Tuesday, October 21, 2008

a mostly boring weekend

Well, scratch that mostly.


The weather has gotten a lot cooler. We haven't turned on the heat yet, so the house is too. I've been getting a lot of use out of my cowls. Must make more!



Even my knitting was boring. I took hat requests from the boys on Friday (they were both very specific on color, stripe width and stripe placement) and cranked these out. Don't be impressed; I used size 11 needles and held the yarn (Lion Wool, if you were curious) double-stranded. I'd like to line them with fleece, as in this tutorial, but the boys are skeptical on that. Why? I have no idea.








Of course, this morning, Little Brother was mad at me (because I had requested that he turn his volume down, please - his only settings, I think, are "high" and "asleep") and he grabbed a cheesy storebought hat out of the bin to wear. "I'm not even going to wear what you knit for me!" he said. They really know how to get you where it hurts, don't they?*



Wow - reading over this post so far, I sound really cranky. I don't actually feel that way about a boring weekend; usually it's a nice thing to have. And sometimes they can be a chance to Get Stuff Done. I would say I more Got Stuff Started this weekend, beginning with helping Big brother to get organized. Hey, stop laughing - one does not have to be organized oneself to help others. I think. And anyway, I'm getting better; I'll show you in a second. But for Big Brother, the situation was getting out of hand. He was having trouble staying on top of his schoolwork and he was becoming frustrated. He'll be in junior high next year (OH MY GOD) so I really wanted to help him get squared away now. Since nothing says "fun weekend" like going through your planner with your mom, I took him out, just the two of us, to do it. We still need to do a bit more work, and I will certainly need to keep checking in, but he seems to know what to do and I feel better.



Now for my organization. It was the best kind: organizing craft supplies! I had all my knitting stuff in the bedroom, which was okay, but there were a couple of problems. One, my bedroom is tiny. Two, J goes to bed a lot earlier than I do, so if I had a sudden urge to start something new, I had to sneak in and quietly rifle through the stash to find what I wanted. That wasn't so bad, but what if I wanted to wind some yarn? Nonknitters such as my husband do not always understand the need to do that at, say, 11:30. Those poor unenlightened souls.



So anyway, I moved my whole crafting table into a corner of the living room. I like the new arrangment very much - everything is close at hand, right there to inspire me. I know you're a biased audience, but what do you think?







Peek under the table: hello stash!



The spinning fiber, the acid dyes, and the very small amount of fabric (mostly scraps from other things) are still in the bedroom. I hope to knit down the stash a bit and make it all fit under the table.

Hey! Didn't I tell you to stop laughing?

*ETA: I started this post yesterday. Today, he wore the knit hat and said it was cool. :)