Just a Quick Project

I’ve spent too many days with cold toes to let it go on any longer.

I bought some Wool-Ease Thick & Quick at the Arts and Crafts store, (although, they charge MSRP on the yarn there, a bit shocking for someone used to shopping sales in a multi-store-competition-based world) double-stranded it, and knit some of the ugliest slippers I have ever seen. You can find the pattern here, but I’m just gonna clue you in now that it’s a rectangle with cables on the sides and decreases in the last row. To be honest, double-stranding the Thick & Quick might have been overkill, but despite their thick and lumpy appearance, the slippers are cushy and warm.

So, yeah - I’m not too enamored of the pattern, but it’s fast and functional. Max saw that I made some slippers and told me that he needed some, too - because he had cold toes. “You make me some, Mama!” You bet, bud. I ended up using about a skein and a half in my gigantic slippers, so there was plenty left to make some little single-stranded ones. (Pictures to come later.) Charlie might want some, too! We’ll see.

And now, for a political aside.

If you’re the kind of person who finds heated or controversial political discussions distasteful, please - come back next time, when I’ll have a quirky toy collection and and an update on the cashmere situation to present.

I’ve been doing a lot of research this week, and having many, many online discussions to try and decide which Presidential candidate will get my vote this fall. (Yes, I’m still deliberating.) I’ve been asking others what it is about their candidate of choice that earned their support. Some people are voting along party lines, some people are voting after careful consideration of issues most important to them, and some people’s vote was swayed by mudslinging. Out of everything, I was most disturbed by a single line I kept seeing over and over.

I could never support someone who was pro-life. Period.

Since when has being pro-life been an indefensible position? Since when has being pro-life been a symptom of radical religious misogyny, not to mention someone incredibly out of touch with the ‘realities’ of modern life? Since when has concern for the life of an unborn child been irrelevant?

Look. I don’t think abortion should be completely illegal. The decision to have an abortion is a huge and very personal one, and there are situations where I would feel that a mother was justified in terminating her pregnancy. I don’t believe laws should be changed to force women to carry a baby they do not want to term. That’s wrong. I’ve had children. Being pregnant was one of the most invasive, exhausting, overwhelming, and frightening experiences of my life - of course it wasn’t only that, but in a situation where I had no desire for the pregnancy or the child, in a situation with no support, it would have been Hell. I also don’t believe that women should have an abortion because they don’t feel like having kids, or getting stretch marks, or ‘I’m in school right now,’ or ‘he broke up with me when he found out,’ or the hundred other reasons that have nothing to do with the life of the mother, the life of the child, rape, incest, or other deeply damaging situations. (These combined account for less than 10% of abortions in the United States.) That is also wrong. Not because I say so, but because the decision to end a human life for any but the deepest and most desperate of reasons is wrong. I suppose that because I don’t want to completely ban abortions, and I don’t want to strictly limit them (I don’t think that’s possible in a way that is ethical) I can’t call myself ‘pro-life.’ I’m definitely not ‘pro-choice.’ It’s just never that simple.

So I’m not out to take away your “right” to abortions. But come on, people. There has to be a better way. I’m all for mass dispersal of contraceptives, if that would reduce abortion rates. Frankly, if you don’t want children I don’t want you reproducing. (Not in a Darwinian sense. But I like babies. Why would I want to force you to have one you don’t want? Not fair to anyone.) If you (as an adult) choose to have sex, you choose to accept an implicit risk of pregnancy resulting - even with contraception. Responsibility for the consequences of your actions is not optional. If even a .01% chance of pregnancy is unacceptable to you, quit having sex.

In the end, I am really, truly saddened by the unspoken attitude I have seen reflected by dozens of women this week, that anyone ‘against’ abortion only wants to cripple and control women, shackling them in their own bodies for the sake of some unwanted non-person (aka fetus) that someone will have to grudgingly provide and care for after it makes it out. It seems like the discussion has focused so much on “her body” that no one dares to mention “her baby” - and that is devastatingly tragic.

You’re welcome to tell me you disagree with me. I don’t mind. I do reserve the right to delete any comments from flamers.

We now return to your regularly scheduled content.

So, Greg asked me the other day…

“…so, do you like knitting now better than you like crocheting?” I took this as my cue to crochet something again. (The answer, by the way, is no, knitting is just still really new to me and I have a LOT to learn, which is a really engaging challenge. Plus, when I crochet, I design. It’s like I can’t help it.)

I pulled the sheepghan out of the closet again and slogged through the charting issues (by ignoring my previously worked-out chart and just putting the colors in the places I wanted them). My reward?

Wow. That’s actually looking pretty great. And sure, great is subjective, but it’s looking a lot like I meant it to, which is great to me. However, as you may or may not be able to tell from the darkish photo, I’m going to have a gazillion ends to weave in. Way, way more than the cotton top. Way, way, way more. I think the next church-baby afghan will be markedly simpler.

