And the beat goes on...

Tivoli is coming along. If slowly. I won't get much of a chance to work on her today. Today is Friday. Normally that means Friday Fun Day. But not today. Today is Friday run all over town to get school clothes for the boys and all of the supplies they need and hope you have enough leftover to pay the rent day. That's what today is. Um, yep.

I can't believe I will have two boys in school. Two boys. They are getting so durned big. So big, so fast.

I need to print out the supply lists and figure out exactly what I need to buy for them. Shoes, shorts, nice polo type shirts. *sigh* I'm not buying any jeans today. Nope, not, never. Last year I bought Big J's jeans at the end of July. And by the time January rolled around, none of his jeans fit him. Their legs do this whole thing where they grow three inches overnight. Gives a whole new meaning to growing pains. The good news is the boys won't need jeans for at least a couple of months. We are talking about Florida here. I'll wait and buy jeans around the first of October.

So yep, no fun knitting day for me.

Please cue Ren & Stimpy....

The song of the hour is....

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!

And why am I singing so joyously? Well because it seems like my tivoli tee is gonna fit. I just finished a few "underarm rows" and then put it on the brightest red acrylic yarn you ever did see for a try on. And it fits! Woo-hoo! Happiness.

But now I have to go do story duty. And be happy.

Just for the wierdness archives. My tivoli tee which is for a 37" bust is gonna fit the size 18/20 top, 46" bust me. Go figure.

I'm wearing a wip on my head

And it's not a hat. It's T-2 aka Tivoli take two. I put it around my neck, still on the needles, to see how it was neckline wise. And of course you can't tell while it's all scrunched up on the needles. I know better.

I'm only a few rounds away from the armhole bindoff. After I get a few rounds under my arms, I will be able to put it on scrap yarn and try it on. If it doesn't work.... well if it doesn't work, I don't know what. It's such a cute pattern. And I still don't quite know what I did wrong.

And also, I can't make a blueberry/pistachio via diagonale. I only have one ball of each. I need two balls of one or the other.

What fresh hell is this?

Actually the pain is just too raw. The pain that comes from a WIP that you realize will *never* work, unless you gain about 150 lbs. And I really don't need to gain weight. You've seen the pictures. You know.

I re-cast on for my tivoli tee and today while my knitting friend came over, I worked on it. But it was all too clear in my mind. The disaster that was the first tivoli tee. I think I'm gonna have to put it away and not look at it for a long while. Or at least a few days.

Hmmm... I wonder what else I'm working on. I will try hard to resist the urge to cast on for a pistachio blueberry via diagonale. Cause wouldn't the minty color and the navy color look nice together?

Please call the paddy wagon...

Because I seem to have gone insane. I'm sitting on my bed, happily watching clean sweep and knitting tivoli take two. The boys are all playing happily in their bedroom with their cousin.

And then it happened. I got the overwhelming urge to do housework. So now I am mid-way through spic and spanning the kitchen and feeling all sorts of domestic urges. Dagnabbit. I'm probably gonna end up with some sort of cleaning related injury. Mark my words.

Corn-fused in my flashdance days...

I had a science teacher in 8th grade who used to compare confused and corn-fused. I can't remember the witty story he told, but corn-fused was the worse of the two. And right now I am corn-fused.

Is Knitpicks shine twist made of some sort of super stretchy material that grows by leaps and bounds when touching human flesh? Let's review.

I did the math for my 44" bust version of the Tivoli tee. I consulted grumperina. She advised that my neck might be a little low. I ignored that wise advise. Grumperina rocks by the way. She's on my list of folks to buy patterns from when she starts selling. She was super helpful with all my sizing questions. But I screwed it all up. And this is what I end up with.

First we have the oh so unflattering flashdance neckline. Immodest does not cover it.


And then we have the space where the boobs of death could fit. Cause if my boobs filled out this space, I'd be a what? A 40M bust? I'm already a 40D. Geez louise.



