Oh come ON

Tuesday morning I drove Caitie across town for a doctor's appointment. It went fine, except that they were out of varicella so I will have to bring her back again. But things were still good. It was nice even, Rob was working the late shift this week so we got to go to the doctor without Sean.

Came home, Rob left. I did some housework, looked over my list of things to do this week, took Sean to school at 11:45. All pretty normal.

At 12:30 I get a call from school that Molly has lice. Again. For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to meet Molly, she's a very tall, very strong, usually sweet autistic 9 year old girl, who will scream bloody murder if you even think about brushing her hair. Nit combing is a nightmare. One I can't really find the words to describe. Bad. Awful.

So, I drive to school to pick her up, kind of with the vague hope that maybe the school nurse is wrong. Of course she was not. We didn't see any live lice, but a whole mess of nits in 1 spot.

I left her in the office so I could go talk to her teachers about it, because I can NOT figure out how she has them again. There must be one thing of hers that we didn't get cleaned. I don't know. Also, I am stalling, because I know I'm going to have to nit comb her by myself (Rob working the late shift and all). My stomach actually hurt from thinking about doing this to her again. If you've never had to deal with lice, the way you have to treat them is mechanical. You can get all kinds of stuff to put on your head, but it won't kill the eggs, only the live lice. You pretty much have to use this thing called a nit comb. It's a comb with very very fine teeth, so fine that it pulls your hair when you use it. So fine that if there's an egg glued to your hair, the comb will pull it off. You have to do it in tiny tiny sections and it takes forever.

While I'm standing in the hallway talking to them, Sean walks by with a teachers aid because he'd peed his pants. Oh, and the extra pair he's supposed to have in his backpack weren't there. And school doesn't have anything that will fit him.

SO, I take Molly, drive home, get pants, go back to school, and drop them off. I actually dropped off 3 pairs of pants - 1 for him to wear, 1 for him to put in his backpack, and 1 that's too small to keep in the nurse's office for back up. Then I take Molly to the store. And we have a conversation like this:

Me: Molly, is there anything you want?

Anything I could buy you that would get you to let me comb your hair?
Molly: nope

Me: Anything?

Molly: No! Don't comb me. I don't want to be combed. I want to be EX combed. NO MORE COMBING. You can't comb me.

Me: OK but we have to comb out the lice. I know that you aren't going to like it but we have to do it anyway. I *AM* going to comb you. Is there anything I can get you to make you feel better?

Molly: Nope. No combing. I don't want any combing.

Me: what if I buy you ice cream? You could have it when we're done.
(She *never* gets ice cream- this is a major bribe. Gluten free dairy free ice cream is hard to come by.)

Molly: Nope

Me: Chips? Candy? What about a movie?

Molly: Nope

Me: Video game? Toy?

Molly: Nope. You can't comb me. No combing. EX combing.

Me: *sigh*

So, I buy some skittles for her and some dark chocolate for me, and some sugar free gum for Caitie because I'm going to make her help me. I don't usually like using food for bribes, but desperate times...

I also spent this whole time trying to call Rob so the name of the stuff that was our other option (there are several kinds of lice treatment, and the most common one is also the one that is the most toxic and least likely to work, but I can't remember which the other ones are- I only remember that there were 2 that were ok, and we used one of them before). He's not answering his phone. *sigh*

I'm sure that none of the stuff at the first store is the stuff we want, so we leave and go to store number 2, which has nothing. Store number 3 has stuff I *think* is the other stuff we almost used but didn't the last time. They definitely don't have the stuff we used before. All through stores 2 and 3 Molly gets more and more pissed about the whole business and is now just yelling about EX combing. (Everything is EX something around here). Call Rob again. Nothing. So I buy it, and a giant squishy hairy ball thing that Molly likes, drag her to the car and race home so I can beat the bus.

Molly wants to watch Wall-E. We can't find it. It's no where in the house, I have no idea. We settle for Tinkerbell. I put the lice stuff in her hair, which she cries about, but not that bad really. It says wait 10 minutes. I waited 20. I got all the sheets and pillows and stuffed animals and hats and start the mountain of laundry. Sean peed his pants AGAIN. I got the Time Timer and set it for 15 minutes. Gave Caitie the bag of Skittles, with instructions to give Molly 3 every time the timer goes off. I work on Molly's hair. It takes 3 hours, with short breaks every 15 minutes. In between she screams and I comb her hair. At some point I ate a hot pocket because I hadn't gotten lunch yet. 45 minutes into it Tinkerbell stops working. We take it out, clean it, put it back, still stuck. We finally had to skip a big portion of the movie. It seemed like the last straw for Molly. Not ONLY is all this horrible combing going on, but now the movie is broken. Hysteria ensues. By the end I was holding her with my legs, and my back is all screwed up.