Oh, by the way - I figured out why Knit Picks sent me those color cards….they introduced new colors in both of those yarns and were trying to get rid of the old ones! The sneaks. However, I’m not complaining, because the new colors are all heathers and I love a good heather. It’s actually my favorite sort of coloring. I love them. Seriously, if I name my first-born daughter Heather it won’t be because of the flower. (I kid. Maybe if I ever get a cat it’ll be a Heather.) Um. Where was I?

My point is, I like heathered yarns.

Crocheting Away

So much to talk about today! Let’s see…where to start…

Well. We moved into a new church ward last fall - after Charlie was born, so I didn’t know this - but apparently it’s the tradition in our current congregation to give an afghan to every new baby who is born. They had someone I’ve only heard referred to as “The Afghan Lady,” who supplied them with baby afghans and lapghans for the elderly and such. Something has apparently happened to The Afghan Lady (I don’t know what). Perhaps she’s moved, perhaps she’s died: they didn’t tell me and I haven’t asked. (:lol: It sounds kind of bad when I say it like that - I just think it hasn’t come up!) However, they found out that I crochet (back when I volunteered to do some humanitarian crafting) and asked if I could help out with the baby afghans. There’s quite a call for them - apparently over the last year there have been 15 babies born into our ward. Wow! They’ve assured me that there will be other people working on them as well.
Anyway, they supply the yarn, and the nice sister in charge of it asked me what I wanted. She told me that The Afghan Lady always used ‘the red heart yarn,’ and would I like that, because it would work up quicker, right? I assured her that it wouldn’t take that much longer to use the baby yarn, which I thought would be nicer - and comes in baby colors, too! So this Sunday she gave me two shopping bags of Bernat Softee Baby in various colors - which I like. Still, I think that I think I need to reassure her on the speed factor, which could explain this:

Click the pic if you’d like to see it closer: please excuse the tangle of yarn balls. I’m not carrying the threads, because I hate to see them peeking through. Yeah, I’ve done all that since Sunday night. Think I can get the first one done by Sunday morning? Perhaps. She said that they don’t have any left in the closet for boys, and there are several women expecting boys (including one of my friends!), so I thought I’d start with ones that can be used for the little guys, but aren’t plain to the point of boring.

In other news, I’ve decided (in a fit of spontaneity) to prepare and submit a design I was waffling about for Interweave Crochet’s - weeeeell, crud. I just looked it up to see which issue I would be submitting for, and I missed the deadline for Spring 2008. (It was yesterday - I thought it was the 28th.) You know what, though, that’s fine. It takes the ‘rush’ out of it. I’m pretty sure by now that they decided against my submission for Winter ‘07 (although I haven’t heard yet). Which is okay, because sometime after I submitted it, I had a little chat with myself about my designs. I’d been trying - or wanting, anyway - to do what everybody else is doing. To make sweaters and shirts and shawls and whatnot. And that’s not really what I do. I mean, I do it, but the designs that I love the most, and that other people think are awesome, are the toys, and stuff like that. And I do them really well. And I like them. You know? So I decided that it was better to do what I do well, that I like to do, that other people like, instead of straining and trying to do something that’s not really me, that other people already do, and do beautifully. I don’t blame them for not publishing my wristwarmers (yeah: I submitted wristwarmers. You never know.) but that’s cool, because this next design I’m going to submit will ROCK!

In other news, I carried a stack of Red Heart Super Saver down the stairs balanced against my chin and it gave me a rash that took 10 minutes to go away. Am I getting too delicate to be cheap anymore? Crud. Crud crud crud.

I’m still gonna work with it.

Stuff I finished yesterday

Yesterday was quite a day, as far as crocheting goes. I sat down with hook and yarn, buckled down, and finished some stuff. I’d have posted yesterday, but it rained. A lot. All day. So no pictures.

First up, I finished Max’s hard hat! (Yaaay!) He was thrilled.

What? No, seriously, he was! Every time he saw me working on it he got all excited about the ‘yellow hat’ and tried to get his hands on it. Apparently, though, what Max really wants a mask. Every time we put a hat on him, he pulls it down past his chin, and runs around giggling and bumping into walls. I had to bribe him with the fire truck to get him to keep his hands off of it long enough to get the photo. And then, I guess…

…the truck got cold. I think I have the sizing figured out, which means that the pattern will be put into testing soon and will be added to my sale patterns! I really need to beef up the number of patterns I have to sell. Compared to my freebies, their number is shockingly low. Not that you mind, I’m sure, hahaha.

Next up is something that I wasn’t sure would ever be finished. Yesterday, for reasons unknown even to me, I went into my craft closet, unburied the WIP box, and brought it downstairs. Inside was this little guy:

Poor little monkey’d been taped up in the box for at least a year and a half. He was only missing two legs, half an arm, and a tail! That was a quick finish. I didn’t actually finish him yesterday, but when I started on him this morning it was dark out, and when I finished it was still darkish, so I’m counting it. Poor little guy doesn’t have a name yet. That’s all right, though. He’ll also be for sale.

