Another not knitting kind of day

My heart is breaking because of this.  Among all these things I have to do, this is not the way I hoped it would go, not the way that I needed it to go.  I need to knit.  It is my stalwart thing, the thing that holds my world together.  

So I am going to fix that right now.  I am skipping the blog post today in favour of a wee fellas blanket, and some calming cream yarn and a pretty periwinkle blue.

Fair is fair and I need to knit.

Still crazy

Still crazy, still here.  And still building furniture.

I finished the table and chairs and I am very very pleased with them.  I was doing really well with the pantry cabinet, till I found I was short 1 nut.  Then all heck broke loose.  That happens when you are short one nut.  I still have one very large piece to go, the daybed.  I think I have to wait a bit to build it.  My hand is a little sore again and if I want to be able to knit, I have to keep it healthy.

Or get one of my boys to build it for me!  Yeah that's the ticket!

I feel a whole lot more positive this evening than I did on the weekend.  The weekend was sadly bereft of knitting but today I got just a little bit in.  It always amazes me how little it takes to feel right again.  

I know that the blog hasn't been very interesting lately, just a long litany of crabby pants, but it is my life right now.  Even if it sucks.

I can see the end of it though.  I can see the things I have to do, and I know where it all is going to go.  Just a few more things, and then back to knitting, back to a nice quiet life.

What happened to Thursday?

That is what I want to know.  Seriously, I have no idea where it went to.  I woke up this morning knowing there were Friday sorts of things I had to do, knowing that I am heading to the house to do some cleaning for the weekend, and yet, it had a sense of unreality to it.  It really ought to be Thursday.

I think I forgot about coming to the big back room yesterday.  I was determined to get the kitchen up and running. More or less.  So I worked there and completely forgot about blogging.  I did knit a bit before I went to work.

Not a lot, but some.  I made it to Wednesday night knitting too and I am now done 2 of the 3 strips I need for my little prince's blanket.  So there has been knitting.

I think I am just so wanting to get this moving business done, that I am utterly focused on it.  

The upside to forgetting everything else is that the kitchen is almost in order.  It is not tidy looking but the cabinets are filled.  There still is a pantry to build and my few groceries to put away but I could cook in there if I needed to, without having to crawl all over things.

This new place is starting to feel like home.  It is sort of funny how easily that happens.  In my minds eye, all the rest of the things are done.  I can see books on the shelves, and movies are easily accessible and there is some knitting sitting at the side table and so even though I am a long way from being settled, it feels like home. 

Not far from organized, not far from settled.  With settled comes an ordinary knitting life, and that, more than anything left on this earth to me, is what I need.

So tired.

So tired.  So very very tired. 

I came home last evening intending to cook a real meal and work on my kitchen.  I took a bath and then had the strongest urge to go to bed instead.  I crawled under the blankets around 7 p.m. and slept pretty soundly till 4 this morning.  I turned on a movie and promptly fell back asleep till the alarm went off at my usual wake up time.  I guess I was tired.  I feel that I could still sleep a couple more hours.

I am sitting here, knitting and looking at books, not really doing anything much but finding myself completely inspired an debating yarns and sweaters and what should I knit first.  

I have two that have been on my mind.  Well, more than two really, but the top ones currently running through my head are these:  The Season of Darkness and Winter Light.   I am not a huge fan of the fit of this sweater, but what I love of it is the exquisite leaf pattern.  If you look at this lovely version, there are some very good pictures of the leaf pattern.  That leaf pattern will be mine.  

And the other is this,  the Albero Cowl Jacket.  I have a couple different yarns I would like to knit this in and I think that I can really use this at my new office.  Even on the days when it has been warm, the office is beastly cold.  The lady who is working there now, (the other company is there to the end of the month), wears lots of layers no matter what the weather is. I have a feeling that sweaters will be an important part of my wardrobe. The weight and volume of this sweater will be useful to me.

There is also that pretty red yarn that I am working with, buried somewhere in the yarn room.  And there still is a nice Noro sweater that needs finishing.  And I think there is a summer sweater in there somewhere too.  I have at least 3 on the go and I really do want them finished before I work on yet another.  

