In our family we coined the special phrase "step genes" after Kaelyn was born. Kaelyn has blond hair and blue eyes. Neither her father nor I do. However, both my stepmother, who is of Norwegian descent, and my stepfather, who is of Danish descent, are blond and blue. Clearly, step genes got involved.
Here we have a definite case of shop genes. The first thing anyone remarks upon when they meet Ellie is her fabulous hair. We swear she gets it from Chloe.
Found Chez Lu:
| What Nathania Means |
 You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. |
We celebrated Mr. Rogers Day at the shop Thursday night. Check us out in our fine sweaters! Even Ellie participated! LtoR: Jasmin, Sandi, Ellie and me (poor thing was so sleepy, she napped through pictures), Britta and Kaye.
Ellie and I celebrated earlier in the day in our matching Tulips Cardigans. We had a great time playing in the front yard and then we remembered Robin's photo suggestion. Ellie thought it was tremendous fun to watch Daddy dance to get her to smile for the picture. I cannot tell you how enchanted we are by her beautiful baby smiles. Every time she smiles we fall in love with her all over again!
In knitting news, I finished a pair of socks last night. This pair has been a long time in the making. You may recall that I began them while at TNNA last summer. I had the first one all but finished and then my feet started to swell and I lost my sock knitting mojo. So it sat in the knitting basket next to my bed waiting and waiting for the toe to be kitchenered. You know my rule: kitchener the toe, cast on the next sock immediately. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, knowing that I wouldn't be wearing these until the pregnancy was over.
I finally took the plunge last week and here they are, my finished socks! We'll be publishing the pattern at the shop. I'm calling them "Ni Socks" (pronounced like the Knights Who Say "Ni!"), since it's a nine stitch repeat and nine in Norwegian is "ni."
Since I'm trying to make up for nearly a year of no sock knitting, I'm focused on new socks to wear to Camp. I cast on a pair of Cedar Creek socks in STR January One on Thursday, and finished the second cuff of my Summer of Love Lace socks last night. Both pairs should be done within the week. I'm thinking I need a couple pairs of plain Jane socks too. Time to paw through my STR stash for some fun colors!
As a child I often visited Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. It was an oasis of calm in an otherwise chaotic world. I would walk to Nana's house after school, settle in with a piece of her homemade bread and a glass of milk and be swept away into the Land of Make Believe or the wonders of Picture Picture.
Even after I outgrew Mr. Rogers, I watched with my little brother Sam. He loved it too. Today I'm wearing my sweater in honor of Mr. Rogers. I hope you are too.
Mr. Rogers Sweater Day
Thursday, March 20, 2008
From the event's hostess, Erin, "On this day, everyone worldwide will be wearing sweaters to commemorate what would have been Fred Roger's 80th Birthday. It started in Pittsburgh, but let's spread the love. Honor the man, wear a sweater!
"PS- remember friends, it needn't be a cardigan... as Mr. McFeely says, any sweater will do. Even a Cosby sweater. I'm sure Bill and Fred got along swimmingly."
Those of you local to us, come on in to the shop on Thursday evening and we'll take a big Mr. Rogers picture, all together.
Little Ellie is nine weeks old today and I simply don't know where the time has gone. Already she has become such a fixed part of our family that I can scarcely remember what it was like when she wasn't with us. She is a charming and delightful baby, strong, healthy and beautiful. I couldn't ask for a more wonderful baby. She's about the best FO ever, I think.
Speaking of FOs, I never posted a picture of the Mama Tulips Cardigan (Ravelry details) that I finished just before Stitches. This isn't the greatest picture. I had Karin snap a quick shot yesterday just before sunset, since I happened to be wearing the cardi. I'm finding it to be an incredibly versatile piece. The slightly longer length in both the body and arms are ideal for me, and the Dream in Color Classy is super comfy and lovely to wear. I'll probably knit another of these in different stripes at some point. All in all, a quick, easy knit with fantastic results.