I have to just say here that Caitie was fantastic that day. She had a school project and she worked on it in between running in to hand me things or feed Molly Skittles, and didn't complain once. She helped get Sean dinner, washed dishes, helped me strip the beds and gather hair supplies for decontamination, and was generally helpful and awesome. So much so that I was starting to wonder who she was.

So, I had just enough time to wash the crap out of Molly's hair, put it into a pony tail, get her dressed, change MY clothes, and run over to my sister's house to drop Sean and Molly off so we can go to the middle school open house (Gah- I am not ready to be the mother of a middle schooler). I practically threw them out of the car. Turning a corner on the way out of their neighborhood I hit something. I really couldn't even figure out what the hell it was but it made a really loud noise. I look behind me, can't see anything. Look at my right side mirror, it's folded up, smashed, and dangling by a wire. Great. I look back and apparently I hit the door of a grey (invisible) mailbox, which was open and sticking straight out. The mailbox was completely fine. Mirror is screwed.

Middle school open house seemed to go ok. Nothing terrible went wrong. I made it back in a reasonable time. Brother in law had made them dinner so I let them eat. Sean said he wasn't hungry. Oh, and he peed his pants again while we were gone. (Seriously?! He's 6. This is pretty ridiculous.)

Molly's favorite thing to do at their house is throw stuff down the laundry chute. Pretty much just anything. Down the chute. I was trying to wrangle all our stuff together, and every time I turn around Molly is putting something down the chute again. I finally got them to go outside, and Molly fell in the driveway, ripped her pants, and cut her knee and was bleeding and crying. This is when I start to think someone is actually out to get me. We get it cleaned up, put a band aid on it, and as I'm driving away at 10 past bed time, Sean says "I'm hungry". gah! Srsly? No.

We get home and I start putting people to bed. There's a massive amount of stuff to do, house is seriously trashed. I let the sink water out from earlier, and all of the sudden I'm standing in a puddle of water. The joint under the sink came apart. Oh come ON. WTF world? I don't even HAVE any clean towels left in the house at this point. Everything under the sink is wet. I had to clean it up with clothes and put them back in the laundry pile, which is threatening to block the path from my kitchen to the bedrooms.

Last thing I did was have a very big drink and go put the needles back in that had came out of the shawl I was knitting. Srsly.

I blame daylight savings time.

Unbloggable

I know- I know- I've been really quiet.

There was a week when I had some kind of plague. And days before and after when someone else in my household had it.

But mostly, it's because almost all of the stuff that I've been working on is Unbloggable. When you design patterns for potential publication anywhere they don't want you to tell anyone about it, especially not in print or on the internet. Which makes for some seriously boring blogging.

So I will just entertain you for now with what my kids have affectionately dubbed Mount Yarn.

I've been dyeing.

A lot.












Let me also introduce 2 new colorways. This one is Molly (because it is the perfect pink).



And this is Ruby Slippers.

Which is really hard to photograph.

These are both shown here on a new base yarn I've discovered: Panda Feet. It's 80% superwash merino and 20% bamboo. I'm wearing some socks right now in Molly and I *love* them. This is such a luxurious feeling yarn. Look for lots of it in the store in the next week or so. It's probably 60% of Mount Yarn. (the rest being old standbys).

Love and Seamonsters

One of the answers to what is on my needles right now is this:

These are gloves (yes, gloves. Not fingerless gloves, not mittens, gloves), that I've been working on for a while.

The seed of the idea for these fell from a woman who attended our knit night a few times a few years ago. She had some stranded gloves made with handpainted yarn that were just gorgeous. I decided then that I was going to make some gloves.

I poked around looking at glove patterns. It didn't take me long to figure out I was going to have to make my own, because if I'm going to put that much time into something, I want them to be exactly how I want them.

I wanted them to be long(ish). I wanted them to be true fair isle, and I wanted the main colors to be purple. I wanted them to be subltle and colorful and beautiful.
If I had not ripped these back at all the first glove would be done already. I think I did the ribbing 4 times. I keep changing stitch count, colors, the thumb gusset was wrong. But, I loooove them more deeply than I've possibly ever loved another one of my knits.

BTW they're still not right. I don't like the colors in the center of the star. So I will most likely rip that back, but not until I figure out what to do.

Also, it's really hard to take a picture of your own hand.

They should probably be finished right about the time when the snow is melting.

One more thing to share, now that my swap partner has recieved her package, I can share. We were supposed to make something under the Care of Magical Creatures theme. I've wanted to try out this guy for a while, so here it is.
I made it out of 4 hanks of embroidery floss. If I were to make him again I would probably use something thinner/split the floss, and use a smaller hook (don't ask me what hook I used, I can't remember.)
The pattern is Seeungeheuer and can be found here, but it's in German. It comes with a chart, and I can offer the following for anyone who wants to try to make them.
Stabchen and St = American dc
halbes Stabchen and hSt = hdc
FM = sc
"Bogen aus LM entsprechund der Zahl" translates to "chain according to the number"
The words along the side of the tail translate to "continue to the head"
Also one more tip - start at the neck, work the body to the tail, then go back up to the head.

