The Queen is Done, Long Live The Queen!

Juno Regina, that is.







I hope that last one makes you think of summer, Joan!

Almost up.

The time, that is.
This weekend was all about the Christmas. We got our tree, I baked and baked and cleaned and baked, and STILL only had four batches of goodies. We had friends over for holiday light watching and cookies, though, and we barely made a dent in the goodies, so I suppose that means I just need to have people over again, right? The Bug LOVED the lights, and had a grand time watching the horses and mules pulling wagons and buggies through the streets. We saw about six different Santas (and only one Mrs. Claus - reverse polygamy?), a couple of Marines in full dress (so very handsome) collecting donations for Toys for Tots, and the local food bank collecting money and canned food. The Winterhaven collection gets our food bank quite a chunk of change every year, and I just love it. This means I also participated in BigAlice's food bank contest!
I made a dent in the quilt too, though I am having to revise my original plans yet again in order to have any hope of finishing this thing. Have I mentioned before that I hate machine quilting? I think I might have. Anyway, the lovely and talented Cassie gave me a hint about hand-quilting, so I might try it again on a top I have waiting (and waiting and waiting) to be finished.
I didn't even touch the stole, but I have hopes of grafting it tonight. I'm a little trepidatious about it, though - when I graft socks, I take them off the needles because I can do it without instructions that way. I'm not entirely sure I'll have the fortitude to do it with several inches of laceweight. Maybe I will try only taking a few stitches off the needle at a time... And finish the quilting... And the laundry... And some shopping... Sigh.

Cutting my losses

The knitting on Juno Regina is finished. I laid it out last night and decided I didn't really need to have 42 inches of stockinette in the center. According to the pattern, that leads to a blocked stole of 80 inches, and I think that's a little too long for a woman who will never stand up again. So, I am calling her done. (The knitting, not the woman.) I have 36 inches in the center, which I figure will block out to somewhere in the mid 60s, and I think that will be just right for MIL. Grafting may ensue this weekend.
In the meantime I have been working on FIL's quilt. I started the top years ago when MIL was first injured. She woke up from her coma and the first thing she asked for was the quilt Gramma made her. It occurred to me that FIL didn't have a blankie of his own, so I set out to make one. Like usual, I sewed the top, bought the backing and innards, and let it sit. I have come to the realization (again) that I hate machine quilting. If I had a long arm, I might feel differently, but since I have neither the room, money, or quilting obsession to need one, that's out. ETA: this is an example of a high end long arm. There are cheaper ones, but this is the mack-daddy. Note the prices. Scroll past the prices for a picture and note the size - that is a full sized monitor and keyboard hanging there.) I will finish FIL's quilt, hopefully this weekend, and then, somewhere in the future, I will just have to learn to hand quilt. (I know people send their quilts out to have someone else with a long arm finish the quilting, but that just doesn't feel like the right solution for me.) Anyway, I have the majority of the center block quilted, and the rest is all straight lines or easy free-motion stuff, so I hope that it won't take me too terribly long or be too much of a hassle. I still need to finish the votive sleeves for my aunts, and I hope to whip out a hat for the Bug so the Yule Cat won't eat him. There's an adopted stray in this neighborhood who's big enough to do it, too.
I have also decided that it is now too cold to go outside barefoot anymore. Sigh.
The DH returned from his business trip, and I am SO HAPPY. I gotta tell you, I don't know how single parents do it. I know you rise to the occasion and do what needs to be done, but holy cow, just those four days was hard and exhausting, and I only have one relatively easy child to deal with. I would just like to take this moment right now to tell any single parents who might read my blog: you are amazing, thank you for doing the hard work, and I hope that your children someday thank you for everything you do to raise them well.
This weekend looks like baking, decorating, baby snorgling and light watching for me. (Oh yeah, and the aforementioned quilting.) The babysitting gig is back on, though probably not for the whole evening like I'd thought. My friend's son developed a hernia and had to have surgery Tuesday (7 weeks old, damn) but he is doing so well that his parents will likely go to their concert anyway, just for a little bit. So YAY, I get to snorgle a tiny baby. I didn't make any dough for cookies ahead of time (see above whining about my hard four days) so I will have to do that this weekend and hope that the DH doesn't mind running for supplies. Oh yeah, and I have a hair appointment tonight! YAY for pampering! Maybe I will stop on my way home for some baking things and hope that the high from the pampering will offset the hate of the shopping...

Hungover

Blogless Lynn agreed with me. It's possible to have a knitting hangover. I knit until my brain leaked out my ears on Saturday, and knit more on Sunday. First half of Juno Regina, DONE! (No pictures, as it looks much like it did last post, only 7 inches longer. I might even have stretched it a little to measure. I don't freaking care.) I am doing the symmetrical version, so I will put this half on a stitch holder and knit another one. I am thrilled to death by this, because if I were planning to knit it as written, knowing that I had to do another 21 inches of eyelet before I got to any interesting lace might kill me dead.
Today my hands are stiff and sore, my neck has a knot in it the size of Texas, and my brain wants ANYTHING (please GOD ANYTHING) besides tiny pink stockinette or tiny beaded wire. I might take an evening to knit SLOWLY on my eyelet sweater. Don't believe the schedule. The schedule lies.(Yes, apparently it's okay to knit fat blue stockinette/eyelet instead of tiny pink stockinette/eyelet. Shaddup.) It got coldish here last week FINALLY and I am wishing for my cardigan to be complete. If it doesn't fit, I might cry.

In the meantime, there is a fir wreath scenting my house in the most lovely way. It makes me wish I could put up the Christmas tree, and it makes me fret that my gifts aren't purchased or finished yet. Such a dichotomy. I think I'll spike me some eggnog and try to work it all out.

