Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I have so much to be thankful for this year.  But since my Husband had to go and become a professional hero he is working today.  Ordinarily when he works the Thanksgiving holiday we would keep it small with a ham and veggie tray, maybe a pie or two, and call it good.

But not this year.

This year my Dad and Stepmommy live down the street from us!

See, so much to be thankful for.

So we are waiting until Saturday for our turkey day so we can do the holiday up big and proper.

Which means I spent today like this

I watched a bunch of movies with the kids.  I also threw in a little bit of this

(The Queen loves snapchat filters)

And in preparation for Saturday I did a little bit of this

And all was wonderful and relaxing, and I didn't miss a thing until I got on facebook and saw everyone's pictures of their amazing holiday meals.  And now I'm hungry.  And craving stuffing.

The struggle is real!

Especially since I've been forcing the kids to Eat.All.The.Leftovers in the fridge to make room for holiday food and there really isn't anything decent left to eat without cooking.

And I don't want to cook again.

I've already cooked so much today.  Only all the food I cooked today is for Saturday over-eating.  Not for dinner today.

The struggle is real!

But seriously, Thanksgiving was so much better when I was a child and didn't have to cook or clean.

Can I go back to that?

In knitting new my sweaters are all blocked.

And my red one grew.

This is the picture I sent to my group chat so my girlfriends could tell me if it was too short for a dress (spoilers:  since I'm not 19 anymore, it is) and too long for a shirt (they voted 2 to 1, it's too long)

So I need to shorten it to about here

And it will be the cutest holiday shirt ever!

My tweedy love sweater also grew during blocking

But I ain't even mad about this one.  Just need to weave the ends in and I can commence wearing it in all its tweedy glory.

I've taken to calling my cream sweater "The Good Sweater" (cause I was inspired by The Good Wife.  Get it?!!!! I'm so funny!!!!! And also a huge dork.  I accept this about myself)

My good sweater slowly grows.  The Queen had peanut butter for a snack and I threatened the older sibling who gave her peanut butter with bodily harm if tiny peanut butter hands touched my cream colored yarn.

Because I'm a good Mom like that.

After all, what's a holiday without a few hollow threats from the one who gave you life.

Sentiments like that make me question my upbringing and wonder how normal my childhood actually was.

Which is also a time honored holiday tradition.

What a Little Restless Energy Can Do

I'm feeling kinda restless and out of sorts today.

A woman called me this morning.  After giving me a very friendly good morning she was surprised to discover she had dialed the wrong number.  I found myself apologizing to her for being the wrong person.

I kinda feel like the wrong person today.

I keep finding myself surprised at the thought that Thanksgiving is in two days.

Which isn't really as big a deal as it sounds at first since we will be celebrating with turkey on Saturday, so I've got four more days to wander to the grocery store and prepare.  But the fact that there is a holiday this week keeps coming as a bit of a revelation for me.

How did Thanksgiving happen so soon?

The Queen is having a birthday next week.

There are 32 days until Christmas.

35 days until Sweet Pea's birthday.

Time is passing me at breakneck speed and I find myself bewildered by it all.

The Greatest says I'm just so exhausted, living in day to day survival mode, that I forget the days add up to weeks, which add up to months, and before I know it The Queen is turning three.

In the meantime I have knit a beautiful red sweater in the hopes of wearing it for the holidays, and if I'm gonna make that happen I need to block it!

Let the clock start on how many days it takes me to lay out the sweaters to dry.

Just kidding.

DONE

AND DONE!

This restless feeling I've got today wouldn't allow me to let the sweaters sit in water long.  I think they made it forty minutes, forty five tops, and I was on my knees gently patting them into shape.  Which turned out to be a very good thing because I found a safety pin hidden in the armscye of the grey sweater.  That could have been unspeakably tragic.  I should try to channel this pent up energy into something really productive, like grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, or scrubbing my shower.  But I probably won't.

I was really relaxed with my blocking.  I didn't pin the red one at all, just laid it flat and made sure the sleeves were the same length.  I think the overall length of the sweater grew from the weight of the wet sweater, and I'm fearful that after it dries it will be too long and I will have to rip a few inches out.  Or maybe it grew enough to go from tunic top to short dress.

Maybe it is my new holiday dress?

I only pinned out the lace collar on the grey sweater.  I wanted to open up the lace pattern and make the lace collar as wide as possible.   In hindsight I wish I had blocked the lace a little more aggressively, maybe with blocking wire.  But if I hate it or find it lacking I can always reblock.

Let's take a moment to revisit that second picture

Do you see what I see peering between the branches of the tree?

No kitty kitty.  That's a bad kitty kitty.

Although after months of calling "here kitty kitty" and having her ignore me it occurred to me that her original owners might not have spoken English.  We live where there is a large Spanish speaking population.  I asked a friend how to call a cat in Spanish, and sure enough "gato" got a head turn.  So...

