Yesterday I did laundry, toured a fire station with the girls, and worked on Pete’s bag. Slowly but surely, I’m going to finish this bag. Here’s a nasty indoor picture without flash, because flash was worse.

I sewed the i-cord on the the flap, and gave it a little twist! All that’s left are the knots on the bottom and the flag. Possibly a pocket. Oh, and it looks much better in person. The twists look even, the picture is lying.

And then, wow. I came home to the loveliest gift package from Carrie last night!

Isn’t it sweet? She gave the girls stickers and princess toothbrushes (only the packaging made it to the picture, far left), she gave Abner a treat, and gave me an opportunity to dive into dyeing yarn! That would be some really soft merino from Knit Picks, (thanks, I’ve been wondering how their yarn is), four shades of KoolAid, and instructions printed up from Knitty. I’m excited because just today I saw something that interested me. That looks like too much fun, and now I can try it! Thanks, Carrie!

As a follow-up from Saturday, the bra shopping went well. I was fitted, and we found one (count it ONE!) that fits me. However, I learned something very interesting about myself that I think may help me in my knits. My body is wack. I am continually learning why it was that I had a messed up body image as a kid and teenager. I couldn’t find any female clothes that fit me, so I would buy from the young men’s department. I thought it was because I was fat. At the time, I wasn’t. But I’m getting distracted…

Apparently, I am significantly long across my shoulders, front to back, and significantly short from my armpits to my, well, let’s stop at the belly button. This makes for a difficult fit. While we were in the dressing room, the cute old lady with the pink measuring tape around her neck stood back, looked me up and down, and said, “I’m not exactly sure what to do with you.”

Time out. Does that sound familiar to anyone else? I seem to remember my PT telling me that last summer, and I blogged about it.

I guess I need a bra that is high in the front and cut out on the sides. I’ve never been normal. So I got two in the same style, and I scored on a great sports bra. I can actually JOG in this thing and it doesn’t hurt. I’m thrilled.

Ok, what I’ve learned is that I have tall shoulders. This is interesting to me. When I started on the Vogue Cable Cardi, I was getting good stitch gauge, but my row gauge was a bit long. I wouldn’t mind having the whole cardigan a bit longer, but I was worried about the armholes being too big and baggy. Based on what I learned from the cute old lady on Saturday, I’m assuming it would have worked out alright had I continued with those needles.

Now I need to think about how I feel having shoulders that are too tall for most bra straps, legs that are too short for tall pants, but too long for regular ones, and a trunk too short for everything else. I am inclined at this point to make some wise-crack about someone being drunk when they assembled me, but I am a religious woman, and that seems a bit harsh to throw heavenward.

Oh, and because I have no shame, I’ll tell you about the conversation happening in the fitting right next to me. The woman had spent her life wearing size 38 DD. The fitter said that her ribcage measured 31 inches, and that she’s most likely never been a 38 in her life. She was fitted into a 34 G. Most of us are wearing the wrong size, simply because most stores don’t carry bras that will fit us busty girls.

The moral of this story? If you’re having trouble knitting clothes that fit, go and get fitted for a bra. Maybe you’ll learn something useful.

Good morning! I had a pretty good week. Not perfect, but significantly better than the last several weeks.

Monday- physical therapy
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- 50 minutes of treadmill and physical therapy
Friday- I had physical therapy in the morning, and was gone the rest of the day. No exercise.

I’m happy with that. Tuesday, I wanted to DIE, it was so hard to exercise. Wednesday was fine, and Thursday I felt fabulous. I think the exercise helped me through a difficult week. I intend to exercise today, but first, I’m going bra shopping. You envy me, I can tell. I’m sure from my pictures it isn’t any great surprise that I can rarely find a bra that fits me. Nate is trying to get me to agree to an appointment at a specialty bra place. I’m resisting. I don’t entirely know why, other than my one experience, shortly after Veronica was born. I went to the hospital to be fitted for a large nursing bra. It was expensive, no surprise there, and the next day when I looked in the mirror, I was sagging to my stomach. This did not please me. I spent the rest of my nursing time using my regular bra.

Today is different because I am not newly postpartum, but the experience left me feeling that if I get a bra that really “fits”, I’m going to grossly sag. I’m not yet willing to resign to that. I’m fighting it. Anyone out there with any experience in this ought to nod knowingly when I say that good lift is the difference between voluptuous and dumpy. I know that I feel 50 pounds prettier when they’re up.

Ok, that was potentially Too Much Information. Right, so…..

Woo-hoo! Good week! However, I’m running out of time before my birthday. Although I’m not officially changing my birthday goal, I’m preparing for a compromise. Right now, I’m hoping to lose ANYTHING by my birthday.