That is not fully stretched out. That is "gently" stretched out. The sweater measures 44" at the bust, which is exactly what I was shooting for. My bust measures 46" at the biggest point. And I wanted a little hug for the girls. My gauge is perfect. But this shirt, when put on my body is a shiny twisty flashdance tent of gargantuan boobiness.

I know. That doesn't make any sense. But I'm peeved. Three days of work down the drain. Right now I have cast on for the 37" version of the tivoli tee as written. I will try it on every other round to make sure it fits I guess. I was really hoping to nail this pattern. I have my cotton ease stash to think about you know.

Proof of just how lazy I am.

This is my cast-on and first 7 rounds of the tivoli tee in knitpicks shine twist. I am soooooo lazy.... (how lazy are you?) I am sooooo lazy that I didn't even frog the raglan tee I had worked it into before. I'm just knitting right out of that project.

I like to call it efficiency.

And if you are "in it" with me on the yarn diet diet, please do not look at this next part.



Do you know what this is? The above is the results of two trips to Jo-Ann's. Uncharacteristically I was carrying cash. And the cash got spent. Let me just tell you what. This is $42.70 (including tax) of the elusive (and discontinued) cotton-ease. What does a girl get for the money?




Besides the vanilla/white, all of the multiple balls are the same dyelots. Who would have thought that pure white could be so different. But I think two balls of white can make very cute things. Check out my boobholder if you don't believe me.

If the tivoli tee works out as cute as it looks on everyone else, three of those balls (maybe the candy blue) will be for that. Some of you may remember that yellow and I have a long sordid history. Trust me, you don't want me to post a picture of myself holding yellow yarn up to my skin. It will curl your hair. (Or give it the lovely Florida humidity haze that I'm dealing with right now, and trust me, that's even worse). So why did I buy three balls of pineapple yellow? Leverage my dear people. It's all the same dyelot. And not everybody hates yellow as I do. I will swap it for better colors. Yes, I will.

There are two kinds of people...

People who use the snooze button and people that know that the snooze button is just a sorry-ass excuse to rob yourself of precious sleep.

Sorry. I'm a grumbly woman this morning. My husband now has to be at work at 8:30. So he needs to get up at 7:30 and be out the door by 8. Ok, that's wonderful. A half hour is a perfect amount of time for me to brew coffee, fix his morning egg sammich, pack his lunch, etc. I'm a housewife. That's part of the job description.

Having the alarm start at 6:30 and ring every 9 minutes until 7:30 is not part of my job description. I don't wanna play smack the alarm clock. I want to sleep blissfully until 7:30. There is no reason (especially on Thursday) for me to get up before 7:30. I can promise you that he will not actually get out of bed until 7:30. Trust me. So why do we play this game? Does it help him wake up? I don't understand it. I'd rather really sleep until the last minute.

Audio books are the bomb. Sorry. I'm a 33 year old white woman. I know better than to say "the bomb". But last night I finished an entire Mariposa strap (aka the intarsia strap from hell) while listening to HP1 on audiotape. It was very nice and peaceful. It makes me wanna really turn my office futon into my knitting nook. This could be a very nice solution.

Magic is boring.

Subtitle: I am a one-armed bandit.

I bought some Moda Sassy Stripes on clearance. It's one of those magic striping yarns. It's the storm colorway, all greys, etc. It's for man socks. I started on them, and waited for the magic stripes to appear. It's kind of disappointing. Course that might be what I get for buying cheap yarn on clearance that isn't really sock yarn. I might have to actually splurge on some Lang for myself, so I can see what real magic yarn works up like.

I'm trying to be a finisher. That's why I'm one-armed. Or more specifically one-strapped. I had to do some fancy seaming, and it's not a wrap top, but my Mariposa is about 85% finished. I need to weave in a few ends, and make one more strap. The intarsia straps are a royal pain in the patootie. And then some. But I have a working strap and it seems to fit. I asked for the man's opinion. He just leered at me and said, "It makes your boobs look large." Hmmph. Now I'm not tiny, but I'm definitely not busty. So I don't know if that was a backhanded compliment or what. Or if he's just being a guy and in his esteemed opinion anything that accentuates the boobs is a good thing?

