1. Thanks for the patience you guys have shown over the last few days as the blog went up and down and up and down and commenting was shut off and came on and shut off and came on.
2. We think it should be more stable now (by we, I mean the amazing Ken.)
3. Although you can't tell, it's been upgraded to the most current version of Moveable Type.
4. This might make it possible for me to figure out a way to block the fantastic amount of content spam the blog has been targeted by. (By fantastic, I mean incredible. 90 000 comments in the last few weeks.) As fast as I ban the offenders IP, another springs up. We (and again, that we is the amazing Ken) are looking at options that would help a lot - like a captcha or something like it. We're hoping there's one that's fun and easy for you guys. (I'm highly motivated here, because I can never read those things.)
5. I've been knitting Joe socks for a while. 
Two skeins of Huntington doesn't quite make a pair of socks for my big footed husband, so I'd stretched it by adding stripes. Three at the cuff, three at the toe.
6. Now it's time to do the three stripes at the toe and I have apparently lost the little ball of leftovers I was using for the stripes. 
7. Joe is pretty much a super conservative dresser, and so this is a bit of a thing.
Would you:
a) Get more Huntington in grey, and have a plain sock.
b) Have a hunt around the house and see if I can find something that's sort of like the stripey stuff.
c) Go nuts. Screaming pink stripes, or yellow, or something contrasting, because if it can't match, what the hell.
d) Something really smart that you have thought of that I didn't yet.
8. I am going to give a good talk in Rockland, Maine at Over the Rainbow Yarn on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure there are still spots. I'd love to see you. It's super interesting and pretty fun.
9. In our house, Halloween is known as "Joe's Birthday Eve."
10. I will be handing out candy anyway.
11. Lou is dressing like a racoon.
Just seeing if our upgrades are upgrades. (And by our upgrades, I mean that Ken has been working super hard on this while I mumble "I love you I love you I love you" over and over again.) 
Oh. Look. I got home last night, and so happy to be here, despite the chaos and the way the cups are all the wrong way in the cupboard. (The mature part of me is just happy they put them all away clean. The immature part of me switched them all round this morning.)
The flight home yesterday was really nice, and I can't say that about many flights, but the seat next to me was empty, and it changes everything. I knit (and watched season three of Game of Thrones- don't worry about spoilers, I've read the books) and finished the beautiful Spectral Cowl that I was working on. 
Pattern: Spectral Cowl. Yarn: Fiber Optics Paintbox in Foot Notes Colourway: Tangerine to Turquoise. (bought at Rhinebeck.)
I blocked it last night, and this afternoon it was ready for its photoshoot. 
Sam loved modeling this, begged to keep it, and when I refused, offered to BUY IT. 
A teenager and her money are not soon parted, so I know she must really, really love it. 
I didn't let her buy it, but you can bet it will be under the tree at Christmas, with her name on it. 
PS. I'm thinking about making another out of Kauni.
PPS. Clara Parkes is coming to town tonight, and I'll be there. Will you? Lets show her how Toronto feels about The Knitting. She'll be at A Good Read tonight at 7pm. Let's make her welcome.
PPPS. There's a good pub down the street.
You know, when I travel all the time like this, it's all based on work, and it's hard to justify too much fun, beyond the fun that it is to actually have this job, which is so much better than working as a Diet Coke sample girl in the supermarket (and yeah, I had that job and you bet I had to wear a pinafore.) There's not any time to sightsee, and if I wanted to have a little fun I'd have to stay an extra day, and spending money to earn money sort of negates the purpose of the latter, so... I go. I work (at my pretty fun job) and then I come back home, and then people really think I've been to these places, and I haven't. Not really. 
This trip was a little different. I was in town for Knit City, and let me tell you, that was pretty amazing fun all by itself. I love the Canadian events with an unholy passion, and it was clear from the attendance and enthusiasm that Fiona and Amanda have got their feet nicely under them, and Knit City is really going to be a thing. Great classes - nice vibe - and an amazing, amazing marketplace full of amazing, amazing Canadian yarn and other stuff knitters like. The list of Vendors read like a Canadian dream team. 