Socks Socks Everywhere

A couple of people have told me that my recent blog post doesn't count, because it had no pictures, so, here are some pictures for you, stop yer whining. In this episode we will be traveling back to November.


Birthday socks for Rob. The yarn is Berocco Comfort Sock. They were going to be Christmas socks, but then one day when I already finished with the first sock, I was wearing some olive/grey socks I asked him if he liked the color (for future reference), and he said "I don't really like grey socks".

Doh!

I was unable to mask my reaction to this statement, so I gave it away and went ahead and showed him the sock of yarn that I'd specifically picked because I thought it was plain enough for him to wear, but interesting enough that I might actually knit it. He then proceded to backpedal beautifully, trying to convince me that he didn't know he could wear grey socks to work (uhhhh). And that *these* grey socks are VERY different from the other grey socks. I'm not totally convinced, but, he does wear them. I finished them on his birthday, just before Thanksgiving.

Tiny socks for the Reducio Sock Swap on Ravelry. Basically it's a Harry Potter swap, on a small scale. These are the only swaps I'm willing to commit to, because I'm so convinced I will knit fancy socks for someone recieve socks made from DK acrylic and 6 sizes too big (this has happened to people).

But reducio sock swap is awesome and fun and you get to play with things and you know if you never got a tiny sock? Wouldn't be the end of the world. The teeny one here is a stitch marker. It's knit on 0000 needles.

Horrible picture of Christmas socks for my mom, in a pattern of my own devising. They are binary cables, one says Left, and one says Right (my mom is a math teacher). Yarn is Patons Kroy.




This is where I began my love affair with Cat Bordhi and her new sock architecture.

I'd started first with the Coriolis sock, but I hadn't really given in. I made those socks top down, basically I just took her idea of the increases and put them in a regular sock. And then, you know, lost it. Still bitter about that.

But I'd decided to make the kids socks for Christmas, and kid sized socks seemed like a good way to try out her patterns all the way. Molly's, of course, had to be pink. These are Lion Brand Sock Ease, and they follow the Cedar architecture master pattern. I did that because I still wasn't convinced on the whole toe up thing, and that was one of the only patterns that is top down in her book. They look really freaking weird when they're not on her feet, but they fit fine, and she loves them, and I was all enamored of the heel stitches not ever being on a flap. It's wild. (BTW, I really like the yarn)

Next I had just 1 50g ball of Panda Silk to use for Caitie's socks, so toe up seemed like the answer. You'll have to imagine a picture of Caitie's socks here, because they are going to have to be secret for now. But they're really really cool and I love them, and Cat Bordhi was totally right about the math for figuring out where to start the heel (which has never worked out for me before and always ticks me off with toe up socks)

Sean said he wanted slippers instead of socks.
He chose some Patons Classic Merino (blue, naturally), and I made these slippers with the Upstream master pattern. He kept looking at me like I had a second head when I was making them, and once or twice came up to me and told me that um, Mommy, I think, you might, possibly, be making those a little too big.
Actually several of my knitting friends thought I might be a little wrong about the size of that sock too. And they were making me start to doubt myself. I was really not at all sure they would shrink enough.
Now he tells people I made them out of magic shrinking yarn. They're awesome.
This time I didn't have the size of DPNs that I wanted, so I did these with 2 circs.
I can't say that I'm TOTALLY convered to 2 circs, but I can definitely see the appeal in some cases.

(Insert bright flashy light and things disappearing and other things appearing)

Here's another reducio sock swap sock, Also Cat Bordhi-ized (Riverbed)

I didn't even need to open the book for the heel this time.
BTW, if you're thinking about this book, DO EET! It's on sale at Knitpicks right now.







One last sock-ish thing. These are Yoga socks, that I made to use on our new Wii Fit. I left out the 1x1 ribbing, didn't seem necessary.
The yarn is Karabella Aurora 8, which is really yummy, and I got it from a christmas swap, which is even better. (Thanks Gonzopants!)

Katie asked me what's on my needles.

I'd like to point out (for those of you reading in a blog reader) that Ravelry has this cool thing that lets you pull tickers from your raverly account and put them on your blog. If you're reading from my actually blog page, they're over there -------> (well and up some)
Or, you can just wait for me to get around to blogging about it, but you know how that goes...

So..

I know. I have been a Very Bad Blogger (TM).

The problem is, the longer you go without blogging, the more behind you are, and the more pressure there is to make up for all of the time you didn't do it. And the more things you've done and the more pictures you have to edit. At some point it just becomes a death spiral and you have to give in.

One of my new year's resolutions was to start blogging again. I was going to start earlier in the month, but hey, I got it in in January, so that's something. And I have so very much going on/planned right now to tell you about.

SO, can we all just agree to move on from here as if there wasn't a giant gaping time warp in the blog? And I may, periodically, jump back in time and and blog about something that happened months ago.

It'll be just like LOST.