Can you tell that I haven't done any knitting in days? The last few days I've been very busy during the day and paying for it at night with a worsening head cold. I spent all day yesterday lying on the sofa and couldn't knit a stitch.

Luckily I had just the right thing to read, Your Disgusting Head (a wacky Christmas gift from ma), which has chapters such as "The Sickening Fluids that Fill Your Skull" and "Where Does All the Snot Come From?". Check out this sample page at Amazon.com! Anyhoo, there I am all snotty and not knitting and I come across a joke "knitting pattern".

it's supposed to be for a tongue cozy - yuck!

And guess what came on the television while I was reading my disgusting book? Why, Monty Python's Flying Circus, of course. With one of those "re-enactment" sketches where the Python gang are dressed up as old ladies who like to act out famous battle scenes. In this one they were doing a submarine battle and three of the "ladies" were knitting!

looks like Jones (2nd from left) and Idle (far right) may actually know how to knit!
Palin (in red hat) doesn't have a clue though

So that gave me a little chuckle, which brought on a coughing fit and got my runny nose going again. And so it goes.

Well, here's wishing everyone a happy and HEALTHY new year!

Why am I voting for John Kerry? I can't say it any better than Thomas Jefferson did over 225 years ago:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

- The Declaration of Independence, 1776

This administration is not governing in a manner that "we the people" can abide. By misinforming us, manipulating us with the constant threat of terror, curtailing our rights in the name of security, and eliminating our ability to criticize the government, they are destroying the right to liberty and the principle of consent that form the basis of our democratic system. It may be hard in frightening times such as these to think about changing the current administration, especially when it promises to secure our safety. But if it destroys our rights and our democracy, then we can never be safe. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, it is our right and our duty to throw off this sort of government and vote for a new Guard, who will protect our future security.

 
kids for kerry

This is why I am voting for John Kerry, a man who has throughout his career fought for democracy, for our country, and for the power of the people to demand that our government redirect its policies when they become destructive of our ends.

No, it's not another post about picking (continental knitting) vs. throwing (english style). In fact, I haven't done much knitting at all. The weather's been too good. Instead of staying at home or going to the playground, where I might do some knitting, we went apple picking at a local farm.

have bag, will pick

oh boy, pumpkin lollipops are in season!

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Just a little booboo, but you can't keep those doctors from using their fun x-ray machines, or apparently, my son B, aka BooBoo Boy, from giving them reason to use them. As of yesterday he's managed his fifth set of x-rays in three years. Bravo? All x-rays were negative this time (as opposed to this time last year). He just had a little infection around the fingernail that the doctors wanted to look at more closely. So a pretty routine trip to the ER. And a souvenir picture of that tiny hand.

A few weeks ago, Lynn asked why "blue is for knitting"? Well, I do like blue, but there's a longer story.

I've had a website since 1997. When I first set up a navigation bar on my site, I wanted to save some space for my site to expand. Most of my individual pages had a specific color background to aid navigation, so I decided to make a blue page as a space holder for later content. I called it the blue room, named after a rather empty guest room we had in our house when I was little. Take a peek at the blue room v.1! When I started board gaming (yes, board gaming), I put some gaming content in the blue room and blue was for board games. I liked the alliteration in that title - it made it sound very Sue Grafton, don't you think? Here's a look at the blue room v.2 getting underway. The board games moved to a different spot on my site once I started knitting and decided it would be fun to keep pictures of my projects online. The blue room v.3 still lives at my old web address as an entry page to this site. Check out the side bar there (or this post from last year) to read why the blue room is the perfect place for my craft content.

me in the blue room

Well, my online blue room grew larger and larger and when I finally started a knitting blog, "the blue blog" seemed like the perfect name. Since "blue" can have several meanings (ahem, cough, cough....I still enjoy picturing the disappointment on the faces of the people searching for "hotties"), I decided to add a tag line to explain that, here, blue is for knitting.

And a look at my wips page will usually show that I live up to my tag line. In fact, I've got three blue projects on the needles right now.

Helene recently asked if I could share a glimpse into my bookshelf. Happy to oblige!