An Unoriginal Hat by The Yarn Harlot (Ravelry details) is an even faster knit. Chloe and I both cast one on on Thursday morning and finished them that very evening. The pattern calls for only a single skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Leticia. I chose the best colorway ever: Nodding Violet. I had planned to wear the hat at Sock Camp next month, along with my Nodding Violet Socks (Ravelry details), but when I finished it and tried it on, it wouldn't stay put. I don't have a particularly large head, but my hair is thick and very slippery. It was quite hilarious to watch me pull it down over my ears and then watch it slowly rise up off my head. So for now, this one will be a shop model. I'm going to work up another one with a few extra stitches in my other favorite color: Rose Quartz.
I also have half a FO to report. I cast on the lace cuff for the first Summer of Love Lace Sock (Ravelry details) from last year's Rockin' Sock Club when we were on the road to Bakersfield last week. I kitchenered the toe last night and cast on the second cuff. It's been a fun pattern, but deceptive in the yarn usage department. I weighed the remaining yarn and have in the neighborhood of 62g remaining, while the sock weighs in at 64g. I'm crossing my fingers that by some miracle I won't have to dip into my Emergency Sock Yarn, but I have offers from several folks who have leftovers in case I need them.
I'm happy to be knitting socks again. Last year I lost the sock knitting mojo when the edema made my feet not my feet. Then there was that whole not being able to reach my feet to put socks on period, much less try them on as I was knitting them. I decided to just wait until my feet returned to normal again. I'll finally kitchener the first Nodding Violet Sock and cast on the second tomorrow. At this rate I will have at least two new pairs of socks to wear for Sock Camp, and I'm hoping to make it through another pair or two to add to the collection.
In other knitting, I'm designing a new sock pattern for the shop, working a bit on Robin's Rook-y Clapotis, and contemplating a new cardigan design in BMFA Twisted. Life is busy and the needles are flying. March is looking good!
On Saturday morning, we packed Ellie and about a metric ton of stuff into the back of the minivan and headed south to Bakersfield for a family baby shower. Kevin's grandmother isn't well enough to travel, so we went to see her. Ellie slept through the entire four hour drive. She is officially the best baby ever.
There were lots of aunts and cousins to meet, but it was Great Grandma Marge who was the star of the show. Elinor Marjorie was named after her, you see. She's great grandchild number 22 and Marge was delighted with her. The picture at the right is four generations: Kevin, Great Grandma Marge, Grandma Alice and, of course, Ellie.
Ellie also got to meet her second cousin Elijah. He's about 6 months old and didn't quite know what to make of this little person who nabbed his spot as youngest great grandchild.
The car ride home yesterday was just as smooth. Ellie slept until we reached Gilroy, when I decided to stop at Old Navy to get socks that fit her ginormous feet and a couple new outfits, now that she's grown out of the 0-3 month sizes. We spent the 45 minutes from Gilroy to Sunnyvale singing songs and playing "Who's That Baby in the Mirror." She's a super traveler, our girl. This bodes very well for our trip to Sock Camp in April!
Last week was hard. The kind of hard where your eyes never quite lose that sandpaper under your eyelids feeling and every joint in your body aches. The kind of hard where you worry that at any moment you might completely lose your shit and burst into tears, freaking out people around you. I felt the antithesis of calm and elegant. I kept trying to "pull myself together," to retain Grace Under Pressure.
Who the hell is Grace? It struck me one morning as I schlepped into the convention center that as I sought to maintain control, I was, in fact, disassociating and losing myself in the process. This sort of compartmentalization is all too familiar to me; it's how I've coped for much of my life. The problem is that the further I go into that coping behavior, the less of me there is. It eats up all my energy and I begin to feel dull and hollow, despite the bright and shiny exterior that I show to the world. I realized with stunning clarity that I could actually feel the division taking place, and I really didn't want that any more. Not being myself felt intolerable. I'd rather be a frazzled Nathania and be honest with myself about where I am and what I'm feeling than to try to be someone else. So go away, Grace. I may be tired and cranky, but at least I'm here and showing up for myself.