It was so awesome it smacked me into camnesia, and I only have about 4 pictures of the whole event - and one of them is a selfie of me, Amanda and Fiona that is so incredibly bad that I feel like publishing it here would terminally influence our relationship, and I would really like to come back to Knit City again.
The event was great, and I had a wonderful time, especially since some of my favourite Ontarians were my fellow teachers (Hi Kate! Hi Fiona! Hi Kim!) We had time for some meals together and we had a grand time in general, and I really can't say enough nice things about my clever and welcoming students, but here was the best part. 
I had one afternoon off. I finished teaching at noon, and I didn't have to speak until the evening, and the sun was shining and (together with a friend) I rented a bike and went for ride on the seawall all the way around Stanley Park. It was amazing. 
I really got to enjoy the park. On my way to the park my cab driver asked me what I was doing. I said I was going to Stanley Park. 
"This is a very good idea." he said. Then I told him I was going to rent a bike, and ride the seawall. 
"This.." he said, "Is the ideal."
He was totally right. Thanks Knit City, and thanks Vancouver. You're all awesome.
I'm on my way home.
PS I took the Skytrain to the airport and it was very cool.
PPS: Hey Toronto, Clara's coming tomorrow night. Anybody fancy a bit of a yarn party?
1. I am writing this post from 35 000 ft above the earth, as I fly from Toronto to Vancouver for Knit City.
2. I have taken hundreds and hundreds of planes and I still think it is amazing that I can cross such a huge chunk of Canada in only 5 hours.
3. Some planes even have wi-fi on them, but this one doesn't. I'll post this when I get to the hotel.
4. While I was at Rhinebeck, I fell down hard in the Fiber Optic booth. Worst of all, on my way to the ground I accidentally swiped my credit card, and a whole bunch of her gradient series things ended up in my bag. I got roving, and I got 3 (three) of her paintbox gradients that are already yarn. If I had a bigger yarn budget, I would have got more because holy cow were they captivating.
5. I love this one: 
Tangerine to Turquoise, in her sock yarn.
6. I think part of the problem with the gradient kits was that I knew about this pattern. Spectral. 
7. I'm having a really, really fun time knitting this, and Kimber (she's the Fiber Optic lady) told me about this way of knotting your knitting so there aren't any ends to weave in, even though there's 15 mini skeins in a colourway. Check out this video.
8. She said it worked great, and I thought she was full of it, but I watched the video, I tried it, and she wasn't lying. It's amazing. You can't see the knot at all - you can feel it, so I'd never do this for socks, and I think that it might show up if you were doing smooth stockinette, but in anything with texture? AMAZING.
9. No. I don't think it's going to come apart - I really, really tested it, and why would I do it if I thought it was going to come apart?
10. I sort of had a little bit of a spasm and knit Myrie a little hat. I had the leftovers from Windward still kicking around, and that yarn is so soft and she's a baby born on the eve of the Canadian winter. She's going to need hats. 
Pattern: Bouncing Baby Set, from Homespun, Handknit. Yarn: Madeleinetosh Tosh Merino Light.
11. So I made bootees too. 
Cutest Bootees - no pom poms.
12. Did you hear about this? Meg Swanson over at Schoolhouse Press has co-ordinated an auction of Barbara Walkers knitting. Actual things actually knit by Barbara Walker. She's selling them off, and you can own a piece of history if you want. There's going to be three groupings, but flip through and have a look. There's some amazing things there.
13. I am in Vancouver now and holy cow with the fog. One of the craziest landings of my life.
14. Also, I lied. I said I would post this from the the hotel, and I'm posting it from the cab, because we live in the future, and everything is a miracle.
Yikes. Here I am, late to the blog and missing several days and I'd be sorry about that, but I don't have the energy. I came back from Rhinebeck with a little yarn and a little wool and a lot of virus, and the cold that was just starting to make itself felt while I wandered the fairgrounds blossomed into a spectacularly hideous thing on Monday as I travelled home. 