How’s it going? How’re you doing? What are you eating for lunch?

Anyone doing anything? I saw that Megan has started a pink Cable-Eight. It sounds like there’s going to be lots of pink! I asked my LYS to order me some Cotton Fleece in Terracotta Canyon. It’s a perfect color that I think will look quite smashing on me. But no, I haven’t the yarn, so I haven’t started knitting.

Yesterday, I knit some more on the First Spun Shawl. (I spun some more for the FSS too).

It’s bigger now. See? I left my feet in the shot for reference.

And, one of Nate’s friends, the same talented lady that drew my picture for the blog, sent me some yarn from New York.

I think it would make a nice jacket or hoodie for one of the girls. Thanks Chrisitine!

Thank you for your well wishes yesterday. I am still cranky and moping, but for some reason, it is comfort in it’s own way. I know I’ll come around. Of course, yesterday I ate WAY more food that was necessary to sustain life. That’s going to bite me in the butt.

I started out quite cranky. I wrote a completely grumpy, snide post. I read it a number of times, then realized that the writing of said post must have been therapy in itself because I no longer felt many of the emotions expressed. Well, at least not as strong. Now I’m feeling that old, familiar attitude of resignation returning. I’m being cryptic, I know. Sorry. Because typing out a full on tantrum seems to have done me such good, I decided to save it, (for my benefit), and if you want to read it (not necessary, but if you are curious), it’s linked at the bottom of my new, much happier post. Keep in mind that the same information will be presented, but in a different way.

So I got to knit yesterday. For quite some time, actually, and it was very nice. I started out on the Vogue Cable Cardi (the official name, I’ve decided), and after realizing that I was stopping every three minutes to examine my stitches and re-measure gauge, I decided that I needed to chill. So I picked up the shawl I’ve started, using my first spun yarn.

I am now significantly further along that the picture shows. About four times as much. It is weird. It is crazy. I’m hoping that it’ll all work out in the end, but I don’t really care. I’m not knitting it to be functional. I’m knitting it as a keepsake of my first attempts at spinning, and a tangible record of my progress and improvement.

Of course, now that I’m thinking about it, I mean, right this second it is occurring to me… that maybe I’ll frog it and start knitting blanket squares. I’ve wanted to knit a blanket for a long time now, and this might be a cool way to do it. Hmmmmm. What do you all think? Shawl or blanket? In either case, there will be multiple colors.

If I do the shawl, I’ll knit the main body in my pound of heathered teal roving, then I’ll go and find some roving in a complimentary, contrasting color to spin and knit an attached edge. If I do a blanket, I’ll finish up the teal roving, then go and find a color (or a few) to also spin and knit into squares, thus giving myself ample opportunity to experiment with spinning different weights, and maybe even trying out navajo plying. The blanket idea is very raw, so I’m open to suggestions either way. But I’d love to have a blanket.

I’m feeling much better now. You really don’t have to read my tantrum. I’m just not ready to let it go yet.

I haven’t done very much in the way of knitting since this weekend. I’ve spun, and tinkered with the cabled cardi from Vogue, but I haven’t made any real progress. However, I still have pictures to show you, so here goes…

Oooh, ahhhh. These are Grandma’s socks. They are done, and as I said yesterday, they’re in the mail.

And here is Carrie’s doll for the Valentine’s Day giveaway. It is also in the mail.

On the Vogue cable cardi, I knit another inch or so on the back last night. I was way-very-much busy with everything imaginable yesterday, and when I finally got to sit down, around 4:30 or so, I decided to play with beads instead of knit. Mainly because I decided to make myself a spinning hook. I made, like, four. At first, I thought I was being ridiculous because, who needs four spinning hooks? Ahhh, but I very quickly realized that I would need more like fifteen spinning hooks, because when pretty, sparkly things are within reach of little princesses, they disappear. So four (I only know where two are right now) is hardly in excess.

And while we’re speaking of the Vogue cable cardi, you have to go and check out Shana’s. (I’m turning into a fan-girl). She has the fronts and back blocking right now, and they’re so freaking cool!!! I can’t wait to see it on her. I only hope mine looks that good, and fits me.

Yay! Ten packages went out yesterday. Four Valentine’s gifts went abroad. One pretty Valentine’s doll went to Carrie. A lovely pair of socks plus a beaded keychain adornment went to Grandma June. A James Dean calendar went to Mari in Virginia. Some catalogues went to mom in Oregon. And then there were a couple of merchandise returns. That was an event. I don’t get the post office much, so when I do, I have a truckload.