Just thinking of sweaters makes my sweater mojo jump into full gear.  It has returned I think and I am not sleepy at all now.  Ready for the day, ready to knit anyway.  

Me and Billy

Me and Billy.  We are a pair.  I have built so many of these Ikea shelving units I could almost do them in my sleep. I knew I would need more bookcases but I don't think I fully realized just how many built in bookcases we had at the house till now.

The two really hard pieces, the pantry and the daybed are left to build and there still is a dining table and chairs to purchase before I am done.

All the things I am building are storage of one kind or another.  Building this last bookcase means that I could start unpacking the study.

I am going to unpack and get the boxes out of here and then, when there is time, I will sort and order and turn it from clutter and stuff to pretty displays and china amidst books and vases of needles.

It is so long since I was surrounded by the comfort of my things.  My books!  My cheap blue china.  My yarn.  About the only thing I had access to for the last 6 months was my yarn but there really wasn't an place to unpack and play with it. The first really quiet day?  I am going to play in the yarn!  

Just unpacking my knitting library the other day, made me feel very very inspired.  I can't wait to start a sweater.  Something cozy to snuggle into on those bright early morning coffee times on my pretty deck.  A sweater really is a luxury of time, you know.  A sweater has always been a must knit, a basic piece of clothing that would not be yours unless you knit it.  It was necessity.  In this modern era, a sweater is usually what we fit in around everything else.  Yes a sweater is a luxury of time and I intend to spend some of my precious quiet hours knitting one.  

Very soon.  First, I have to finish building the furniture and getting rid of the boxes.  Billy, I am so over you.

A Far Away Knitting Life.

I am posting to you from the confines of the study.  I have a new desk and in another couple of days, I will have the big computer up and running.  For now, the little laptop will suffice.

The living room is pretty much set up. It just needs a good tidying and sorting of the library and the pretty things set out and about. There are still a few boxes but it feels almost like home. As son 2 said, its almost home!

The kitchen is a bit of a disaster, but if I sit still for an hour that will be taken care of.  The hardest part there was figuring out, in my mind just how and where I was going to fit stuff.  For a nice looking kitchen it has the crappiest inside the cabinets I have ever seen.  I have a pantry cabinet to build to expand my storage.  I think that is my goal for this evening.  Pantry.  Might be able to get the groceries!

I didn't knit a stitch in these last three days.  Not one single stitch.  I can feel it.  And I hate it.  I am going to take knitting with me for lunch and go and knit.  In my last job, I was close to the river and I very often would go to the park at rivers edge, to sit and knit and just get away.  It's going to be hard to find that quiet in this part of town, though somewhere out there, there will be a quiet place to park where it isn't a zoo, and where I can escape to.  It is only 15 minutes from home, so I do get home sometimes for lunch.  Still, I am on the hunt for a quiet summer place to knit at lunch.

I am looking forward to the end of the moving stuff.  I am looking forward to being done with the cleaning back at the old place as we get it ready for sale.  I feel caught between two worlds, the old one and what will be and I know that I am not the only one.  These things crowd my days and clutter my thoughts.  

I miss my quiet knitting sort of life.  I know that it is on the horizon.  I can feel it.  I can almost see it.  

So many things

Last night, prepared  as I was, I did not go to knit night. What with one thing, a snow squall, and another, the urgent need to stop living around boxes, I voted for staying home and building bookcases.  

And voila!

Bookcases built, 3 boxes of books unpacked, other boxes merged, and sent to the big backroom, chairs and tables set to their proper positions.  I even have a working lamp on the side table.

Even the little laptop finally has a home besides my lap.

Not its permanent place but it will do till I get the back room organized. (Pictures capture a moment of life - and all the dust.  This looks like a job for a swiffer.)

I felt the urge to tidy up.  That is a pretty rare thing so I took the time to do it and realized that there are some very pretty things that have wandered into my house over the last few weeks.

Some very lovely Shibui.  I have seen such pretty things made with this combination of yarns.  I needed a something from it.

Some eye poppingly bright sock yarn, because who doesn't need eye popping summer socks?

And some sweet soft yarn to make my wee peanut some hats.  He likes to be warm and maybe some hats will help his mommy keep him happy.