I was all about the tissues, handwashing and sanitizer as I went, but I still felt exactly like patient zero in a plague movie while I was on the flight. I'm sure the guy next to me felt the same way. I apologized profusely, and kept to myself, and when I got home I went to bed and stayed there until this morning, when I felt a ton better, and got up and started playing catchup with my desk. 
Pretty much the only thing I managed to accomplish Tuesday and Wednesday was drinking a lake of tea and casting on incorrectly for a cowl. (More about that tomorrow. It's a very nice cowl.) 
Rhinebeck was, as always, all the best things about being a knitter, with beautiful weather
boatloads of yarn, sheep, goats, alpacas and llamas, and I loved it.
I didn't shop as much as I have in the past, but I did see it all - and got a chance to do my favourite thing, which walk among my people. .jpg)
For two days the world was exactly as I would have it - sweaters, yarn
friends I only see once a year, and nobody who thinks that knitting is silly. 
It was great. 
Tomorrow I'm off to Vancouver for Knit City (all the classes are full, but I'm speaking on Saturday evening and there's a few spots left if you'd like to join me.)
I'll show you the cowl in the morning.
I'm off to Webs to play with knitters for the morning (can I just say one thing about Webs? They're terrific, and really, I know that the excellent experience I have there every time is because Steve and Kathy are great, and they treat their staff great and then the staff treat the customers great and... I just love it there. Everything about it. I'm so grateful to know them.) Then it's into the car, and up the Rhinebeck for my favourite holiday of the year. My sweater isn't done but it's almost done, and it's even the kind of almost done that means I should take other knitting in the car for the trip. It's like a Rhinebeck miracle. 
I can't take these - my lost and found socks. I was going to link to the yarn, but it turns out that the business is finished (for the best of reasons, the owner's having a baby) and this great yarn is no more. If you want to hunt it in the wild, it's DeKay Duet, from A Swell Yarn Shop. 
and maybe someday it will be back, but in the mean time, on this, the eve of a knitters holiday and a big yarn opportunity, let this be a lesson to you. 
This is why we have stash.
See you at Rhinebeck, and if you can't be there, I'm sorry. I'll think of you, and pat a sheep in your name - and you can always watch Gale Zucker's fabulous Rhinebeck Style video. It just about made me cry, and I have no idea why.
I'm sitting in a hotel in Northampton, so close to WEBS that it hurts (I'll be there in just a few hours) and I am seaming a sweater. 
I have long imagined that Afterlight would be my Rhinebeck Sweater. I'll be seeing Amy, and she was a big part of knitting this one. Well, I take that back. She didn't knit any parts of it - but she still helped a lot. Afterlight is exactly the sort of sweater that I love. Seemingly plain and understated, but with a lot of classy details that make it exquisite. Tubular cast-ons, beautifully designed decreases, and because it is Amy Herzog, absolutely fabulous shaping. I even splurged for some fabulous yarn. ( Ultra MCN from Indigodragonfly, in "Where's the Regenerate Switch on This Convertible")
This sweater represents the first sincere effort I have made to knit a sweater that fits me the way that other people think clothes should fit me. Personally, I have a real tendency to knit (and wear) things that are sort of oversized. I don't like clingy clothes or tight clothes, and it means that sometimes (most of the time) my clothes aren't as flattering as they could be. So, enter Amy. She's got this thing about knits that fit
I've been so anxious about it that I haven't really tried it on. I got gauge. Amy is smarter than me. I'm trusting her. Simple sweaters need really beautiful finishing though, so I'm moving slowly, making my seams so pretty, and there's only the neckband to go.
I'm almost afraid to say it, but I might not have to rush a Rhinebeck sweater - for once.
Remember when I said that I'd lost a project? It happened right around when Tupp died and the book was due and I was riding my bike really far and ... let's be clear, my life was sort of scrambled. Grief and organization are not compatible for me, apparently. I lost a really cute pair of socks in progress and they were going really well too. 
