Chaos

Well- after the contractor essentially FORCED me to knit, I’ve been working on the sock pretty steadily. In fact, steadily enough that it’s now off the needles! Sadly I can’t show you a picture of it in it’s lovely blocked and complete and final state because that would require my finding my sock blockers which um, I can’t. You will see blocked state at some point- for now, you’ll have to settle for “scrunchy finished” state.

.

I have discovered that with all the chaos in my life- attempting to knit anything remotely complicated was futile. My brain would look at a cable sweater, or a lovely motif on a blanket and it would just implode. In fact- it would look a lot like this.

This is my guest room. We have "oh so carefully" piled a bunch of stuff on the bed and the contractor covered it all plastic to protect it from dust. My stash is in this mess somewhere. I can’t even show you the bedroom, the only “functioning” room that we’re living out of, because it’s so messy, it’s the very definition of implode and rather shameful.

So with all of this chaos, my brain just can’t handle sweaters, or blankets, or anything that isn’t essentially stocking stitch. So, I switched it in different gear, squeezed past the junk, did a quick stash dive and pulled out the Felici self striping yarn. A mere 2 hours later I was fully engrossed into my self striping sock.

.

This is more my speed. This may help me regain my mojo during this time. (What is it with me and rainbows this year? It’s rainbow EVERYTHING on this blog lately!) I can’t help but love a self striping yarn, I find it highly addicting to see when the next stripe will come in and what the sock will look like. Here's what it looks like by Saturday night.

I had also intended to knit a baby hat for May, especially since I swiped some cute yarn from my MiL the last time I was there. BUT- that too turned out to be futile. It turns out that I did such a good job protecting my needles from dust/destruction that even I can’t find them. I’ve hunted under dust blankets and gone through various piles and keep coming up short. No “hat” needles to be found. Or “needles” in general. (How does one find anything in this mess?)

Thankfully, I did make it to the MiL’s this weekend and was able to borrow her needles and finally “crank” out a hat (and avoid the hat police who will come after me if I don't knit a hat for May).

The good news is that the tile is done- and it looks fabulous.

And while chaos is annoying, it’s been well worth it, as our renno is moving swiftly along. Paint begins on Thursday and countertops go in on Wednesday and hopefully, very soon, our lives will return to normal, the chaos will slow down, and I’ll get the mojo back to keep making stuff that looks cool. In the mean time- let’s all pretend that a plain stocking stitch sock is really, REALLY exciting.

*as before- forgive the iphone pics…. Camera is in a pile… somewhere.*

Distraction

Good news- my house is in complete chaos! That means that rennos have started and we have finally, FINALLY, after years about talking about doing it, FINALLY have started our rennos at the house. Here is my kitchen in chaos.

My living room, where I do most of my knitting, is under plastic and unusable.

Rennos are going well and we're impressed so far on the progress we've seen. We are living in our bedroom during this process. And when the guest bathroom and guest bedroom are back to functional status, we'll move in there while our bedroom and bath get finished up. I'll do a lovely post with before and after photos once this process is settled and you can see what we're up to.

The bad news is that the rennovation process sucks out your will to knit. (Mostly because it sucks out your will to be at home, so we're enjoying late dinners out and taking advantage of the movie theaters.) Big projects (like the blanket and sweater) are safely tucked away into bags, protected from the epic amount of dust and my motivation to pull them out is just not there.

Before we all start sending hate mail to my contractor (who is great!) about killing my desire to knit, you should think about thanking him. I came home to my front door looking like this on Friday. (This is international contractor language for "do not come in right now or you will mess things up!)

They had ripped the tile off the kitchen/foyer floor and had laid a new subfloor, but it was still wet and I wasn't able to get in yet. THANK GOD I HAD A SOCK IN MY PURSE. THANK GOD! My contractor, (or more accurately, his tile guy) essentially FORCED me to knit.

I turned around- heading to the coffee shop around the corner and settled in there with a tea and my sock and got in some quality sock time.

I was reminded how small and compact socks are, and how they aren't that hard to knit when your bed is acting as your bed/couch/sometimes kitchen table. So maybe during this process I'm going to let the sweater and the blanket wait. I might hit the stash up for sock yarn and enact the KISS mentality. (KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid) (Lest you be worried for the safety of the stash, we have it stowed away in a manner that protects it, but also allows me access to it if I need it. Not to worry, the Wollmeise is safe!)

I was able to get back into the house an hour later when we confirmed that it was in fact safe to walk on the floor. This instance is enough to scare me into always keeping my sock along with me. I have, up until recently been leaving my sock at home, and I cannot even bring myself to think about what that Friday would have been like had I NOT had knitting with me. *shudder* Believe me when I say, I will not be without something to knit ever again!

So bear with me. Progress sucks. That seems to be a 2011 theme. I'm sorry. But I'm hoping once this house is back in shape, I'll be so happy to spend time there that I won't want to leave... and well, knitting time and progress resumes it's regular scheduled programming.

(Please forgive the iphone pics- they're what I'm relying on right now while the camera is somewhere, in a pile of things being protected from dust.)

Turtles, Snails, Sloths, Molasses in January...

I think the title of this post adequately sums up my progress lately.

There are times when I can knit for hours uninterrupted. Days of sitting in my spot quietly knitting and churning out project after project. I am a knitting machine. It feels like those days are over for the moment. Life has once again gotten away of knitting time and I have never been so behind on things in my life! Apparently a part of being a "responsible, mature" adult (let's use those descriptors loosely, shall we?), means doing "responsible, mature" adult things and not just sitting around and letting my poor husband do all the work. Life is busy at our house these days.

There is progress- but it's so miniscule I am almost embarressed to show it off. Here is the sweater- about 5 inches longer than last you saw it.

Here is the sock- which is lucky if it sees an hour a week, instead of the hour a day I have vowed myself to.

I am hoping to cast off the toe tonight. But... that feels like an idle threat at this point.

I also have a charity blanket that needs a section knit for it (when!?) and I've only got a swatch for my Stampede blanket,

which may not happen for Stampede this year.

On the upside my rennovations, which have been sucking my time dry, will begin next week. Our new couches, as part of our "BUY GROWN UP FURNITURE" resolution for the new year, have arrived. I am hoping against hope that I will get to host a knitting night with the KnitWits this summer and show off my "new and improved" home. (Now with more seating!) Things are getting done around here- actually a LOT of things are getting done around her, sadly very little of it is knitting progress.

I'm still a Knitter. I still want to knit. I still carry needles and a sock in my purse on the off chance that there are a few spare minutes I can "whip out the sock" for. I read Ravelry everyday, stalk the Loopy Ewe frequently and swing by yarn shops. But right now- it's a slower progression for me than usual. Hang in there- I'm sure before you know it, I will be back to my "whip it off my needles in no time" stage again soon.