I just want to say a word about Mirage.  The blue Zara is a wonderful standby wool superwash and will be great but the Mirage is so wonderfully soft.  I am very impressed with this blend of wool and acrylic and I can't wait to see how it performs for mommy, who is not so fond of wool.

How to take knitting to a knit night

Mostly you put it in your bag of course.

Several years ago, there was a traumatic evening where I was at a seminar at a yarn store where a yarn rep was giving a talk about the making of yarn.  What with one thing and another, my bag was in the back and I could not get to it.  I sat the whole evening without knitting.  In a yarn store.  

Since that time, I have always carried at least two projects in my bag.  Until the last few weeks.  In managing this move, somehow the knitting has left my bag and I have found myself without knitting a whole bunch of times.  And I hate it.  Last week, I arrived at knit night and realized, I did not have any knitting with me.  I had stopped at the old place to load up the car with stuff, and since there was no knitting left there, went to my knit night, knitless.  

So today, as a reminder of a knitter being knitless, I am telling myself how to take knitting to a knit night.

Mostly, you put it into your bag.

I am sitting here in the greatest comfort.  I have a cup of coffee made in my great big coffee maker, I haven't really availed myself of it for months.  Though it was not packed away, it was upstairs and I did not want to wake anyone up with noisy trips to the kitchen at 4 in the morning.  I revel in the luxury of it.

I am knitting this morning on my wee fella's blankie.  He likes to be warm and snug, not wrapped tight, but cozied in something warm and close to him.

 This is the one that I am where I am learning the technique of  knitting back on.  Even now after a couple of weeks of no knitting this way, and my tension is still even and smooth.  Ish.

There are still a ton of boxes and things to be put in their places - once I find their right places - so this feeling of peace and being settled and going on about the days in an ordinary way is still early and new.  

I am going to sit back and just let these small pleasures wash over me.

Where to begin?

There are always things about the way I proceed doing things that just make no sense to the outside world.  I couldn't find the boxes with my clothes in it, and the few things I had located, were dirty.  I washed once in the old gigantic space consuming laundry pair, and by Friday, when the old pair went out and the new space saving machine arrived, was down to one pair of pants.  It was critical that I find the boxes of clothes somewhere among these piles.

I started by unpacking the books.  Most people would have said that they should be done last, but the physical presence of the books, made it almost impossible to do anything else.    

So I unpacked books.

And unpacked books.

Doubled on almost every shelf.  I need more book cases.  

 

Then I unpacked the knitting books

and the movies.

I filled the stash room and of course it all fits.

And it looks pretty good too.  All the spinning fiber fits too.  It sits against the back wall just as tidy as could be.  It is a very generous little closet/room.   

 Its a mess though, but I managed to stick all the knitting things in there, every last ball, skein and hank of yarn, ongoing project and everything in between.  At least this way, I don't have to walk around it all.  It is out of the way and ready for me as soon as the rest of the house is done.

By Midday Sunday I was feeling pretty good about things.  I had seen the boxes with clothing.  I could almost reach them, but I was tired.  It had been a very long day.   I sat down to rest.  I did a very little bit of knitting and I had a nap.

And then I wrestled grandchildren for a bit, while Son3 hooked up my washing machine and carried in all the boxes of kitchen stuff from my car.  

So the weekend was a huge success.  I unpacked a ton.  I packed up the kitchen at the other house.  I sorted the stash.  I found the clothes. Successful weekend.

But next move?  I am hiring movers.  

You are not going to believe this.

No possible way you will believe this. I was very confident when I went to pick up shelf clips.  I needed the larger peg.

I was really confident till I got home and tried putting them into the holes on the sides of the bookcase.  That was when I found that no.  I needed the small pegs.

The bookcase still is not filled so there are a lot of boxes around.  But on the up side, the furniture is sorting itself into the right spots and a lot of the things that belong in the big room at the back are now in the big room at the back.  

And there is almost space and time for knitting.  I have to go do a bunch of work at the house this weekend, but I have reserved two times for me.  Friday night I intend to knit and watch old movies on tv, and Sunday, I am going to fill the day with sorting the yarn room and getting the study set up.  

