How to get 4 uninterrupted hours of knitting time

You break a bone in your foot and spend the time in the emergency room knitting. Yep, you heard it right. Madam klutz chipped, cracked or broke (depending on which dr I was talking to) a bone in her foot near her ankle. I'm not really sure how I did it either. You know those moments when you're walking along and the next thing you know you're flat on your face and have no idea how it happened? I had one of those. I was walking into the local AC Moore with a 50% off coupon to get a ball winder and splat right in the middle of the parking lot. Missed a step and rolled over my right ankle. Hurt like blazes for a few but once the pain subsided I had a decision to make. Get back in the truck or continue on and get my ball winder. I'm a knitter, what do you think I did? I got the ball winder of course, it was 50% off. It would have added insult to injury if they had been out of them but they weren't.

After doing the errand I was out for, I called Jeff and told him what I had done and would he please meet me at the door. He did, helped me hobble in and I sat in the comfy chair and iced it for a while until I decided it had a weird swelling and maybe going to the emergency room was a good idea.

Now remember the two munchkins that live here? We called our awesome neighbors to watch them for a bit until Jeff's brother, David could get up here and babysit. So they're taken care of for the night. Oh, forgot to tell you it's about 8:30 by now. Off to the hospital we go. But wait! It gets better. My dear darling husband realized he left his military id (which he needs to get onto the base where the hospital is) at the base he works at in the opposite direction from the hospital. Any brownie points he had gained for taking care of me and getting me in the car, etc. just flew right out the window. We get his id and we're finally off to the hospital. We get to the beltway and merge on.

Me: Honey why are you going the wrong way?
Jeff: I'm not, stop worrying
Me: Um, honey that's the exit that's one before ours to get home.
Jeff: %*%*#@ (he's losing more brownie points here)

We turn around and finally get going in the right direction and make it to the hospital at 10pm. A 30 minute trip took us and hour and a half. I love him but he's going to give me more grey hairs.

Before we left I had grabbed a project that didn't need too many directions to knit on. One of the UFO's that I had stuffed in my craft room until I stumbled across it again and looked at it guiltily. The Aran Weight Victorian Lace Shawl went with me. I was not about to spend who knows how long in the emergency room without any knitting. And even though I wasn't thrilled with this project it was mindless knitting, just what I needed. This is another reason to start knitting socks more often. They're easily portable. Now Sue the Ewe is also portable but needs more thinking than I could give to a project, so the shawl it was.

After two sets of x-rays (the first ones weren't good enough), a visit with the doctor, a visit with the orthopedic surgeon (who's bedside manner can be compared to Gengis Khan) and long breaks in between, I had added about 5 inches onto the shawl (it's almost done! there's a silver lining to everything). Sorry I don't have any pictures for you, it's still on the needles and looks like a bunch of grey spaghetti. I'd also gotten used to the wheelchair they made me use and was having fun zipping down the halls from x-ray.

I was finally stuffed (and I do mean stuffed, that orthopedic must have forgotten the part of his oath that says do no harm) into a fracture boot and we were on our way home. Ick 2:30am! I will admit the drive home was entertaining. Two sleep deprived people listening to a comedy channel on XM radio is scary. I don't recommend it.

We made it home at 3am. All the kids were asleep and David was crashed on the futon. Jeff and I crawled into bed and were back up at 7am to start the day. Where's my coffee?!

Since I wasn't able to do much else I made a bit of progress on Sue.


She's much easier to knit than I thought she would be and I'm having a great time working on her. I like the idea of knitting something unconventional. And since the ball winder is what started all this, she's sitting on top of the first ball I wound with it.

I'm back, did ya miss me?

Well I know of at least one person who did. I was reprimanded last night at one of my knitting group get togethers about my lack of blogging. If that's what it takes to get me back here I won't be too upset. I’ve come to post a few times since I finished my knitting Olympics project and every time I see that post it blows my mind all over again and any coherent thoughts I had to blog about fly right out the window. Did I mention that shawl only took me 4 days to finish? Ok, you’re tired of that. Time to move on.

