Rain, rain, go away...

Logan wants to go out and play!

Or better yet mommy wants Logan to go out and play! We have some sort of system parked off the coast that is keeping the rain coming up the coast inland and continually dumping on us. The weather man explained it much better than I did. In short the past 4 days have been thunderstorms, rain, more thunder, some pretty lightening, did I mention rain, and of course more rain. The flooding in DC, Virginia and Maryland are evidently pretty history making. The weather man says in the 25 years he's been doing weather here he's never seen anything like this. And I left Seattle partly to get away from the rain!

The good thing about rain is I have plenty of knitting time (when I'm not trying to keep Logan from sitting on his sister or refereeing some other sibling 'discussion') and am actually making progress on a lace shawl and my FLAK. Another good thing is my garden is loving it. It's no longer this lovely brown rectangle in my back yard, there are actually things growing! The bad thing is I have no pictures to show any progress. Those who knit lace will understand when I say right now it looks like a rather large mess of yarn. Since the shwal I'm working on is a square knitted in the round (is that possible? Sounds like trying to put a round peg in a square hole.) it really looks like a bag shaped mess of yarn. I have no excuse for having no pictures of my FLAK except that it's made of wool and I put it away until I can bear the thought of having that much wool sitting in my lap.

Pictures of some actual knitting progress soon. I promise!

The Navy has left the building

No really, he has! As I type this (if I do the math right) he's sound asleep on the other side of the world in Bahrain. So far I haven't gone completely nuts. Or at least any nuttier than I already am. I mean, what do you expect living exclusively with two kids who have a very limited vocabulary. I'll be lucky if I'm not in a loony bin somewhere by the time he gets home!

On the bright side, before he left I did get up to Yarns International and did some pretty good damage to the credit card. Not major damage though. I'll have to do better next time. The only reason I spent as much as I did was the purchase of A Gathering of Lace. Too many pretty, lacey things to make in that book and since that was the last book I had looked through before I went can you blame me for getting all of this?

Jamieson and Smith Spindthrift in mostly grey with a grey blue accent skein. For the Short-row pullover, I think I may actually have found something lacey and feminine that I'll wear.



Jamieson and Smith jumper weight. This is for the Faux Russian Stole. I may be about 50 yards short but I got all they had so I'll hold my breath and pray. Lovely color called Cinnamon Bark.




This is for..... I haven't a clue! J&S DK weight, 3 skeins, gorgeous Pine green color. Had to have it for, um, stash enhancement. Yeah, that's it. :-)






Tahki Cotton Classic in Black. I need a nice shoulder bag so this is for the Hexagonal Shoulder Bag.

















Koigu. For socks of course. Do I have a pattern in mind? No, I just know they will be socks, honest. They will not end up aging in my stash for the next year or so, I promise. At least that's the plan. Very pretty grey with a subtle varigation that I couldn't pass up.



This is some really pretty Manos del Uruguay. Burgandys, browns and blues that are destined to become a pair of felted slippers for me.


So did everyone notice there is absolutely nothing to show for actual progress on knitting? Only stash acquistion? I really have plans to knit lots this summer. Including the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl. I think I'll need to get some nice pewter colored Zephyr for that. (uh-oh, more stash acquistion) Jeff's overseas for a while and I only have the kids. The only reason there isn't anything to show in the way of progress is we've been working like crazy to get things done around here before he left so I didn't have to worry about too much while he was gone. We did pretty good but not everything got done. Mostly it was little stuff that didn't get done so we're good.

And since he's gone, I'll leave you with the last family portrait we had taken before he left:

Ack! A goatee! Where did that come from? Oh, wait he's been on leave and didn't feel like shaving. You should be glad I got him to clean it up before the pictures. He looked way too scruffy before that.



And since she turned one and according to her, she is the center of the universe (didn't you get the memo?) :

Proud mommy must tell you that the picture on the right ended up on the wall of the picture place we had these done. They thought it was too darn cute.

The demise of the Entrelac socks

I finished one. I really did. I then realized that upon trying the sock on it was a bit too tight and rather difficult to get on over my ankle. I had to decide if I really wanted to torture myself and rip out the first sock and try to knit it on bigger needles (not to mention knit a second sock) or scrap the whole idea, admit that I fought the sock and the sock won, and use this very lovely yarn for another pair of socks entirely. Scrapping the whole idea won out. But just to prove I tried something new (kind of like trying broccoli in some new way so I can say I did it) heres the lone sock I did complete:


You can't really see it but the toe still has the needles in it. I didn't want to break the yarn until I had tried it on one last time in case it really was too tight.



I've frogged the foot back to where the entrelac section ended and all I have left of the sock to remind me of this experience is this :


You may ask why I'm keeping this reminder of a sock I really didn't enjoy knitting. Answer? I'm keeping it so the next time I am tearing my hair out over a lace pattern, or a complicated aran sweater, I can pull out this cuff and remember that there is nothing worse to me than this entrelac sock.









In other knitting news, I've returned for a time to my FLAK. I've been seeing the pictures of other FLAKer's finished sweaters and really want to see mine done. I haven't had much knitting time lately since Jeff is leaving in 3 days and there's so much to be done before he leaves. Ack! Did I really see that right? 3 days? That's all I have left before he's gone for a year?! Well on the bright side I'll be getting a few more projects done when he's gone and have a bunch more stuff for blogging about and showing you. Something else that has been a benefit of him leaving. Since he doesn't think I'll be doing much shopping at the LYS while he's gone (yeah, right), what with having the kids and all (you try taking two kids under the age of 4 to a yarn store, I don't recommend it!) he's sending me off to do some yarn shopping tomorrow. He doesn't need to tell me twice! I'm heading over to Yarns International to see what damage I can do to the credit card. They are closing their brick and mortar store and going to an on-line store only with some shows here and there. I have some projects in mind that I MUST have yarn for so we'll see what I can find. I'll have to post what I end up with.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Sidney at her first birthday party. She's just starting in on the cake:













And of course, here she is with the after math.

I've seen worse.