I am really looking forward to Sunday.  There might be playing in the stash.  There might be goofing off with the knitting books. Yes.  I intend to free the knitting books from their long imprisonment! The books will flow to the bookcases and the pretty blue and white china will pop out from its slumber to rest once again on crisp white shelves.

I already have those shelf clips.  I checked.

How a man stacks a stash

My brother was the chief mover and shaker the day of my move.  He got up early, had a coffee and had half my boxes out the door before my sons got there.  He kept up a running gag all day.  'Is this all the yarn' he would ask, sure he had gotten it all once he moved the wall of yarn closing off the bed he had slept in from the rest of the basement.  I pointed to the big boxes filled with lace.He said the same thing after he moved those boxes.  

I will not say what  he said when I pointed him to the very large cases with the fleece.  I told him that it wasn't yarn, it was proto yarn.

After that I was pretty sure they had it all, till he called me to my bedroom and asked what the heck that box sitting in the corner was.  I had missed one small box when I built the wall of yarn, it seems.  

As they moved tables and mattresses, they loudly wondered if these things were filled with yarn.  They kept it up all day and we all had a lot of fun with it.  Lest you think less of him, I must let you know, he has a thing for motorcycles.  He thinks they cost more.  I am not so sure.

As they unpacked the truck at my new home, my job was directing traffic and they moved boxes.  Yarn to the back.  About 2/3 of the way through the unpacking, one of my boys came to me looking pretty upset.

'Mom' he said, 'You have a major problem.'  He asked me to come to the back room.  He was concerned because the big walk in closet was full and there still were dozens of containers in the big back room plus the big fleece bins.

 He was so proud of helping me by putting the bins in the closet, stacked all nice and tidy, and he really was heart broken that he couldn't fit any more large containers in there.  

I hardly had the heart to tell him that if you stack the bins with the short side to the wall, you could fit two extra towers of yarn in, not to mention the full containers that could yet fit if you moved the half height ones out or the small tubs that will sneak on top.  The vast majority of my yarn lived in a 4 foot wide by 2 foot deep closet and I have no reason to believe that it won't all fit in here.  The lace will still reside on the bookcases and the sock yarn will still live in the cube footstools.  It will be fine.

If it won't all fit, well, I guess I will just have to knit it up.  Such a shame.  :)

In corners

The shelf clips remain elusive.  I think I am going to cry uncle today and go pick up some clips on my lunch hour because this house needs to get these boxes unpacked.  

It might seem odd, but these clips are stopping me.  Kind of pitiful but there it is.  It's rather like when I run into a problem with knitting.  I usually toss my knitting in a corner, and funnily enough, that is where these shelves are.  Its a little harder to get past the unpacked boxes than it is to move on to another knitting project, though.

I am just going to sit here and knit a bit more.  It might not reslove the shelf issue, but it sure feels right.

Victorious

I winned.

I had pictures yesterday.  I think I just forgot to post them.  I have to confess, after all the monstersocks, picking this yarn just strikes me as funny.

 No flash.

 With flash, just so you can get a real sense of it.

A little ragg, a little bit of colour stripes, but not just one solid colour.  It is a little bit of everything.  It has the look of a good pair of monster socks, which just amuses me to no end with all the monsters in my recent past.

If you hear maniacal laughing, take care, come and get me.  I might have spent just a little too long knitting on one pretty funny little thing.

EEEEp

The last time I moved homes, I was about 35 years old, had 3 small kids, a husband and unpacked all the boxes in 3 days.  Yesterday I built part of a tv stand.  

Its going to take longer this time.  Just sayin'.

I have built all kinds of flat pack furniture before.  All the book cases, an entire study, dressers, you name it, I built it.  If there was something that was mostly put together, but needed legs?  Did it.

This tv stand is impossible.  The holes are drilled on the wrong side of one piece or the wrong side is finished.  Other holes are filled with the almost impermeable layers of goopy finish.  Very frustrating.  

It is like a badly written knitting pattern.  You can sort of see where it ought to take you, but the directions on the page are not going to take you there.  If you did exactly what the pattern said, pretty soon, you are knitting a sleeve on the stomach, and the neckline on the left side is somewhere near your hips.

