A Post Several Days in the Making

I started writing this on Friday, but didn't have photos ready to go and didn't have enough undisturbed time to put two thoughts together coherently. So, am finishing, editing, adding pictures today (Sunday).

Current Knitting
I started knitting Mr. SABLE a version of of the Iron Mountain Hat (v.2) with slightly fatter yarn, in blue and black


Still working on Mr. SABLE's Adirondack Pullover

Still working on the Tahki Tweed version of the One Row Scarf


In addition, longer standing WIPs include
Constance Shorewood about 98% done
The very long-standing tweedy slipstitch sweater for Mr. SABLE
Some miscellaneous socks

Finished a few weeks ago:

A quick little hat from Knit Picks Panache. Not sure I like how it looks, but it feels very soft and warm on my head, which counts for a lot around here.

Meanwhile, I've made plans to make another Iron Mountain v.2 for my friend Jim, for whom I made the brown fisherman's knit raglan last year, and a pullover for my brother's wife. I'm hoping to match both these projects up with stash yarn.

Family Life
Maybe part of why I'm so determined to match projects to existing stash has to do with our pre-holiday preparations. Mr. SABLE's brother and his wife came for a short visit on the 26th, which was great fun. There was a lot of hilarity and fun and games. But before they arrived, Mr. SABLE was driven to clean as I haven't seen him in at least 15 years. He purged and cleaned and filled garbage bags and recycling bins. He scrubbed the bathroom. And now our house is further from the brink of chaos than it has been for some time. So that's part of my motivation to reduce stash: having come this far in our house-normalization process, it seems like a good thing to continue.

The other thing is that on Christmas Eve I had to retrieve some "Santa items" I had hidden in my lair. It took me a full hour of dedicated searching, moving, and organizing to find the bag'o'goodies in a bin I thought I had searched early on. D'oh. And through that, I kept finding yarn I'd forgotten I owned. So I had a moment of clarity where the truth of my sickness was made quite clear.

Christmas Day was quiet. The Little Emperor came into our room about 10 minutes before 7, which is amazingly accurate. We had told him that nothing was happening until 7 and he doesn't have a clock in his room. We tried to doze the last 10 minutes then he gleefully announced that it was time. The morning went well. My brother made one of Owen's wishes come true by sending along an electric guitar that he owned but doesn't play these days.


In the early afternoon, The Little Emperor started to act a little sick. He fell asleep on the couch, spiking a fever of 103 F. In the evening we got a dose of Tylenol into him and got him up to bed. He woke us up at 3:30 a.m. saying he felt hungry and also unwell. Then he had big gastro-enteric symptoms (both ends), several bouts, pretty much keeping us up until 5:30. This was the day that R & C, the relatives, were coming, and we worried about them walking into a house of contagion. It seemed like the little guy was pretty much on the mend by late afternoon and was able to eat a good dinner (pizza) that night with no consequence. Still, I worried a bit, because I know gastro-enteric viruses can stay contagious for a few days after symptoms have passed.

R & C were supposed to stay two nights, but we all had an eye on the weather forecasts which were uniformly grim. They decided to return to C's cousin's in Chicago last night, so they were sure to make their flight back to NJ this afternoon. As it turned out, the flight was canceled, along with all the other flights to NJ on United today.

Finishing Post on Sunday Afternoon
R & C were able to get home, albeit, in a very Planes, Trains, and Automobiles kind of way. They got a flight on a different airline out of Midway, instead of O'Hare; to Philly instead of Newark. Then a rental car to to retrieve their car from Newark Airport, and eventually home to Summit.

BTW, here's one of a series of group pictures we had been ordered to produce for that side of the family:

C., manning the camera, had successfully gotten a laugh out of the kids by asking, "What kind of bees make milk?"
Answer: "Boo bees."

Happy New Year to one and all. Stay safe. Friends don't let friends knit drunk.