(Duet Dee-kay)
They were lost during such a crazy time that when I couldn't find them, I just decided that the situation had gotten the best of me, and I gave up. Gone. They were gone, and I was a loving and accepting person who was totally the heck over stuff like that, and after I threw the tiniest little fit, I resigned myself to the loss of the sock, and to the reality that I was now a person who had lost a project. It had never happened before, and I think I took it pretty gracefully.
Fast forward to this morning when I'm up at 5:30am getting ready to head to Webs for a little fun (I hope to see some of you there, it's a neat new idea) and then find myself realizing I'm a little short of knitting (I always think that. How can you think that on the way to a REALLY BIG YARN STORE?) I panicked, grabbed a ball of sock yarn, and then turned to the shelves in my office and grabbed an empty project bag, except guess what?
You guessed right.
I am still not the sort of person who loses a project. I may be, however, someone who doesn't know where they are for a while, which is totally different.
(PS. Picture totally taken in the airport in Philadelphia. Almost to WEBS!)
Friday morning I did my level best to convince myself it didn't matter if the blanket yarn arrived or not. Friday afternoon I was having a harder time, and when the post didn't arrive and I had to reconcile myself to the situation, I was pretty upset. I know that the idea of a baby getting their blanket a few days late seems like a no brainer to a lot of you, but it didn't seem to me like it was going to be a few days. The soonest the yarn could arrive was today, and I'm leaving tomorrow (Rhinebeck Ho!) and there wouldn't be time to both knit it and block it before I left and that would mean that for the new plan to work, the baby had to be ten days late. I was upset, but I was trying to be okay with it. I'm adult that way.
All that exploded when I heard that Robyn's labour had started. Any peace I had found with it, any acceptance that I felt in my heart evaporated in an instant. I snapped. I decided that somewhere close to me there had to be one ball of that yarn, and I started looking. I tweeted. You guys retweeted. I blogged, I went on Ravelry, I followed up leads and stuck with it until finally I got a tweet near midnight from a knitter named Martha who had a skein of the yarn I needed -
@MJPomilio 11 Oct
@YarnHarlot I can get a skein to you at the Toronto/Buffalo border crossing in 4 hours. Dead serious!
and suddenly Operation Swift Blanket was underway. "Joe" I said, "We're going to Buffalo." We all had a sleep, and bright and early the next morning, we were on the road. Joe and I drove like thunder, thinking the whole time that we couldn't believe that someone was willing to do this for us. (Let us pause for a minute and also notice that Joe was willing to do this. When I thanked him, he just said "It's for my niece or nephew too.") All the way to Fort Erie, we talked about how amazing Martha was, and how it was going to be her that made it possible for the new baby to have a blanket on their birthday. (It was rather clear by now that Saturday would be the baby's birthday.) Knitters, meet Martha.
Hours after "meeting" on Twitter, we were in one of the world's dodgiest Chinese restaurants, buying Martha lunch, throwing presents at her, and none of it was enough. See, by the time we got to the border, we knew something wonderful. Our niece had arrived.
The race was on to have a blanket finished by the time we were able to meet her. Lucky for me, Martha is so smart and kind that she wound the yarn before she brought it, and I was able to join it in the restaurant, and knit all the way home. 
Funny thing about that yarn, just a crazy thing. Martha had just ordered it. It had arrived at her house the day before, and she had only ordered one skein - and she couldn't explain why. She had no plan for it, it wasn't enough to do anything with... it had just found her way into her cart on Monday, and shipped to her house just in time for her to see my tweet. More than that? Martha doesn't do twitter much. She's got no explanation for what possessed her to order a skein of white yarn she didn't need, and then hop onto twitter.
Me? I've got a pretty good idea that it was her knitter instincts taking over. Somewhere, somehow, the need for the yarn was so big and so mighty, that Martha heard the call, and responded the way that only a knitter can. It was a yarn miracle.