I’ve started a new Knit-a-long (like I need another one, right?). I’m going to be knitting Sam the Ram. Check out the picture and tell me he isn’t the neatest thing you have ever seen. Now just to start off slowly I decided to knit his girlfriend Sue the Ewe first to get the body shaping straight in my head before adding the Aran stuff. Now Sue wears a lovely lace shawl and since I have successfully knit a few shawls, including Peacock Feathers, I figured it would be a nice easy way to work into Sue. The shawl for Sue is only about 27” across so how hard could it be? Anyone out there see the knitting gods about to strike me down? I didn’t . After knitting merrily along (and thinking how easy this was and how quickly it was going) I got slapped! The shawl is designed very cleverly so the size can be adjusted by the amount of yarn you have, and can even be knitting for an adult to wear. I love it! However, once the patterns are established in the shawl you’re on your own until you turn the corner in the center. I had to think! And do math! And remember what row of each pattern I was on! I cracked. I’m not proud of it but I did. I should have read (and not scoffed at) the part about the pattern being “quite complicated”. After stuffing the shawl in a bag on a shelf for a while until it behaved itself and figuring out a way that I could work with the pattern, I pulled it back out, had a talk with it, told it to behave and finally finished it:


It hasn't been blocked yet, but after all the grief I took from it I had to show it off. It's going to look quite spiffy around Sue's neck. (Is anyone else scared that I used the word spiffy?)



The FLAK is moving right along. After knitting a total of 4 sleeves I'm ready to start the body. I'm really liking how it's turning out too. Especially after the work so far!

Now for the answer about the 4 sleeves and why the picture only shows 2. I had some math issues, well not really math issues, more interpretation of the results issues. Without boring you with all the technical details, the math I had to do brought me to decreasing every 3.75 rows. Cool! So I start decreasing every 3 rows, knowing that's going to take me right down to the cuff with the correct number of stitches (do you see the disaster this is heading for?). Hold it! I'm 6 inches too short and it's too tight. How did that happen? To the frog pond to tear out sleeve one. Next try. Oh I see I missed that whole .75 part of the number. I'll decrease every 4th row till about halfway then every 3rd row. I'm so smart I amaze myself sometimes. Dang! It's still too short, but only by 4 inches and it's also still too tight. To the frog pond again to tear out sleeve number two. I will not let these sleeves beat me! I decided to decrease every 4th row all the way down and wouldn't you know it it came out fine on the third try. Repeat for the other sleeve, knit the cuffs and voila! 4 sleeves!

I've decided that hand knit socks are cool and are my newest obsession. I'm not sure if I'm going to buy too many more socks at Target, or wherever else I go. I came to this conclusion after wearing these for a day

They are from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. I think they are the Conwy socks. The yarn is Lang Jawoll. I love these socks and now want to knit socks in all colors for my very own feet. (Hmmm, I didn't realize the sun washed out the color so much. They really are a much deeper burgundy than this.) I've even gone so far as to join yet another knit-a-long group. Six-Sox- Knitalong (I've decided that my whole thing with Knitalong's is I enjoy knowing there are other people knitting the same thing I am and I can talk about it with them, or get help when I need bailing out!)
While I'm on the subject of socks, check these out


Technically they aren't socks, they're slippers. From Knit One, Felt Too. I think they are called Slide on Slippers and they are knit in Rio de la Plata yarn. I made these around Christmas time and wear them constantly. They are the comfiest, warmest things I've ever made. Not too great on wood laminate floors but I've adapted.








All other projects I have been working on and mentioned here in this blog have found there way to the UFO place in my craft room. I'll run across them again and finish them eventually, just not soon.

And now for a bit of an Awwww.



She really is this cute (I may be biased) and at only 10 months old knows how to use that cuteness. This is my daughter Sidney modeling her double breasted 'jacket' I recently finished for her. The pattern is from a Debbie Bliss book (I can't for the life of me remember which one) and is knit from Debbie Bliss wool/cotton.








And since he's always demanding equal time, I'll close with a picture that has absolutely nothing to do with knitting

My son Logan with his clinician at what we call his Saturday school at the University of Maryland. It's a great program for special needs kids. They work one on one with a volunteer or college student to help there development. It's basically two hours of structured play time and Logan loves it! The first picture is his sweet expression, the second is his more normal one when he's about to be a little terror and trying to be cute about it.













Someday I'm sure I'll get a picture up here of the man that puts the Navy part in Navy wife. I just can't convince him that he SHOULD wear something I knit him. It's not that he doesn't like my knitting, the only thing he'll wear that is knitted is socks and a picture of his feet just isn't what I had in mind. Although one of the best laughs I've had in a long time came from him yesterday. I was reading blogs and looking at someone's pics of their yarn and he came in and said, "oh gawd! not more yarn!" I kid you not. Does this mean I knit too much?