No gato gato.  That's a bad gato gato!

In Baby Bunyan news

She is sporting yet another blue plaid shirt and practicing for her bright future as a cardiologist.

With the way she goes around stealing hearts she should know how to take good care of them.

The Final Chapter

So we all remember the infamous "rust" incident right?

And the poor purple sweater I've been trying to knit since October 2012?

It may have taken four years, approximately fifteen billion tries, and two different yarns (the original yarn turned into this sweater), but I finally have an end to the saga of the perfect Grown Up Girl.

*Spoiler Alert*

It's a happy ending.

It may not look like much on the hanger

But on it is the most adorable flattering comfy sweater.

Look how perfect and cute the sleeves are

And my sweet pockets with my sweet tie

I tried finding all the blog links about my attempts to knit this sweater.  I found ten before I gave up out of boredom and a need to go make dinner.  I'm not sure any project has ever been as well documented on this blog as my attempts to create this sweater have been.  I put the links I did find on my Ravelry project page just in case you're new here and feel curious about the back story.  Because there is quite a bit of backstory.

Remember when I was talking about how well documented this project was?   Like three sentences ago?  There was one teensy weensy detail that got left out in all my blogging.  For the life of me I have no idea what yarn that is.  I KNOW it is some sort of knitpicks yarn.  Possibly Swish DK.  It looks like it could be swish dk in eggplant.  But maybe not.  Which is a shame.   Because it is really nice yarn.

Fall finally descended yesterday.  It rained and the temperature dropped 30 degrees in two hours.  The Greatest and I had been trying to sneak away for a date night for weeks, and we decided that Sunday night it was happening.  No matter what.  No excuses.  (and believe me there were lots of reasons not to go, thus is the glamorous life of parenting)

When faced with the unexpected cold front I was delighted to pull my sweater down from the top of the closet (from a shelf I may or may not reach by jumping and desperately grabbing whatever I can manage to grab, which  may or may not be how I ended up wearing my purple sweater on a rainy Sunday night).

The overwhelming majority of my sweaters are knit with fingering or lace weight yarn.  They are thin wisps of an idea of warmth.  This sweater, while not aran weight thick, had a more substantial feel.  As we hurried through the rain I could feel the cold air on my face, but I was warm.  I knew it was chilly in the restaurant, but I, a girl who has a lifetime of feeling cold, was not cold.  I really wish I knew what yarn it was.

I know when I knit the sweater I was concerned that I had placed the back chart too low and should have modified it to be higher up on my shoulders.

When I pulled the sweater out of my closet I didn't even remember having that concern.  I loved everything about the sweater.  If I felt there were fatal flaws when I knit the sweater they had disappeared with time.  The only issue I have with the back of the sweater is the crease from being folded for so long.

(also my bun is super awesome.  I like to document my good hair days, so I tried to get a better picture of it, because it was a fancy bun, but I suck.  The end.)

So it is official.

I finally have a Grown Up Girl of my very own.

And it was worth the wait.

In other news my obsession of plaid knows no bounds.

The Greatest has taken to calling her "Baby Bunyan."

I can live with that.

Real Time Blogging

Once upon a time (last month) I started a sock

Slowly my sock grew

And grew

But let's face it, that fancy sock takes a lot of brain power.

All those twisted cables and lace take attention.

I don't have brain power or attention to give right now.

I can't tell you what's changed in the past month, maybe it's the change in season, but I'm exhausted.

I need a brainless knit.

Enter my latest obsession stage right.

I am obsessed with The Good Wife.

I love it.  I marathon episodes of it on Hulu every chance I get (which isn't nearly as often as I like.)

And I am obsessed with this sweater

Look at that shawl collar.  Look at those sleeves.  Look at the comfy.

SO.MUCH.WANT.

I scoured Ravelry looking for a similar pattern.

And I found one-ish right in my library.

Remember when I knit this sweater?

It has so many of the element I love.

The collar!

The sleeves!

The comfy!

It has a different rib pattern, but I think I like the slipped rib better than the original sweater ribbing.  With some mods I think I could make this work.

And the idea took hold.

I NEEDED a cream colored modified Isabel.

And I could not rest until I had one.

Nevermind the fact that a cream colored sweater is INSANITY.

Did I forget that I have a toddler?

Let us all take a moment to consider the disaster that would be Mommy wearing a cream colored sweater around an almost three year old.

DISASTER!

That fictitious cream colored sweater would not remain cream colored for very long.

Alicia Florrick can wear a cream colored sweater because she is a lawyer who works in a law office where children do not work.  She also only has two children.  Not five.  And her children are both teenagers.  Not a toddler in sight.  Although I too have two teenagers, with a third child poised to join that place of practice adulthood.  How did that happen?  Teenagers aside, there's still the eight year old firmly planted in the sticky mess of childhood, and let us not forget the toddler.  Oh the toddler.  The sweater ruining toddler.