I always feel more like myself when I have my needles in my hands. This is the new design I was hoping to have done for Stitches, before chaos took over. It's a sweater for Kevin and we have yet to find a clever title for it, poor no-name slob (10 points to anyone who gets that reference). I would have completed the second sleeve last night, but I ran short of yarn as I was nearing the end of the sleeve cap. Just 22 rows short and the rest of the yarn was at the shop. It will be done today, perhaps even seamed!
We're off to Bakersfield tomorrow to introduce Elinor to one of her namesakes, her Great Grandma Marge, and to Kevin's mom's side of the family. See you next week!
I spent most of my waking hours at Stitches West this weekend. Our booth was quite a lot bigger than the one we had last year, so we had lots more stuff to schlep in, set up and maintain. Chloe, Sandi, and I are immensely grateful to our families and friends who busted their humps to help us make things happen at the show.
Really, they went to extreme lengths to help. Tony even donned the Passport Tiara and posed as our Pretty, Pretty Passport Princess to stamp Ravelry passports for the hundreds of folks who passed through the booth.
Kathy, CJ, Lisa, Emy, Jasmin, Colleen, Cynthia, Mari, Becky, Juanita, Sheetal, Ray, Liana, Nicky, Michelle, Eddie, Tony, Kaye, Kevin, Ruthie, Kaelyn, Karin and Kevin all deserve medals for service above and beyond the call of duty. We couldn't have done it without you.
What with the craziness of setting up and working the booth, not to mention preparing to model in the fashion show (which I only found out was actually going to happen on Friday morning), I didn't feel much like shopping. In fact, I was pretty much yarned out before the show even started. The only acquisitions I made were fiber. I bought some Merino Silk and Baby Camel Silk from Red Fish Dyeworks and Sandi treated me to a gorgeous bump of pink superwash merino from Tactile (look for a trunk show at the shop soon!). Not even Brooks Farm could tempt me, since I haven't even touched the sweater's worth of Four Play that I got last year.
Saturday evening we invited the Blue Moon Sockateers: Cockeyed, Hot Flash and Etta Mae to the shop to hang out and relax. I had to keep a sharp eye on Cockeyed. She threatened to make off with the baby more than once. Ellie had a great time being passed from one set of arms to the next.
Meanwhile Bud was getting cuddles and kisses from Etta Mae. He was in Doggy Heaven, curled up on her lap and getting pets. We think her kitties are going to be jealous.
The shop was bustling with laughter and cheer. It was nice to have a bit of relaxation in the midst of all the Stitches madness.
Honestly though, this was what got me through it all. My seven week old sweetheart is genuinely smiling now. There is nothing better or more precious in this world than the smile of a baby. Ellie was a trooper, hanging out in the booth with me or chillin' outside with Colleen or Lisa. She was tremendously patient and even slept through her whole fashion show debut.
Today Ellie and I are home with Karin, who just had one of her molars extracted (the permanent tooth below it wasn't pushing the baby tooth out). We're knitting, watching movies and trying to catch up on some much needed sleep.
Because Binty did it first...
1. Go to www.photobucket.com (don't sign in)
2. For each question below, type your answer in the "search" box and hit ENTER
3.
Use only the first page of hits that come up and select a picture. If
no matches are found to your search query you can revise your answer.
4. Copy the html for the photo you select and paste it in your LJ post.
2) What's your favorite food?
3) Where did you go to school?
4) What's your relationship status?
5) What's your favorite color?
6) Who's your celebrity crush?
7) Who are you listening to right now?
8) Favorite movie?
9) Favorite book?
10) Favorite Disney Princess?
11) Favorite drink?
12) Where's your dream vacation?
13) What's your favorite dessert?
14) What do you want to be when you grow up?
15) What do you love most in life?
16) One word to describe yourself?
Play along if you like.