I wasn't able to finish the blanket on the drive home (turns out I might have underestimated the amount of work left by a few hours) but I kept knitting when I got here, and by 8pm it was blocking on our bed upstairs.
(Forgive the crappy picture. It was dark.)
By midnight it wasn't yet dry, so Joe and I found other beds, and the next morning when it was finished, it was glorious.
Baby blanket, my own pattern, one of a kind. (9 skeins of Loopy Ewe solid series, in white.) This blanket has pines, for the camping and out of doors Chris and Robyn love so much, and I'm sure they'll share with their daughter.
Bee stitch, for what a busy little bee the baby was on the inside, rings - for the circle of family and love that surrounds this child-
and waves...
for both of her parents come from islands.
How did it end up? Blog, welcome Myrie...
or at least her tiny feetsies, that's as much of our wee niece her parents are ready to share with you, and they get to choose. She's very new, and they're keeping her lovely, perfect, healthy baby self close - for now.
(PS. Her middle name isn't Martha, but I think it should be.)
The baby is on its way. I need one skein of yarn Loopy Ewe solids, 1 skein, in white. NOW.
Internet, do your magic.
I will pay overnight shipping, invent teleportation for inanimate objects, ANYTHING.
It's Thanksgiving weekend here, and while I'm looking forward to days of family and food, there's no Saturday mail service here, and Monday is an official holiday so that means that if the yarn doesn't come today it can't possibly come until Tuesday, and the thought of that makes me want to weep a little. I know it's no failure that matters if the blanket isn't done and the baby comes, but right now I'm thinking about this baby arriving any minute, and not having a blanket, some part of me is screaming "YOU HAD ONE JOB" and I'm apologizing over and over. This is, I know, because my heart is leading my brain around like I'm a well trained pony at a county fair. I just like things to be so right, not because I'm an obsessive freak (okay, fine... I might be that too) but because effort and energy are how me make people feel loved, and I want this baby to feel loved, and I want his or her parents to feel loved and really, I'm me, so it's REALLY HARD TO DO THAT WITHOUT YARN.
I'm going to take a deep breath, and acknowledge that babies who are loved half to death are born with so much less than this baby will already have, and that in the grand scheme of things this blanket is totally irrelevant...
and then I'm going to go check the mailbox again because I can't believe this is happening.
Needless to say I've been knitting like a wild thing while I pace frantically around the house. These socks are the latest fruit of that hysteria. Started months ago, they've kicked around my purse for a while.
A round here, a round there... (pattern is my basic one from Knitting Rules
Then yesterday whammo. I was turning the heel on the second one when I picked them up yesterday, and before I went to bed there it was. A finished pair. (As an aside, have we ever talked about how hard it is to take pictures of your own feet?)
I went this morning to look up what the yarn was, and had a little laugh. (I take pictures of the ball bands now so that I can't forget.) It's Super Sweet Sock in "Knit City 2012" and that's pretty funny, because in two weeks I'll be at Knit City 2013. Crazy, right? I didn't even think of that while I was knitting them. It's going to be a fun thing, wearing these at that. Sock yarn harmony, if ever there was some.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go knit the baby a hat. Or a sweater.
Or maybe another blanket - one I have enough yarn for.
C'mon yarn.
Well. There you have it. It turns out that my title of the meanest mum in the world might have been trumped by my own love of all things matching (and yes, Presbytera is right, like she always is, and I do sort of have a thing.)
Sam is now the proud owner of a delightfully matchy pair of fingerless mitts.
Pattern Sakura Fingerless Mitts. Yarn: Sakura Cotton.
...and I didn't stop there. I'm not just a person who likes matchy stuff, I'm also a person who's pretty decidedly cheap thrifty. The idea of having knit whole mitt for no damn reason just rankled too much, so when I was done knitting the third...
Yup. One skein, two pairs. Done like dinner, and now I'm a gift ahead on Christmas. That's right, I said it. (75 days knitters. Start thinking it over.) 
