Yes I know I just did a wip list. But this is a more detailed wip list. With notes and such. For a good purpose.

Yes I know you are laughing. I’ll wait. Ok, I’ll wait some more while you clean the beverage of your choice off your keyboard. I’m sorry I made you spit.

I realize of course that even if I knit 24/7 for this last week of the year and gave up sleeping, eating, and potty breaks I *still* would not finish all of these projects. But I can make it better, no? And I can institute firm rules that will get me down to something manageable.

Since our last fireside chat, I have finished a few things. Hold your applause until all of our FO’s have been announced.

Two very pretty ornaments, only one of which I have a picture of. These knit up in no time at all.

One Tam, view C.

Swirling Snow, the December washcloth for the Knitwitz Washcloth Club.

Foliage from Knitty

Original Knitting Basket Ornament (#12)

The Misty Hat (#7)

The Big Ole Baby Blanket (#5)

Are you still here? Wow. So I’ve finished 8 things in the last month. All of which were tiny. Only 3 of which were on my most recent list. Which is why (shudder) my list has actually gone up an item. I’m now at 20. Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame.

1. Daniel Socks – Not ready for these. Only done a smidge. Will take off the needles and wait for later.
2. Modern Quilt Wrap – I have decided to treat this as 72 mini wips. Each block being a project. I will not “count” the wip unless it is unfinished. Right now I am in the middle of my third block so it’s OTN.
3. Oblique – Doing ok on this one, but it’s not close enough to finished to merit end of the year attention.
4. #19 – Pass.
5. Endpaper Mitts – Also low on the priority list.
6. Ice Queen – This might be a contender.
7. Vintage Velvet – Also might be a 2007 winner.
8. Upstream Socks – These fit nicely but I hate the funky way they look off my feet. Does that make any sense? I think these will be purse knitting and not considered an active wip. I plan on making a different architecture for it’s mate.
9. Via Diagonale – I would love to have this purse. Need to fit this in soon.
10. Mr. Greenjeans – Guess when the diet starts? This will be a first project to finish in 2008.
11. Scotch Thistle Stole – Also 2008.
12. Sooper Seekrit – Needs to be frogged and redone easier. Not enough yarn for the intended pattern. This is a one movie knit though. Definitely this year.
13. Sandy Cardigan – This will be my 2007 sweater. I’m on sleeve one again finally.
14. Celtic Tote – Back and front done, half of side/bottom combo done. But I ran out of wound yarn. Oh the tragedy. This will be a 2007 knit though too!
15. Juliet – Not sure about this one. Probably spring 2008 for wear in the proper season.
16. Splash Scarf
17. Maximize Socks – Nearly done, but I’m taking these off the official list because I have to have a pair in progress for my class.
18. Tomato – I would like to finish this, but the truth is that it’s a spring sweater and too small right now. 2008.
19. Icarus – Have I mentioned that this is 85% done? I will not cast on for any more lace until I finish it.
20. Fuzzy Feet – I swear upon everything holy that I will felt these tomorrow. Yes, I have finishing issues.

Ok. Things I will finish in 2007 for sure:
Fuzzy Feet
Celtic Tote
Sooper Seekrit
The current Modern Quilt Wrap square
Sandy Cardigan
Splash Scarf (the oldest wip)

Things I am officially removing:
Upstream Socks
Maximize Socks
Daniel Socks

At the end of 2007 I will be down to 11 wips. Eleven. That’s my pledge and goal. And I will have a veritable plethora of FOs to show you. Heck I might even handwind some yarn.

Ok, probably not the last bit. But the rest for serious.

P.S. Merry Christmas!

I fall into the hole. The too many wips hole. Too many wips, too many ufos.

I think I might have some knitting issues.

Poor planning knitting issues. I start things that I never finish. Why is that? Many of the things I seem to never want to finish. You might wanna click away now. Go somewhere happy, that has pictures of puppies or ducklings.

Because I’m gonna make a list.