Building this tv stand is a lot like that.  I am working it through, and it will actually look like something that could hold my tv. Once this is done, the tv is off the floor, and that wall is done.  Then the bookcase can be moved into place and I can hit the boxes and make some room!  Then lamps and pillows and voila, a home!

Most things can be built with persistence and patience, even recalcitrant tv stands and bad knitting patterns.  Slowly one stitch at a time, piece by piece.

Begin as you mean to go on.

Begin as you mean to go on.  It's a lot of stuff.

 The only place where there is a little sanity is the bathroom.  2 of them, thank heavens.  I can slip in there if I need a break, hahaha

But mostly, I got up, made some coffee and searched out some new knitting.

Socks of course.  Begin as you mean to go on.

And still knitting

there have been a couple of days where the knitting has been sparse, but there still is progress.  I am whittling down that bag of bits to an amazing degree.

 This sock is a little more of a progression than some of the others.  I have several small balls of colour and 2 much larger ones.  So my goal here is to try to use it up evenly through the whole sock.

I started with 7, then did 3, 3, 3 and then 7.  That was when I realized that my small bits wouldn't go very far if I used them for 7 row segments.  I changed the count of the sections to be 7, 3,3,3,3,3 - with 3 of the stripes being my base colour, the green, and 2 being from different small balls.  That seems to be working out much better and I think I can continue this progression through the rest of the sock.

You can see really clearly here that I used 2 different greens.  One is a solid and the other is a long section of plain green from one of the multi striping yarns I am working with.  It makes sense to stretch out the green as much as possible and it gives me just that little bit more room to make a longer sock.  

There is a great deal of variety among these colours.  From reds to dark browns to red and orange toned rusts.  In the box, they look a little odd.  That deep red is a little far out there, but the green gives it a base to go home to and that is really what your eye sees.  The camera might 'see' a little differently, but your eye sees a green sock with stripes.  

That solid colour foundation has led to some very pleasing socks and this is going to be another one that I will be very happy with.

I am almost down to the last stuff packing.  Its going into high gear later today.  I have to work, but I am going to apply that deep focus that I use when I knit sweaters and apply it to my work.  No waffling, no stopping, just high gear production.  When my tasks for the day are done, I am going to pour myself into sorting the last of the last boxes and pack my clothes for the next few days into suitcases.  

That way when my moving crew arrives, I will be ready and we will all finish up the hard part the moving of boxes and furniture early and easily.  Then we can hit the pizza and beer.  

There still is a lot of work to be done at the old home place.  Lots to pack sort and toss.  My favourite part though, the most enjoyable part of any move is the unpacking.  I love that part. that settling into to something new.

I always have lots of people who want to help with this part, but for me?  This part is my treasure.  I savour it and relish in it.  And I can't wait!  

  

New adventures!

I went over to my soon to be home and checked it out.  Just as nice as it looked with furniture in it.  I can see my stuff in it and I think everything I wanted to have with me, fits!

The kitchen needs work though.  It is so easy these days, to have a nice kitchen.  The way they build cabinets leads to endless flexibility, so finding good looks but fundamentally crappy cupboard guts is kind of disappointing in a home as new as this is.  Still I noticed that shortfall right away and have included plans to remediate it.  

I also was shown our new office yesterday.  Just an accidental happening.  I was in the right place at the right time.  The office is  very convenient to where I live and a shorter drive to get there than any other place I have worked.  It is also far enough into the city that my Wednesday after work knit nights are going to be a faster commute than they currently are.

I took a little knitting with me yesterday.  All my works in progress are there.  It felt like the right thing to do.  Get the knitting in there early.  Set the ambience to the right place.  I took a chair too.  Its the chair that I will keep by my sewing desk so it isn't anything fancy but it is a place to sit and contemplate.

So,  a place to sit, a place to knit, and the lovely lady I purchased from left me some Jasmine tea and some wine glasses.  All I need is a tea kettle and a bottle of wine and I am set.

Till the boxes arrive.      

Possession Day

Today is the day I make my sweet little home my own.

It might take a couple weeks, heck, it could very well take till the middle of summer, but soon as I am settled, come sit a spell with me.