I don't really have a lot of books. Mostly I refer to magazines for the patterns I use (Rowan, Phildar, Rebecca, and Interweave Knits are my faves). But there are some books I really love. Books like Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, which has clear patterns in a range of gauges for basic accessories, Nancy Wiseman's The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques, which explains and illustrates every technique you'd ever want to use, and everyone's favorite, Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting without Tears. For learning to knit, Sally Melville's The Knitting Experience series really can't be beat - instructions, pictures, and patterns, it's got it all! For baby patterns, I adore Rowan Pipsqueaks, Rowan Junior, and Baby Knits from Dale of Norway. And for adult patterns, my faves are Rowan's A Seasons Tale, Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch, and my latest acquisition, 1000 Sweaters.

And that's almost all of my books! Can you believe it? What are your faves? Any other english-language must-have knit-book recommendations for Helene?

I thought I'd gotten out all my issues, but apparently not.

Issue Five: I can't knit lace. Well, I probably could, but I wouldn't ever wear it. I keep thinking that I'd like to try something lacy (like this top from Vintage Knits) and then when it comes time to knit it, I wimp out. It's the idea of having to coordinate and wear something underneath that seems so weird. If I'm already wearing something else, what's the point of this other thing?? I'm just not a naked girl - I'd like my garments to make me feel dressed.

I came to this realization when swatching up some cool R2 paper yarn that Kerrie sent me. I love the feel of the yarn, but it knits up with large, loose stitches and these designs are pretty gosh darn naked. Any ideas what a non-naked girl can do with R2?

Issue Six: Here's a good one for a change. I'll admit it - I like to seam sweaters. No, I love to seam sweaters! I just can't get enough of those neat, even seams coming together. I've even done finishing work for other Knitsmiths (remember?). And I really do enjoy weaving in ends, as long as I can weave them into the seams. With maggie, ava and the phildar baby sweater all at the "finish" line, I realize that I'm really excited about it. Seaming - yay!

Now you really think I'm crazy.

Still recouperating from the boys' big day, so no knitting to report here. But thinking about birthdays reminds me of some lovely birthday booty that I got two weeks ago when it was my birthday. Dear ol' mom can always be counted on to come through with some knit-gifties. This year she sent me 1000 Sweaters, which is such a cool book, I can't even stand it, and Weekend Knitting, which I decided I had to have after I saw the pie shawl knit up at KnitNY. And speaking of KnitNY, mom got me a gift certificate. Hooray!

More patterns, more yarn, if only I had the energy to knit again.

hopy boifday!

battery powered trains rule

happy happy

more presents

cake!

birthday hug

Reading the comments from yesterday ("why crochet?" and "all that stockinette?!") made me realize that I have some knitting issues to come clean on.

First issue: I don't really like variegated yarns. Oh, blasphemy, I know! But as much as I love them in the skeins and can love every individual color in them, I'm always less thrilled about the knitted result. I don't like the pooling that occurs, I don't like not having any control over which colors come together, and I really don't like that each section of the garment with a different width will look very different. I feel like I got lucky with the few variegated projects I've done so far (finally phildar, and funky vest). I even have issues with my beloved crazy continental where the stripes thin out and it looks more like variegated than striping yarn, but I love the colors so much that I still enjoy wearing it. This is the reason I've decided to crochet the Daria multi yarn. Surprisingly, I do like how variegated yarns look when crocheted. Somehow, I think the shape of the stitches lets you see more of each color or blends them better. I don't know, but if it allows me to try more variegated yarns, I'm there!

Second issue: I can knit too fast. I can knit relatively quickly and I generally have a few hours every evening to knit in. The result is an outrageous number of knitted garments. There are some I love, love, love and wear over and over (like Banff and my white smooch tee), and others that I've practically never worn (I keep forgetting that I've got the wannabe sweater and Rosebud). And if I ever knit through all the kits in my stash, I'd have more knitted garments than I could ever wear. This is the reason that I've started picking slower projects (like the miles of teeny tiny stockinette that are hush) and non-clothing projects (like the tea set). I'm puttin' on the brakes. What's a nimble knitter to do?!

Um, I do have more knit-issues. Check back tomorrow for more fascinating revelations (ha, ha). Wanna share yours? I'm all ears.

Birthday approaching!

a birthday chart

The countdown is on. Each day we take away another sticker and the boys can count how many days are left until their birthday. On the morning of their birthday, they can take down the two birthday stickers and wear them. They are really obsessed with birthdays nowadays. They've even been known to make pretend birthday cakes out of pots and pans and yell 'happy birthday' to anyone who enters the room. Wanna see the video?