I am no Alicia Florrick (which is cool considering the philandering politician husband and all.  I'll stick with being me)

But I want that sweater, no NEED that sweater.

And somehow, mysteriously, somehow seven skeins of Knitpicks Bare gloss (a glorious cream merino wool silk blend that just happened to be on sale at an opportune moment) ended up at my doorstep begging to be knit.

My obsession is becoming a reality.

Because I am obviously insane.

Outfit Of The Day Queen Edition

As long as I'm taking a trip down memory lane with old knits that never made the blog, let's admire the Queen.

This is the look she has started giving me whenever she sees the camera.

Or this face

< insert sarcasm >YAY< end sarcasm >

The Queen is wearing a sweater I knit Bird, but I don't think it ever made the blog.

Once upon a time I knit this sweater.

But it never looked right unbuttoned, and it gaped when I buttoned it.  And the long sleeves that I loved were two inches too long.

I never wore it.

So one day I went insane and I unraveled it for yarn.

And I used it held double to knit a baby shrug.

My two year old has a cashmere sweater.

I do not.

I don't think she is appropriately grateful.


All in all I think it looks pretty good considering it is almost a decade old, and has been worn by three toddlers.

It can be exhausting being so adorable.

I've included this picture despite the fact that it isn't a particularly good shot of the sweater.  And despite the fact that it is a good shot of all the detritus that is currently on my floor (I could be picking it up right now, but I'm blogging.  You're welcome).  I have included it because I love the pink hair.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE her pink hair.

What I Wore Knitwear Edition

So my blogging skills have truly atrophied into something substandard.

Let's take a moment to forget how infrequent and random my posting has become.

Or how subpar my writing has been lately.

Today I'm going to focus on how truly crummy my photography skills have become.

I've been using the phone on my camera for so long I've completely forgotten how to adjust the settings on my real dslr camera.

I've even forgotten that there are settings to change so I don't have to take over exposed pictures like this.

I tried adjusting it in photoshop

But let's face it, my skills there were never existent to begin with.  I like to adjust the layer called "levels" but beyond that I don't mess with it.  I'd do more harm than good.

So we've establish that I took some crummy pictures today.  And I lack the skills to salvage them.  And I lack the brain power to summon creative writing skills to write about the slow demise of my blog in a way that is witty or entertaining.

I'm trying hard to create something out of nothing, so today you'll just have to look past my failings to see the really freakin awesome sweater I am wearing.

Take a moment to marvel at the fact that I knit an actual SWEATER and not a cardigan for a change.

I know.

I'm as surprised as you are.

Relevant details that I may or may not remember accurately

 

Pattern:  Boxy (rav link as always)

Yarn:  Knitpicks Hawthorne Fingering Kettle Dyed, I think 4 skeins in Blackbird and a teensy bit of a skein of Forest Park

Needles:  Hahahahahahahaha.  I knit this sweater atleast a year ago, possibly two, but I think only one.  The pattern says 2.5 and 4.  So probably that.

Someday I'll blog in real time instead of filling my blog with old knits I was too sleep deprived to blog.

Modifications:  I think I added a ton of length because I wanted something that covered my butt.  But that's a personal choice.  No judgement here if you're 68 and decide your life is not complete without a crop top belly shirt.  You do you.

Review:

Before I review the sweater, one quick thing...It's kinda hard to see with my subpar over exposure but yes...

This happened.

And I love it!

It goes with her punk personality.

I  also love this sweater.  I do.

BUT

When I knit this I was carrying baby weight and decided to boldly knit for the size I was, not the size I hoped to return to.  And it fit perfectly at the time.

Only now I'm not entirely the size I hope to return to, but I'm smaller than the size I was.

I could have knit a smaller size.

I think it is most evident in the neckline. It keeps slipping to one side, off my shoulder.

I've never really been a person who has boob.  When I'm pregnant or nursing I get to borrow some boobs for a while, but I also get special pregnant/nursing clothes.  I'd never realized what a difference boob size has on the neck line.

Smaller boobs have made the neckline too wide.

But that's a me problem.  Not a pattern problem.

Because I knit this longer than originally suggested I ran out of yarn.

And that's how the last few inches of the second sleeve were accidentally on purpose finished with the same yarn, slightly different colorway.

I kinda love it.

Do me a favor and forget the size issue, overlook the fact that the neckline keeps falling off one shoulder (I'm fashion forward), and look at the random sleeve color as a design element.  Let's forget the fact that my pictures suck and there isn't a clear picture of the sweater in the whole bunch.

I love this sweater.  I'm going to wear it at least once a week all winter.

Possibly twice a week.