I'm still trying to make up my mind about the shapely tank. I only have a few inches on the front, but it seems like a very dense fabric. Dense heavy fabrics are not so happy here in the land of hot.

And that knitpicks shine. It sits in a pretty basket on my nightside table. And taunts me. I'm toying with the idea of knitting a tivoli tee in it. The designer hasn't offered one in plus size, but I'm feeling pretty confident about the whole math thing. So I think I could totally swing it.

What color shorts should I wear with my "melon and fuschia" mariposa top. White would go, but my ass in white shorts? I'd get arrested for scaring people.

The case of the missing notebook.

Where is it? I saw it yesterday. It was sitting on the step stool. Course I did use the step stool after I saw it. This is all my fault. Cause I can't master the housework. Therefore I lose things that I shouldn't.

I've eaten 4 points of food today and I need to write it down dagnabbit.

In other news.... have you also lost the ability to write? I do so much of my "written" stuff on the computer that my penmanship now sucks. I just had to fill out the mountain of paperwork for my baby to go to kindergarten (sob, wail) and my hand is killing me. Seriously. And it all looks like chicken scratch.

I can't believe I will now have two children in school. Where did the time go?

Particular or Persnickety...

I'm not sure if we've completely established this, but housework is not my forte'. Before I met the man I spent my life working like crazy, at first to move up, and then just to support the boys. So housework? Not big on my list of things to master.

But now I'm a housewife. I guess I should know some of these rules. But I don't. Like the bed covering rule. You got the bed. Then you add a mattress cover. Then you add a fitted sheet. When making the bed, apparently you first add the top sheet, the light blanket, and then the decorative comforter. At least that's what my husband says. He seems to know more about housework than I do. Or seems to care more. Let's ignore the fact that we live in Florida and really don't need to sleep under three layers. But yeah, he gets a little crazy about the whole bed thing. But being a kept woman, I just do as he asks on that one and smile. (And rebel in small childish ways. But that's another show.)

I spoke with my mom last night. In exactly three months she will be here. I really need to be thinner in exactly three months. I've dropped 20 since the first of the year, but it needs to be more. I'm bringing out the little notebook today. So I can write everything down. *sigh*

I'm trying to be patient with the proactiv. The info says results in 3-6 weeks. I can't really tell if my skin is better or worse. I've had some flare-ups, but "people" say that the flare-ups are my skin clearing out the gunk. Dangit people, I've been clearing out the gunk my whole life. Now my skin is not terrible. Folks don't see me and ask if my face hurts or anything awful like that. But it's not clear, and it's not smooth, and at 33 can't I have at least a blemish free week?

Obligatory knitting content: I worked a bit on my version of the shapely tank. I'm getting skeered. That it's gonna be too darned heavy. I need to buck up and finish up my mariposa but I'm still don't want to. (Childish rebellion again). And the knitpicks shine... It's so pretty. And I fondle it frequently. But I still don't know what to do with it.

Math: A very lazy weekend equals...

...a very busy Monday.

Saturday morning I shopped. For groceries, and shampoo, and health food items, etc. And of course what should I find at the K-Mart while looking for some jet dry? You've guessed it. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. So there you go. It was only $18 and it had a very pretty cover. And I had planned to resist the buying temptation, but that was not to be.

So after I put all of my purchases away I settled in with it. The man had guy plans, something to do with soldering and hex wrenches. So the boys played quietly for awhile and I read. But then they got the ants in their pants. So we went to the pool and I read. And I read while I fixed TSP barbecue sandwiches. And while I poked holes in the baked potatoes I was baking for dinner. (Yes I cut my finger). And finally I read (and bawled) after the man desserted me and went to the bedroom to watch car shows. So on Saturday, basically all I did was read.

On Sunday there was church of course. And then the beach. We took the top off the jeep and drove out to Hugenott. Where you can *drive* on the beach. And the man does love any opportunity to drive the jeep off-road per se. So we beached it. And the boys and the man did the wave splashing thing while I sat under a big umbrella and knitted. I made amazing progress on my shapely tank.