So how are we preparing for the big day?

lots of presents

Potty presents, that is. Oh yes folks, it's that time! Living-room-Nick-Jr.-watching potty time. Whatever it takes. But I must say that all this running around the house with the potties at the ready has really cut into my knitting time!

Birthday
(wav file)

You say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too--yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, America.

We're having too much fun with the in-laws for mommy to knit, blog, or surf. She'll be back soon!

You know how you can have a bad hair day? Well I'm having a bad knit week! Except for Bun-Bun's swatch shrug (see Saturday's post), I feel like I've done nothing but rip and discover problems the whole week. Since finishing the first sleeve of the cardi raye at the end of my little NYC vacation, it's all been downhill.

I was knitting along happily on the pieces of my piecework sweater until I gave the crochet seam a try. It simply doesn't look very good in the Summer Tweed yarn. Certainly not as nice as in the pattern picture. I've tried about a dozen different ways of doing the seam now and still haven't found anything that I can live with. So that's on hold until I figure that out.

Then there's my spring fling top that I've been working on in the background here. I'm trying to convert my tank pattern into a little cap sleeve top and have ripped, recalculated and reknit the top half about eight times in total. Just can't seem to quite get the exact look that I'm going for. I've even had to start a new ball of yarn, because the fuzz of the original ball has really suffered from all that ripping. I'm hoping the ninth time will be a charm, but then again, that's what I thought about the eighth time.

Then there's my bucket disaster. I'm glad to hear that there are a few others out there also frustrated by buckets gone bad. It's good to know I'm not alone. And yet there are so many amazing buckets out there that I still feel like this is something I should be able to do. I'll try it again, but with all these other frustrations it was a real blow to my confidence. Oh how a fun, fabulous, little cotton hat would have lifted my knitting spirits!

And I can't even keep working on the cardi raye, since I'm waiting on more yarn from the Netherlands to complete it. Two weeks and still waiting. Now I'm getting nervous. My only project not in peril and it's being sabotaged by some sort of international postal conspiracy.

I could have (should have) started something new like mom's shrug, but I've felt like a little success with any of these other projects would get me back on track and like a sucker I keep going back to them. So I'm not feeling the knitting love so much right now. Phooey. Maybe I should just put down the knitting needles and go get my hair done.

[Update: In an effort to cheer myself up, I'm trying out one of those meme things. Here's the book meme that Brainylady Alison started and Melly and Kerrie also recently did.

That was cool.]

Anyone interested a trade for an unopened pack of Rowan linen drape in the color Watermelon? After picking this up I realized I already have like 10 things in my spring/summer wardrobe in exactly this color. Doh! Rowan #31 and Rowan #29 both have lots of great patterns for this yarn. And I'll be using the same yarn in a different color to make this Vintage Knits top. You could knit-along with me!

I'd be happy to trade for a tank's or short sleeved sweater's worth of Rowan calmer, all seasons cotton, or handknit dk. Or anything else fabuloso that you suggest. Email me at the address in the left sidebar!

Update: Trade's all set. Got an offer I couldn't refuse. Thanks to everyone for the various offers I received. I hope I get to trade with some of you in the future!

Still working on the finishing touches of the server move. You may have been redirected here from another part of the site. The archives and gallery pages are under reconstruction, so they're offline until I'm all finished. Everything should be done tomorrow or Monday at the latest. See you soon!

I can see it coming - too many sweaters approaching finishing at the same time. Teeny-tiny gauged baby sweater only needs one more sleeve and it's ready to seam. The bumpy blue sweater only needs one more sleeve and it's ready to seam. And at my current pace Banff could be all knit up by next week. Yikes! Three sweaters to finish in the next few weeks. Time for another February finishing fiesta. Anyone else in seam-stress that I can commiserate with?

I did some seaming already this weekend. I did the finishing on a child's sweater for a fellow Knitsmith. I seamed up this sweater for her a while ago and she's followed it up with another basic raglan for another grandchild. Very pretty color. Great yarn (Cascade 220!). Lovely knitting. Raglan sleeves. Truly, a pleasure to seam. If only they could all be like this!

Note to all ponch-o-longers, Elizabeth's looking for some clarification on the Rowan Zephyr poncho pattern. Check the comments from yesterday for her question and her contact info. Thanks!