Playing catch-up

I didn't knit a stitch on Wednesday. Thursday was an epic scene of cooking and cleaning. The DH had a low-blood-sugar episode and had to eat and lay down for a bit, leaving me to finish dinner and the cleaning. (He did vacuum the living room, even under the furniture, before he nearly keeled over, and he made the gravy after he felt better.) I managed a few rows of knitting after the guests were gone, but mostly my hands were stiff and aching. (I know, wah wah, I had to make too much food and have too much fun. Poor me, right?)
Yesterday and this morning, though, I made up for lost time.



Fourth votive done, four more to go.

Juno Regina is chugging along.



It doesn't look like it, but that's 14 inches of eyelet. Seven more to go before I can put it on a holder and make a whole new one. I'm getting there.
Of course, it turned from summer to winter in one day. (Thursday was about 80-some degrees, and today it's cold and windy.) I need my eyelet cardigan!

pacalaga's my name

Obsession is my game.
Beware, as I out myself as a true knitting geek.
I looooove the Yarn Harlot's stories. Not so much when she's on the road, but her home life and her descriptions of same crack me up. This is my favorite time of year - she's in her element with all things woolly, the holidays ramp up and cause increasing hysteria, and the kids have school holidays that drive her mad. I LOVE reading about IT. So much so (okay, here's the really geeky part) that I reread her December archives frequently and chuckle to myself. And (and here's the really SAD part of the geeky part) I have worked myself into a bit of a lather reading about Christmases gone and stressing about how I won't have enough time. Yes, it's true - I have given myself a case of IT by reading about someone else having it LAST YEAR. Sigh. It's a wonder they let me out in public unsupervised.
Or play with pointy sticks.
I finally slogged through the remaining charts on the first half of Juno Regina. It's lovely, it's intuitive, it makes perfect sense, and it hates me with an unholy passion. I knit on it all weekend and made at least one mistake on EVERY. SINGLE. ROW. INCLUDING the stockinette/eyelet parts. Yes, it's true, I cannot count to six in a repeatable fashion. (I can do it like Bug does, apparently: ooooone, twooooooo, feeeeee, fooooooooour, fooooooooour, fouuuuuuuur, feeeeeeee, six!) I have figured out that in order to have this done and blocked in time to mail it for Christmas, I need to average two inches of the stockinette part a day (with four days for the other lacy end and one whole day for the grafting in the middle). Given my experience over the last two days, I'm not sure I'm going to make it. Sigh.

Bug says, "I ROCK, DUDE. And also, peanuts are good."

What do you get

When you use your cracked, peeling fingers to knit with cashmere laceweight?

Why, velcro, of course.



I don't know why my fingers do this. This year it's slightly exacerbated by the wire knitting, but they do it every fall, wire or no. Crack, peel, heal up, move on. They don't hurt, but they're making the cashmere a little tough to work with.

Speaking of the cashmere...



Through the first repeat of chart 3. Game on, Libby!

On a roll

One more votive sleeve done! I made a little mistake with this one, though - it's fatter in the center than at the edges, so I stretched the wire out to make it fit, and "sewed" up the ends before I washed the glass! Augh. The Bug had his sticky little mitts all over it (which will of course help keep the thing on) but it's cloudy and dirty. I plan to see if I can wiggle the sleeve off the glass and clean it and replace the sleeve without picking out one edge of the sleeve seam. ETA: I slipped it off and cleaned the glass, but now the top of the sleeve is a little stretched out. Must remember to clean the next one before the sewing up.



Libby and I are having a little race. She and I started Juno Regina about the same time - hers for her mother and mine for my MIL. We'll have a little yarn swap when we finish, as a pick me up. :-) We thought about having the yarn go to the winner, but that seems like a little too much pressure, what with all the self-induced holiday knitting (and soon, quilting) I've been doing anyway.

Wednesday was a bad bad day all around. A friend got some terrible, terrible news, the DH and I had one of those fights where we both dig in our heels and refuse to see the other side, the Bug was up all night coughing, and then they did that to Garcia. That is JUST WRONG, people.

Bug therapy will help, I'm sure.

FOs abound

Okay, maybe "abound" is a bit of an overstatement, but I'm still on the happiness high from Thursday.

I finally finished Devan, and I LURVE it.





Specs:
Devan from knitty, newborn size.
MCY yarn (from ebay) fingering weight in Santa Fe gold, roughly 280 yds
Lanett fingering superwash, navy blue (I don't remember if that's the actual name but I lost the ball band), most of 1 skein.

I love the Lanett - it's slightly thicker and much squooshier than the MCY. I was a little disappointed in the MCY. It was thin and, although it was soft, it wasn't squooshy at all. It made a decently nice fabric, and since the sweater is going to be outgrown before long, I'm not worried about the thinness. This is southern Arizona after all. It also bled like it wanted to be white again. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and I'm still not entirely convinced I got it all. Blech.

Another FO: I finished my first votive sleeve! I lovelovelove the way this looks. I'm about a quarter of the way through another one (I want to make eight before Christmas) but, even though the second one was going quickly, I had to stop. The wire and straight needles are conspiring to chew up my already-peeling fingers. Still, I LOVE them.



I had a photo with much better lighting, but I forgot to use the macro setting on the camera. The beads sparkled in lovely blurriness, while you could see every tiny defect in the paint on my kitchen wall. Not quite what I was hoping for.

ANYWAY, I have restarted the MIL's stole - I think I'm going to do Juno Regina from knitty now. It's not as intricate as Cheshire Lace, and I don't think it will be quite as pretty in the solid yarn I have, but I think it will be easier for me to finish once I get past the charts at the ends. I'll have a better chance of finishing it before Christmas if I don't have to carry a chart with me.

And now, the Bug says it's time to go outside.