in wind chill readings below -30. I can't figure out why.

I know absence R me. However, I just photographed yarn to put up on the Ravelry page, and will edit it and put up other photos tomorrow here. No photos from the holidays because I am tired of looking at the photos of children unwrapping. You know it's soon followed by the let down of not enough, no matter how much and the after holiday, "I am SO BORED!" comments. If you have kids, you get it.

Gene -Gene is very into Scouts and has made it to First Class, with only a couple things to do before star. He wants Eagle and he may get it. Steven is busy on the phone at all hours and I mean more than I was as a teen.

Herne and JJ are either fighting, or inseparable. Depends. I am happy with my work area and Gene is just himself. Happy when it's warranted, worried when it's warranted and rarely sad. An even tempered man, and a good foil for me.

Stay tuned to this space for some fun announcements and talk later. I hear swearing and discussion about said swearing which I must investigate.

Life is rich, if not the wallet. I'll take it this way any ole day.