1. Icarus – still the same old place. Maybe I could finish this for Daniel’s big party and buy a matching dress!
2. Tomato – fair isle too tight on boobies. So sad. Must lose weight.
3. Maximize Socks – these don’t count because they are my sock class socks, right?
4. Splash Scarf – oh sweet niblets! Someone please take that thing out of my house!
5. Big Ole Baby Blanket – finish for December 8th baby shower!
6. Juliet – about half done with the lace. So fast, so easy, so forgotten.
7. Misty Hat – have about five inches. Need about seven before decreases.
8. Sandy Cardigan – would be nice since there have been chilly days. I’m such a slacker.
9. Sooper Seekrit – don’t ask!
10. Mr. Greenjeans – stupid belly. See #2.
11. Scotch Thistle Stole – half done. Not dressy enough for party. Not high priority.
12. Basket Ornament – I. Hate. Bobbles.
13. Via Diagonale – anybody want this?
14. Upstream Socks – bored now.
15. #19 – For the love of all that is holy I will conquer this one!
16. Celtic Tote – Half done with back. Will be cute. Need to do.
17. Endpaper Mitts – fun in theory. Need motivation in reality.
18. Vintage Velvet – the love of the minute. I’ve worked nearly one ball of Touch Me. That stuff is sooooo nice.

19. Daniel Socks – Below is the picture of the yarn barf I pulled out looking for the freaking end of the trekking.

Just got an IM from my LYSO. The Riverstone is on the way. Caroline is slated up next. Must. Finish. Something.

I’m so pathetic.

When will I ever learn? I’ve been working on Mr. Greenjeans for less than 2 weeks. I’m making fantastic progress although I’ve slowed a bit due to insane busy-ness. But then I did the math.

Check the clock. 10:27. Work one row. What time is it? 10:38. You want sixteen inches of body at 6.5 rows per inch and each row takes you how long???? Expletives are the appropriate response here. All told if I trust the math I have 20 hours plus still of work on this baby. Suck-tastic.

But look how pretty it looks….

And that’s an order! And just to share my particular ear-worm with you….

So my good friend GirlWithNeedles tagged me as someone who makes her smile. Actually I think a good lot of my friends get smiles and giggles from my stories of the stupid things that happen to me, but hey, I am spreading joy in the world, no?

So here is my top ten list of bloggers who make me smile!

1. GirlWithNeedles of course! Her stitching makes me yearn for another hobby that I have no time for and she’s the one that will keep you in stitches at knit-in!

2. KnitKimberKnit - She and I have been known to stand at the swift convulsed in the giggles and she’s quick with the smiles and the hugs!

3. The Yarntender - Sometimes it seems like she and I share some brain material because we get all of each other’s jokes. I feel sorry for her!

4. TrishTheDish – Ahh… when we were five. And no, we didn’t grow up together. We just have a tendency to act like complete children in each other’s company. Remember Norway?

5. Fiber Freak – She’s cooler than me. Well most people are, but she’s really cool. Plus right now I am coveting her hand-dyed yarn. Or her dye-ing skills. Or both.

6. CrazyMexicanGirl – This one always makes me smile. There’s something about her that tells me if I ever get over to that side of the country we would have the best time.

7. The Domestic Overlord – This one has the power. Her quick wit and current band names on the Knittyboard always makes me smile.

8. Batty - Every time I hit her blog, I hear the Count singing in my head. Good for a smile anyday!

9. Lolly Knits – I always love reading her entries and her photography is so gorgeous.

10. Poor Miss Finch – Her kids are so cute! And she is another one of those people that you get the feeling you would be fast friends with.

And just for your enjoyment, a story of something stupid that happened to me. Yes, you can laugh. My leg is all better now.

Are those ants in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Saturday night I was cleaning out my car and getting ready to go to midnight knitting. I had backed the car up to the garage so I was actually standing in the mulch next to the deck. I was wearing jeans and suddenly I felt a sting on the back of my thigh. I didn’t think much of it until I felt the 2nd sting and then a 3rd really make ya holler sting. I thought “I have (fire)ants in my pants.” Seriously. The fire ants around here will just crawl right up your leg and start biting you like woah. So I ran madly into the house assuming some fireants had crawled up my pants, screaming the whole way because I was really getting stung/bit badly and each one hurt ten times worse than the last one. Rufus (the wonder beagle) is freaking out with me and starts to howl and bark at me. But then I I couldn’t get my pants off because I forgot to take my shoes off first. So I’m hopping around my bedroom screaming, the dog is howling, and my pants are trapped on by my shoes. That’s when I spot the yellowjacket. Yeah, I spot the yellowjacket still in my pants, next to my flesh. Did I mention I couldn’t get my pants off? There shoulda been a hidden camera. Finally I get my pants off and start whaling on the yellowjacket with my shoe. “Die! Die! Die!”