And then we came home and the boys went back to the pool (supposedly to wash off sand but whatever) with the man and I took a very, very, very long shower. After which I watched Mystery! and discovered two things.

1. Even if you spend most of your beach time under an umbrella coated in sunscreen, the open top Jeep ride will guarantee you still get a bit of a sunburn.

2. The shapely tank I was knitting was not going to fit my shape. So I had to do more complicated math to put together a pattern that was gonna fit me.

Which led me to conclusion the third:

3. I am freakishly misshapen. I mean I always knew I was a pear, but holy cow. When I got out the measuring tape and proceeded to draw my little shapely tank diagram it looked more like a pyramid than a tank top.

Oh and busy Monday? I have mountains of laundry, and doctor appointments and all manner of fun housework. Which I loathe. Yes I said loathe. Loathe is not too strong a word for housework. Trust me.

Tada! It's a boobholder!

This is the minisweater in all it's glory along with the dress that I wanted it for. The dress has spaghetti straps and is not appropriate for church. So I needed a coverup. Also I'm gonna cast on today hopefully for a matching shapely tank to make a Florida style twinset.

Pattern notes etcetera...

1. Worked in vanilla cotton-ease on size 8 needles.

2. The raglan increases are done as kfb's which resulted in the open lacy look of them, which I love.

3. Only six rows of garter stitch were worked for the top, the bottom, and the sleeves. This is to match the shapely tank. Also only 4 stitches of garter were done on the sides for a balanced look.

4. The sleeves were worked on dpns. I had to darn the armpit holes that resulted.

5. I cast on 68 stitches and divided them 12-11-22-11-12. This was for two reasons. One was to accomodate using smaller needles. Two was for a slight size increase. All the other boobholders I saw were on teeny people and I wanted to make sure this would fit.

6. I modified the sleeve decreases that the cuffs would perfectly fit my arms. I didn't want gapey sleeves.

Why do I love this sweater so? Well for starters, I finished a garment! And also it fits me perfectly. I did "the math", I bravely made the appropriate changes and it worked. Perfectly.

I'm not super happy about the way the cotton-ease shows every stitch detail and increase on the size 8's. Those are the recommended needles and I think the resulting fabric (which is perfect label gauge) is too open and airy.

But all I need now are some strappy white sandals and I'm ready to go!

It's confession time.

When I was 13 I spent a lot of time at Missy's house. Missy was my BFF. And we always signed things LYLAS. Of course, I liked her a heck of a lot more than I liked my real sisters at the time, but that's another tale for another day. She had a big house. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, full basement with computer with print shop loaded on it for goodness sake! She was rich and I was poor. Her father drank manhattans and all the girls drank diet pepsi.

Missy was little. Like 5'3" and less than 100 pounds little. I was thin enough, but I was 5'10" and I felt like an amazon around her and all the little people I went to school with. I hit 5'10" at around 12. I was the second tallest person in the whole school for awhile, except for one boy who either failed a few grades or had a glandular condition. So I "felt" fat. I felt big and huge compared to all the little girls. So I decided it was a good idea to drink diet pepsi as well. And thus began the addiction.

I'm 33 now. I have been drinking diet soda for 20 years. Mostly diet pepsi, but a good amount of diet coke as well. Two and a half weeks ago I swore to give it up. There were headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and a hell of a lot of sleeping.

But last night I caved. I decided that life without diet soda was a sorry state of exsitence. And believe it or not, I stayed up past 9pm. My fridge is full of shiny cans and I am a happy girl. And I'm pretty sure that I have completely altered my genetics in some sort of mad scientist fashion with this stuff. But I don't care. I'm not tired, I'm happy, and excuse me, I am going to go open a can and let the fizzies tickle my nose before I drink it.

It's all about the math.

Sunday evening I did quite a bit of "the math" in preparation for the twinset that I'm working on right now. And holy crap a duck, it seems to be working.