I mentioned yesterday about spinning…

Quite frankly, I’m dying to show Jessica how I rigged up a lazy kate, and a tensioned one at that! Just because I know she’ll laugh at me. Yes, I rented a spinning wheel without a lazy kate or a hook. Check it out.

Nate calls it a “lazy fake”. Clever boy. I took 24 gauge wire and strung the bobbins to the chair. I didn’t expect it to be tensioned, but because they rest against the back of the chair, it works beautifully.

This has been the scene in my family room for the past couple of days. I’ve been spinning away, and now plying. Hee hee. My first time plying. I may be doing it completely wrong, as I’ve had no real instruction on how to do it, but I’m very happy with how the yarn is turning out.

In fact, after I set the twist and hung it to dry, it barely twisted at all. I’d like to think that means I did something right. (And if you noticed in the second picture, we have our fairy tales a bit messed up. That would be Cinderella with the spinning wheel, not Sleeping Beauty. The Sleeping Beauty dress in this house is size 6x).

I have more pictures, but I’ll save them for tomorrow. Like I said, it was a busy weekend.

Oh, and one last thing…

This just showed up in my inbox. Wow. I’m not being unkind, everyone has their thing, and more power to them. I really believe that. In this case, it isn’t my thing, but I am notorious for liking crazy stuff, so I can hardly point fingers. That being said…. wow.

For knitting progress that is. It’s not like it was a particularly exciting weekend, but it was productive. Let’s see, where to begin…

Well, for starters, I finished Carrie’s doll, (Mary Sunshine’s doll’s twin, for the Valentine’s Day “Feeling the Love” giveaway. So that will be making it’s way out soon, along with the Valentines’s for those of you out of the country. I’m very sorry, but I haven’t got to the Post Office yet).

Secondly, I finished Grandma’s Koigu socks! Yay! And the coolest thing happened. On Friday night, at Knit Night with Miss Finch at the LYS, a local reader who I hadn’t yet met came to let me try Grandma’s sock on her tiny Cinderella foot! Isn’t that cool? We decided that they were about three rows too long, but it wasn’t enough of a problem to warrant frogging. However, it occurred to me on Saturday afternoon, as I was about to kitchener stitch the second one, that I could easily reduce the toe by 2 rows. So I did, and re-opened the first sock to do the same. I’m very happy with them. They are really pretty, and they looked lovely on Allison’s cute little feet, so I’d imagine they’ll look just as nice on Grandma. Thank you Allison! (And what nice feet you have. I don’t blame you at all :-))

What else… I finished the Manos Mitts, and, oh! I’ve started the pretty cabled cardigan from the Holiday issue of Vogue. I’m enjoying the mindless ribbing on the back, and I’m probably about 5 inches along. (Maybe just 4).

Also, I did some really, really cool spinning yesterday. That’s all I’m going to say right now. I literally have nearly a week’s worth of blog material from this weekend, so I’m going to save some of it for tomorrow. I think it’s just ’cause I was on the verge of completing a bunch of things, so it all went pretty quick. Believe it or not, I didn’t spend the entire weekend knitting. It just seems that way. Unfortunately, what we didn’t do was remember to photograph all of the finished knits before sundown each day, so my pictures right now are limited.

My favorite part of the weekend was sitting in the backyard, in the sun, in a beach chair, wearing a straw hat and knitting while Nate cut blackberry bushes and the girls played on the swings. (Poor thing, he spent 7 1/2 hours straight cutting down blackberry brambles. Ugh. I would have helped him, honest, but I can’t imagine fighting blackberries would do good things for my tempermental back situation, and my PT wouldn’t approve).

Finally, for those of you who are looking for spring, I have a gift.

This tree, in front of my neighbor’s house, is one of the many lovely things contributing to the wonderful, sweet smell on the air outside. The hyacinths blooming under my front porch stairs are another. In a very short while, another neighbor’s abundant honeysuckle will bloom and intoxicate as it does every year. Ahh, spring. It’s nice to see you again.

Good morning! How are you doing out there? I’m not up to where I want to be, but I feel I’m making little improvements.

Monday-nothing
Tuesday- I did physical therapy, and I was going to do the treadmill, but my hip was really hurting (weird) so I didn’t
Wednesday- I didn’t exercise because I was going to a belly dancing open house at night, and I figured I’d get it in then. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to DO any belly dancing, so Wednesday was a bust.
Thursday- physical therapy and 50 minutes of treadmill! Woo-hoo!
Friday- physical therapy

Today, I am confident I’ll get my exercise in. So, another so-so week, but I did something, and I’m eating better.

Let’s hear some progress… Who had a great week?

UPDATE- I did it. I took the dog for a 2 mile walk on this beautiful sunny day. Later, I may do some weights. Have a good one!