I’m telling you. This sort of thing only happens to me.

Tonight it was pigs in a blanket. And the ketchup was served like this:

The pigs were crazy easy. Two cups of heartsmart bisquick, 1/2 cup of skim milk. Mix together and roll out into a 12×12″ square. Cut into 12 4×3″ rectangles and wrap around 12 hotdogs. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Tada! Betcha didn’t know I was such a culinary genius, huh?

Gimme a break. I’m tired. The party was a smashing success except for all the leftovers. Seriously. RSVP. Répondez s’il vous plaît. Sometimes I feel very old when I feel the need to critique people’s manners. But I’m trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they honestly don’t know what it means. Maybe they think they only have to call if they are coming. But here’s my Miss Manners lesson for the day. Even if you are not coming, it is still expected (and gracious) to rsvp. That way the host/ess knows that they don’t have to plan food or whatever for you. In this day and age so many people don’t rsvp that you almost *have* to plan for the non-responders. Ask me about the birthday party where I didn’t. Well actually I did, but I didn’t plan for the sheer number of people who showed up without rsvp’ing. Legendary disaster.

But really. If you are invited to a party, cut the hostess a break. Call or e-mail and tell her you can’t make it (or can). It really does make life that much easier for her. That way a poor girl like me doesn’t end up with 100 cans of various soda and 50 hot dogs leftover. Yeah, I’m not kidding. Apparently my slime punch was a raging success and that’s all people drank. Ok. I’m done ranting. Really.

In knitting news I picked back up my endpaper mitts. They just weren’t gonna fit over my gorilla hands with a 56 st cast-on on size 0 needles. (Yes, I have gorilla hands. I’m 5’10″, whaddya want?) So I tweaked the pattern slightly for 60 sts and I’m finally to the fair-isle portion. Ribbing is evil, of this I am sure.

I’ve had 35 years of holding grudges. No, seriously. I am the queen of grudge-holders and bridge-burners. There are always flames leaping behind me because I never stop burning bridges. Never.

Sometimes I give people too many chances, sometimes too few. Many times I wonder what the hell is wrong with people who seem to be gluttons for punishment. You know, those people that keep going back and back to allow the same person to hurt them over and over again. I did that once. Well I mean I did that with one person. I guess it was due to the fact that once I had kids I felt like I should do anything to preserve my family. It didn’t work of course. He was never my family.

Sometimes I wonder why I am so quick to cut people off. Is it because of the butthead? Not sure. Very few of the people I’ve cut loose could ever have that much of an impact on my life. Mostly it’s just the random, I don’t need this crap kind of cut-offs. But I’m damned good at it.

Ah, introspection. A Saturday afternoon nap will do that to you. You’ll have odd dreams and heavy thoughts will hang in your head as you search for a strong enough source of caffeine to clear out all the cobwebs. Mostly my head is filled with one thought. If I sucked it up and invited my sister (and my beloved nephew) to our Halloween party would she suck it up enough to come? I mean I’m still incredibly angry at her and I miss him the most, but still.

I think it’s time for a Starbucks run.

I have no idea what that means. But it’s a good pseudo curse word. Lil dude has been saying “Oh for the love of Uncle Pete”. Uncle Pete is my stepbrother. I didn’t grow up with him though, and the boys barely have seen him. But he is forever implanted in their brains because he is a rock star. Actually for real. He has a really great band. The boys wanna be rock stars (and spies and firemen) but I don’t think their “uncle” would appreciate their High School Musical rock star aspirations.

By the way, those movies are like kiddy crack. Every kid I know, boy, girl, whatever loves those movies. Poor Kim had to sit through one the other night. I think it made her develop a tic.

Why am I awake at midnight when the alarm will ring at 6am? Because I am stupid. That is why. I am re-working Statistics homework so that I can get points that I missed the first time around. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s worth it. This whole college thing. The more I hear about public schools the more unsure I become. I’m supposed to do field experience this semester. I’ve been assigned to an algebra class in what can only be described as an “inner-city” high school. Well as inner-city as Jacksonville gets. But the teacher hasn’t called me back yet to arrange times. Sometimes I feel like I should take a step back and just do elementary teaching. Other days I’m convinced I need my master’s so I can teach college. I’m nothing if not consistently indecisive.