The boobholder is coming along nicely and I think it's close to half done. I'm almost ready to separate and try on the sleeves. Then it will be time for the shapely tank.

In other news the lifestyle changes are about 50/50. The kitchen is sort of messy this morning. Because last night instead of doing my "before bed routine" ala Flylady which includes cleaning up the kitchen, I drank a girly beer and fell asleep at 8:30. I needed the sleep though. The nap yesterday did not happen.

I counted my points all day yesterday and of course there was the humid walk of doom. Right now I am gonna get my booty off the computer, get ready to face the day and the kitchen. And once the house is nicely straightened and there is some laundry a-going, I am going to knit. All the rest of the damn day.

Knitty Monday.

It's been a good Monday so far. I got up and took my walk. Ate a low point brekkie. Drank a good amount of water. Did some minor straightening and then Miss Karyn came over to knit and have lunch and felt her bag. So that was soooo nice. I like it best when company comes over cause then I can't be a hermit and stay home. Made a bunch of progress on my boobholder and now I think I will take a nap. Cause I didn't sleep so well what with living out the adventures of secret agent amazon woman (um, that would be me.) The boys are settled in with some scooby cartoons, the little one is napping, and I'm pooped. Later gators.

But I'm a secret agent.

And there I was. In my secret agent life. With rippling muscles, and long shiny hair that was full of volume. And the evil mastermind wanted me to tell the secret. "You have 30 seconds to comply." And I knew if I didn't tell him, I'd be dropped into a tank of alligators or shocked by the electro-ray-gun.... but I was a secret agent damnit, and I was keeping my secret. I watched as the seconds ticked by, my perfectly lined and glossed lips sealed. And then the timer went off. The timer of doom. What horrid fate awaited me?

Much worse than alligators or electro-ray-guns... it was the 6am alarm. That carried with it all the promises I'd made to myself about exercising and eating healthy and dusting ceiling fans and oh for the love of pete where the hell is the snooze button?

But I got up. And put on my exercise clothes. And my new balance runners that I've only run in during the pouring rain. These are the things I experienced on my 25 minute walk.

1. Even if you're fat, if you put the girls in a tight workout top, ugly construction men will leer at you.

2. There are too many lizards in Florida.

3. The outside of my apartment grounds smells like polecat.

4. Four dogs taking their morning dump.

5. Did I mention about the lizards? Holy cow.

6. Even at 6:16 A.M. the humidity is like a heavy blanket that doesn't really like it when you try to move. Or breathe.

But I did something. And now the order of the day is to do some kind of housework and only eat my points. Luckily a knitting friend is coming over and that kind of forces me to straighten up.

Oh yes, and I have knitting content! I finally figured out what to do with my vanilla cotton-ease. I made a real honest to goodness gauge swatch (actually two of them on different needles even) and figured out some math. I'm gonna make a Florida friendly twinset. Nothing heavy or too much. Just a shapely tank with a boobholder to go over it. I'm modifying the boobholder pattern to match the shapely tank more and I'm working it all on the same needles so it looks like it goes together. Wish me luck!

And all of the sudden, life is daunting.

I made big promises to myself about tomorrow. About eating healthy, exercising, being a better housewife. Did you know I was a kept woman? I am. But I'm a bad, bad, bad housewife. Today after church my hard-working man was vacuuming my hair up in the bedroom and sorting laundry cause I don't do it right. But I digress...

Seriously though. Now I don't want tomorrow to come. I want to live in today. There's some girly beers in the fridge. And some ice cream in the freezer. And I plan on making some french fries and some fried fake chicken sandwiches for dinner. All kinds of unhealthy. The only healthy thing that might happen is that we might have canteloupe on the side. Cause it's ripe and if I waste another melon my husband might just leave me.

Also I need to decide what to do with my white cotton ease. I find myself wanting to have more of it so I could make a cute little twinset. But I don't think that's gonna happen, since it's all discontinued and crap. Bummer.

I can so hide from it. Can so.

