Honestly, I have...

Been knitting...and not a whole lot else. My house is still a mess. It feels like it's more of a mess now than before, but it's because of the clothes to get rid of piles. Does that make sense? I've got piles and bags of stuff laying around to be mailed or donated. If I could just get that taken care of then I would be okay....you know?

In the meantime I've been knitting...alot. My therapist asked me what I do with my anger and worry now that I can't eat and apparently I shop and I knit. The former not good for the end of job six months of free work budget, but it keeps the latter going....I guess only time will tell if it balances.

On to my knitting life....

Crazy Aunt Purl's Reading

I went to the reading with Christine, Clare, Dixie & Toni. We had a nice nice time. I gave her the socks I made for her and I won the basket. It was bizarre....she had a woman in the front row pull the name and she walked back to the lectern and turned and said, The winner is: Tevana B! I was stunned! It was great! Here are the pictures Christine took for me:

Felted Clogs:

I'm not sure why I thought these would be a good idea, but I did. I think it was the idea of making socks for a man--two men actually--with size 12 feet. Not pleasant. So, I did some research on Ravelry and discovered this pattern...kind of the same way Columbus discovered America. Did anyone see that History Channel special. Amazing! I digress, I went over to Sit-n-Stitch and got the pattern and some Lorna's Laces because I felt guilty spending only $5.

I got the pattern and the yarn (Patons Classic Wool from Joanns) last weekend (10/12/07) and finished one slipper that night. I finished the second slipper some time that weekend and between then and Saturday night I finished the second pair. I thank God for my Denise set. It would have been a pain in the ass to do it with regular needles. I'm considering the Options (metal) but haven't decided yet.

So, here are the slippers, pre-felting:

Don't ask why they're postioned like that....definite user error.

I don't have a post/mid felting picture now. I'm still working on the felting. :

Baby Gifts:

My brother and his wife had a little one at the end of April. She adorable and smiles big and bright when she sees me. I knit a hat & booties plus a baby blanket for her before she was born, but her parents haven't used any of those items. The blanket matches her "nursery" perfectly, but alas it goes unused.

So, I saw on Franklin's blog that he wants his niece to be the most knitted for baby in the world. I could possibly give him a run for his money in quantity, if not quality (who can top the Four Blessings Blanket? Certainly not me!); however, I'm concerned that if I put in all the work and time to knit for her and her mother doesn't use the items my animosity will grow to proportions unknown. So, I've held off....right up until I saw the Tulip Baby Cardigan from Dream In Color. I ordered the kit from Arcadia knitting. I started it this weekend. I'm a bit further than this picture shows and I'm learning skills that will be helpful when I'm finishing my father's sweater.

I have my issues with the kit as well as the pattern. The only issue with the pattern is that it doesn't give instructions on how the yarn should be used. Am I supposed to use the master color as one of the stripes or not? Do you make the "button bands" as wide as the bottom border? The kit issues were all about the yarn. Arcadia has made kits from full hanks--at least this is my assumption. There are directives on the balls of yarn that sort of make sense. The biggest issue I had were the random yarn joins mid ball. One ball said: Must use color 1 or 2. It wasn't until I had the first two colors knitted that I realized it wasn't a directive of the pattern, but of the yarn seller and I had to re-knit, PLUS there were three knots in the yarn, so the sweater I expected to need to weave in maybe 8 or 9 ends already had about 14 to weave in because of these knots. Just a bit frustrating.

I've made it thru to the sleeves...well, the first sleeve in process. Hopefully they'll put it on her and I won't have done all this work to make a $40 sweater for an infant!

That's all I've got for today. I'm tired & sleepy and want this work day to end already! More tomorrow.