And while I’m having a midnight whinefest (although sadly without wine or Irish cream) I might as well complain about my spring schedule. I wanted to leave a couple of days a week open to substitute teach. You know… experience, dollars, blah, blah, blah. But my Calc three class is at an odd time and it’s impossible for me to schedule around with having to pay to put the boys in morning or after care.

Wait. Did you say you were here for the knitting? Silly me. What am I working on?

1. Juliet in double-stranded sage Cotton Fleece
2. Upstream Architecture Socks in a red/orange/fair isle Meilenweit
3. A simple baby blanket in Muench Big Baby

Things I’m not working on:

1. The Dead Bride. Guess it’s not her year.
2. Katherine Hepburn – I screwed it up and haven’t started over yet
3. Sandy Cardigan – And it’s gonna get slightly chilly soon….
And more other things than I can possibly count. Might be time for WIP control again.

Dusting the tilter… It’s such a cute name for a sweater coat, the tilted duster. I feel like I should wear it with a drink in both hands. As you can see my duster is hanging out in the yarnstore (near the malabrigo and the IK) until it gets cool enough to wear it here. All in all, I must say, I *adore* this sweater!

Notes about this project:
If you knit it in malabrigo (or a similiar kettle dyed or hand dyed yarn) do some looking before you start. In hindsight I wish I had purposely chosen which two balls to use for my sleeves. One sleeve has a lot more of the lighter pink in it than the other. But rather than rip, I decided to “embrace” the kettle dyed qualities.

I was afraid I was going to run out of yarn, so I knit the fronts, the back, the sleeves, and then the collar. That way if I ran short I could just shorten the skirt. Turns out I was fine. I used way less than 6 balls of the red mahogany malabrigo on size 10 needles for the 40″ size. It came out a bit bigger than 40″ because my gauge was off, but I had planned for that.

Regardless of the yarn issue, I think knitting the skirt last was a good idea. The skirt is long and tough to get through, but it’s nice to know that you’re done at that point.

I had saved my original swatch so I tested out steam iron blocking it. It worked fine and didn’t hurt the precious yarn so that’s how I got the curl out of the stockinette portions of the skirt.

I must say, this is one of my favorite projects ever!

No, I didn’t get a new camera yet. But I did get the old one to squeak out a few more pictures. Here’s what I’ve been doing lately…

Taking the boys to school…

Knitting the tilted duster…

Knitting the tilted duster (someone force me to finish this danged thing, I’m down to bindoff and set in sleeves and my motivation went to Brooklyn or something).

Knitting Cat Bordhi’s sample socks….

Making ABCD stitch markers for Cat Bordhi’s sample socks…

I am exhausted. No really. All weekend I cleaned. And then yesterday we partied. The cupcakes turned out delicious. The pizza came on time. I forgot to put spoons in the dips. I forgot to give the kids balloons. There was some serious brain farting going on.

But the end result really was happiness. The boys were happy and had tremendous amounts of fun. The spy mission (scavenger hunt) was a hit. The boys wrote their own clues and the end result was a can of silly string for each kid. They then attacked the D.A.D.’s (the Destructive Anarchy Droids) in the backyard. So awesome. And the dads were such good sports.

The little guy got so excited over a Harlem Globetrotters basketball that I thought he was gonna pass out. We are fully outfitted in spy gear and spider-man gear and gift cards. The boys are are ready to go shopping. Right now at ten til nine in the morning.

Oh and someone learned to knit. I was crazed but a couple of my friends found her yarn and needles in my stash and got her started. (Thank you so very much for that!!!) I predict that soon she will be fully addicted just like the rest of us!

Would you like to see some pictures of all of the fun? Yeah. My digital camera decided to crap out on me. Fortunately I had some camera happy friends so soon I will have some pics. I really need a new camera. Like yesterday.

Oh and today? Today I am doing nothing. Ok, not nothing. When does a woman ever really do nothing? Today I am knitting, catching up on laundry, knitting, doing my homework, and knitting. Three hats done, five to go.