I had a bad dream last night. All my wips used the knitting needles attached to them as scary pseudo limbs and starting crawling out of the wip basket (which is a cracked plastic laundry basket that has seen better days) and then they were marching in scary wip formation towards my bed to come and attack me and make me knit them. It was unsettling to say the least.

And I'm not sure how many times you can frog cotton ease without it disintegrating. I mean it's just not doing good things for me at all. Last night I used to cast on for the Cream Tea camisole from knitnet and this morning I frogged that and cast for the minisweater again, except resized to fit my boobs and not someone else's. Right now I am trying to think of something better to do with it.

So many wips just sitting there all forlorn. I really should get my ass off the computer and attend to them. Or at least lock them up so that they can't escape.

Finally.

The snood is completed. It took forever. It's gorgeous and it's worth it, but still. That is it on my son's head. I can't very well take a picture of the back of my own head, now can I?

In other news I have a very primal need to knit something now. And nothing in my pile is calling my name. Nothing. And I still have those 6 balls of white cotton ease and the 12 balls of knitpicks shine twist to do something with. Something summery. Something garment like. Oh man.

I picked up two balls of Moda Sassy Stripes the other day. They were on clearance and I'm gonna try to make man socks out of them. They are the "storm" colorway which is varying shades of greys.

I need something exciting to write, but my head is blank. Plus I'm annoyed at the man for the whole flower thing yesterday so I just want to piss and moan. Oh well. More later I guess.

Significance.

Monday is a significant date. It's the 2 year anniversary of meeting the man. Since I met the man, I have gained, you guessed it, a significant amount of weight. Fifty pounds of significance. I've been trying to be all healthy and count my points and all that, and I've actually lost twenty pounds, but I fell off the wagon. And um yeah, I needed to lose some before I met the man.

But folks the fat wagon is coming on Monday. Because well, it's a date with significance. And for the love of pete, it's a Monday! Diets are statistically proven to go better if you start them on a Monday. Or maybe that was the day you had the highest risk of being hit by a bus in your own front yard. But I digress...

So starting on Monday there will be little blurbs about my eating, and my exercising, and maybe some sort of really cheesy thermometer graphic with the pounds lost all lit up in red!!!! Ok, maybe a big no on the graphic. But healthiness and weight loss will abound!

I'm still working on the snood. It's much bigger. And it's very red and very beaded and very gorgeous. But by my excellent math calculations I have nine more hours of work to do. I probably should do less calculating and more snooding. Because my friend needs it in her hot little hands on Saturday. And um, I'm in sunny F-L-A and she's in well, I guess it's sunny in NY too. The pressure of a deadline.

After I get skinny, I plan to write a book on the knitting diet. How if you spend too much money on fancy fibers you will A. not have enough money for food and B. be deathly afraid to eat for fear some of those ramen noodles will get tangled up in your perfect ball of overpriced silk. It'll be a bestseller. I'll include lots of wrap patterns that will be adjustable as you get all svelte-like. It could happen.

Smallish knitting rant.

Two things.

1. Knitty is awesome. And it's free. So bitching and moaning because not every single issue has something you "must knit" is poor form. Very poor form.

2. Read the instructions. If you are using a pattern, read the instructions. All of them. That way you won't ask stupid questions (that are clearly answered in said instructions) and I won't have the overwhelming urge to hand you a dunce cap.

*Disclaimer on #2. I know folks can overlook things. But I think way too many people don't take the time to look at the pattern completely and thoroughly before asking the same question that someone else asked five days on the same damn list. I honestly wonder how some of these folks can knit at all.

And for mamma - this is a snood.

I am NOT knitting.

I am crocheting. With size 10 crochet thread (which really is thread) and a very teensy hook. But it's gorgeous. Gorgeous I tell you. It's the beginning of a snood for an online friend who needs it for a convention. I'm actually quite a bit further along than that now. I can't believe how pretty it is. It's really more of a true red, and I'm using silvery beads on every other round. But that teeny hook? I'll probably never pick it up again! :p