Knitting weather

The temperatures are falling, along with the humidity levels around here, and because of it, I am finally getting in the mood to knit!

I had stalled out on this sweater for my younger son, and it sat in a bag all summer long, so close to done, but I just didn't feel like sitting with a pile of wool in my lap this summer. Last night, with the cool air blowing through the house, was a perfect knitting night. I put on a good murder mystery from the DVR, poured myself a glass of wine, and pulled out the knitting projects. I'd really like to finish up this sweater for my son before it gets really cold so that he'll have a chance to wear it this year. I had him try it on to check body and sleeve length. Body length is perfect, and I actually had to pull out about an inch and a half of the sleeve to get it to the right length for him. The red part at the bottom of the sleeve is actually a hem and will be hidden inside the sleeve, but I think it's a nice detail.

While I was paying attention to my son while he tried on the sweater-in-progress, the cat took advantage of the situation and wandered over to the side table where my wine glass was perched, and proceeded to knock it over, right into the knitting bag. As my daughter told me (by text), it was my own fault for not paying complete attention to the cat. The cat has been very needy since my daughter left for college. Luckily, wine can be easily blotted from the balls of wool, but my knitting bag and my circular needle holder are a little sticky and need a good washing. It's a great excuse to organize my knitting projects and tools, especially since dear husband will be out of town all week, and won't be here to complain about the mess of knitting paraphernalia. 

Even before the cat spilled the wine into my knitting bag, providing the need for a reorganization of the knitting stash and projects, I had been planning to make a concerted effort to finish up projects that have been languishing (for years, even decades!). I've already been making great efforts to knit from stash yarn and not buy anything new, but I think I need to step it up a bit. Time to log in all the unfinished projects and either finish them up or frog them and reuse the yarn for something else. When I start pulling out all the works in progress, the number is rather sobering. 

For today I'm going to focus on finishing this sweater for the younger son, and then I'll start pulling out more WIPs (works in progress) and see what I can finish up by the end of the year. Wish me luck.

Shelley in CT

One more off to college...

Dear Daughter with van packed and ready for Freshman Move-In Day!

Well, another summer has come and gone, and we are now down to just one kid left at home. And he has his license and can drive himself just about wherever he needs to go. It will be interesting adjusting to this. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First things first, we had to prepare dear daughter for her move to college, after we had all returned home from our various trips. She was returning from 2-1/2 weeks on Japan with her host-sister and we were returning from a trip to Colorado for my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. Once we had gotten past most of the jet lag (mostly hers, as she was coming back from a 13-hour time difference), it was time to make the lists of everything she would need in the dorm, and start cleaning, gathering, and shopping. Sounds simple, but gets much more complicated when you factor in an anxious teenage girl with a very particular sense of style, an unwillingness to compromise, and a propensity to procrastinate. Somehow it seemed that nothing on the list got done, no matter how many times I reminded her, unless I took charge and drove her to the stores and pulled out the list, or told her she needed to wash the sheets and towels TODAY, or carried suitcases and boxes up from the basement and pointedly left them in her room... She still has a couple of things she needs to finish up on campus this week.

Move-In went pretty smoothly. With the many thousands of students moving in on the same day, UMass came up with a system that required us all to sign up for a specific move-in time, and we had instructions to report to the "staging area" for our part of campus, and were directed to the appropriate locations by student volunteers. We were very lucky that our daughter had chosen a dorm that was mostly upperclassmen (who all moved in on a different day) so there were only about 26 freshmen moving in to her dorm that day. Things moved like clockwork, we arrived, were directed to the dorm, the van was unloaded in minutes, and by the time I had parked the van in the designated lot and hiked back up to the dorm, everything was in the room and she was half unpacked. Within the hours she had taken everything out of boxes and suitcases and put most of it away.

At UMass, family eats free in the dining halls (Yay!) so once most everything was unpacked we went off to the nearest dining hall for lunch. Quick and easy, and the food is actually quite good!

During the unpacking, we had determined that she needed a few more things - a couple of extension cords (how did we not think of those ahead of time?), another power strip, a shoe rack, and some over-the-door hooks. So off we drove to Bed, Bath and Beyond, just down the road, along with half of the other families moving their freshman in, to buy the necessary items.

Back to the dorm to put together the shoe rack, put up the hooks, and plug in the power strips and extension cords so that she could plug in her mini fridge and lights. I must say, we were quite efficient. When it was all done, though, we had a hard time saying goodbye. I'm not sure dear daughter was quite ready for us to go either, but I think we had the more difficult time walking away. Still hard to think of her away from home (though I'm completely used to oldest son being gone, but then again, this is his 4th year and we're trained). At least she's much closer than her brother, who's in Texas, and we will be visiting in October. We've already gotten a few texts from her assuring us that she's fine and keeping busy with New Student Orientation.

Daughter and Roommate

So now there are only 3 of us at home, and, of course, the cat. Younger Son has a busy schedule this fall with cross country practices and meets and rehearsals for the fall play, along with several AP classes. He is also our social butterfly and likes to go out with friends. Already testing his limits with the car and where and when he can drive. As I said, it will be an interesting year.

Knitting: I have done very little knitting this summer. I pulled out an old sock project to take with me on the trip to Colorado, since socks are so nice and portable. I haven't really worked on anything else though. After the hot days, I just didn't have the energy to take out a knitting project in the evenings. Oh well, I'll catch up this fall.

I've finally gotten around to sending out dates for knitting group. Soon the emails from would-be hosts should be rolling in and I'll put together the schedule. I'm even considering putting our schedule and group information on a website. How Twenty-First Century! Actually, it would probably be a blog for the group, but I could post schedule, location information, and updates. Something to discuss at our first knitting day.

Sewing: I have already posted most of my summer sewing. I made a microwaveable heating pad for dear daughter to take with her to college - the night before she moved in (now where does she get those procrastination genes???). Forgot to take a picture of it. Hope it works for her. I made it the same shape as the one we have at home and filled it with buckwheat that I had mail-ordered years ago in order to make many heating pads as gifts (and never did).

Ready to start in on all my fall projects: cleaning, organizing, painting, sewing, knitting, building, etc. etc. I have quite a list. I won't accomplish everything on the list. I'll be lucky to get to even a quarter of the things on the list, but then I'll just work on the rest of the list next year. No rush. If I didn't have a list I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Shelley in CT