And, finally, there were mittens.

You didn’t think we’d get through a post without mittens, did you?

Mittens, Mohair, and, uhhhh…Yarn.

Let’s see: what have I been up to? Well, there’s another set of mittens (of course) - and if you like them, you’re in luck! You can find the free pattern here, at Inner Child Crochet. (Enjoy! I think they’re very cute mittens.)

I’ve also been thrift shopping, again, and I found a nice big sweater in a lovely shade of blue - mostly synthetic, but with 15% mohair! I can’t wait to dismember - er, I mean, recycle it.

I’ve also overdyed some of my cashmere. I took about two ounces, just over 850 yards, and overdyed it using two packets of Ice-Blue Raspberry Lemonade. (That was our favorite flavor, back when we still drank the stuff. We had a bunch left over!) Let me tell you, though, I have never questioned my own sanity as much as I did while I was coaxing my cashmere into a bowl of koolaid. Anyway, I only wanted a subtle color change, and subtle is the word I would use to describe it:

I’ve put it next to an undyed skein for comparison, because I think that without the comparison you might not know there was a change at all! (I kind of wish I had used another packet, but I dyed it twice and was NOT up for a third time.) Here’s another picture, taken inside, that hopefully illustrates the color difference better:

See? There you go. Definitely a different color. Now it’s a pale pale blue instead of a seafoam green, and richer instead of a smidge greyish. There. Now I feel better, it’s definitely an improvement, and it wasn’t a bad color to begin with. I wound it (doubled) around a toilet paper roller, which works fine for my cheap behind, thanks. It’s due to become something special. (The cashmere, not the roller. Although the roller is pretty sweet, too - we buy Cottonelle, and that stuff comes cleanly off of the cardboard. Niiiice.)

This week in mittens

What have I got to show for myself? Why, nothing less than three more pair of mittens! You know you’re thrilled. We’ve got a green pair with a yellow stripe -

- I think I’ll make the stripe one row narrower next time. Also, a yellow pair with red cuffs and thumbs:

And one more pair. Shield your eyes:

Yeah, I know. This is not the shade of red I had thought I had purchased. I thought I had gotten another skein of Cherry Red, which is a nice, bright, respectable red. As you can see, it is not. I accidentally grabbed a skein of ‘Hot Red,’ a bright, blazing, incandescent shade of red (Wren agrees that incandescent is the correct term). Max likes it, though, and since he’s my test audicence, we’re running with it. We may see a few more pair of plain red mittens in an attempt to go through it quickly. I also worked up two more plush hangers. If you want to see what they look like, please reference the previous post. They look the same.

Here’s your warning, folks. Posts - especially posts with projects - will be sparse for a few weeks. I’m finishing some things up for the spring Crochetme, and then after that I need to prepare the new March content for Inner Child Crochet. See ya!

Helping Others

I’m not the sort of girl who makes New Year’s resolutions. I prefer to set my goals as they become needed, and I’ve got a new one. This last winter (sorry, I know lots of you are still cold. Down here, though…winter has left the building. Look out, here comes summer! Bleh.) I was driving home one day when I stopped at a red light. It was chilly even with the sun out - many of the shoppers I had encountered on our diaper run (we buy them in bulk) were wearing heavy coats. At this particular light there was a man begging. This isn’t unusual where I live, although it shocked me when we moved here. After a few years of it, I mostly ignore them and try not to make eye contact with the crazies when I’m alone in the car with my babies. For some reason, though, this particular man caught my eye, and when I looked at him he reminded me of my dad. Perhaps it was that he was bald. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and, of course, I could tell he was bald because he wasn’t wearing anything to cover his head. The thought popped into my head, “How would I feel if my dad had to beg out on a street corner in winter, without even a hat to cover his bald head?” The answer was easy. Terrible, of course. Heartbroken. “I would hope that someone would help him.”

By this point in my internal dialogue I had travelled some distance, but the picture of that man and the feeling he raised has stayed with me. I know that there is quite a tangle with regards to who ‘deserves’ help, and who is using it to avoid work or to turn a quick buck, and it is an inescapable truth that I cannot save everyone - but the fact remains that there are people everywhere that need help, and I am in a position to help at least some of them.

I was sort of at a loss in terms of where to start - I poked around for several weeks investigating charities and the like, but nothing really spoke to me. I don’t know if I was waiting for one to call to me, but one did. I was in church last week, only half-listening (playing with Charlie, you know) when a woman got up to give an announcement. “We are looking for crocheters and knitters” (That’s me! I thought) “who would like to be involved in our humanitarian efforts.” (I would! I thought) My church has highly organized humanitarian services, and is well known for its extensive work for and with those who need help. Silly me for not thinking sooner to go through them. So, now I’m making mittens.

I’m making them in Max’s size, because somewhere out there (I would say ‘not too far away,’ except we’ve already come out of winter) there are little boys and girls, just like my baby, who have cold fingers no one to make mittens for them. So now, I am.