PS. No yarn, although it's been transferred to Canada Post, which is a very good sign. It might be as far away from here as it can be (Vancouver) but that's only 4 hours away by plane... right? There's no baby either, although I'm walking a fine line, so far, so good.
PPS. The cool sippy cup top to Sam's jar is a Cuppow. (Props to Soulemama for the hook-up. I'm not a "drinking out of jars" type myself.)
PPPS. To answer the question, Sam's nail polish is Sinful Colors 
PPPPS. Because someone will ask, Sam kept the pink pair.
So here's the thing. I am pretty good about making things for people when they ask me to, assuming that they do not fall into any of the following categories.
a) Strangers.
b) Practically strangers.
c) Individuals who have been inappropriate about my knitting in the past. (This determination is completely up to me, and changes like the wind, but if you've ever suggested to me that the things I make are the same as the things in the store, and enquired that I might be able to save my self a ton of time, then don't be looking under the tree this Christmas for a little woolly love. You don't get it.)
d) Are known knit offenders. (Crimes include felting more than one thing, losing too many hats, or never ever wearing anything I've given you. Also suspicious, saying everything is itchy when it's not - even cotton or silk, because I know you're lying and you should just tell me you don't like knitted stuff.
e) Are asking for something too horrible to contemplate knitting, even if you really, really love someone. (Yes Erin. I'm talking about you. Buy a hammock.)
Other than that, if a family member (who does not fall into categories c, d or e above) asks me for something, I'm probably going to make it. I'm especially vulnerable to requests from children, and from my daughters. When the girls ask me for knitted stuff, I feel like they're apologizing for all the times they thought I was a dorky knitter and asked me not to knit where their friends could see me. This is a long way to saying that Sam asked me to make her some handwarmers. She's taken to carrying a jar of tea or coffee to school, and the jar gets too hot. (I know, I know. USE A MUG. She can't though, because she's really cool, and being really cool limits your choices a lot.) I got the cutest little kit from Knit East, and Sam saw it and said they would be perfect and so voila. 
The Pattern is for Sakura Fingerless Gloves (designed by Kate Atherley and free at that first link) and it came with a skein of Sakura Cotton in 52801. (I love it when the colour names are sexy.) 
Maybe because the girl in the picture is holding a mug - who knows but Sam saw this as solving her jar problem straightaway. 
Totally cool... right? You would be wrong. Not that Sam want's to be ungrateful (she definitely doesn't want that) and she did stress that she's going to wear them anyway, but didn't I agree, she asked... that they were super not-matchy? 
Longtime readers of the blog will recall that Sam has issues around matching. She thinks you can spot knitters by their mismatched stuff - and she's largely right. (I've been guilty of that. My favourite hat, my nicest mittens, the scarf I just finished... they might match colour-wise, sort of, but they definitely aren't a "set.") and Sam loves things that match, Enough that I wondered if she would have a problem with these mitts. I told myself that she's a smart girl, and had seen the pattern picture (where the mittens are clearly mismatched) and reminded her of this when sure enough, she was not thrilled that they didn't match. 
"They're really, really different." She exclaimed.
"You knew they would be!" I said, not at all shrilly. "The cute girl on the pattern has mismatched mitts and she's still cute."
"Mum. Obviously she has the hat to pull them together."
Sam feels, I can tell, that I should do one of two things. Knit her the hat, or knit her another mitt. One that matches better. I definitely haven't got enough yarn to knit the former, but I absolutely have enough for the latter, and truthfully, I think the hat thing wouldn't cut it for Sam. She's going to keep looking at those mitts, and it's going to keep bugging her. I'm thinking I'll just knit her another mitt, but do I want to set a precedent like this? Is this un-appreciating knits? Am I spoiling her if I knit a third one? Do they match well enough and she saw how it was going to be and there of lots of other girls in the world who are going to sleep tonight with no fingerless mitts at all, never mind matching ones and...
I think maybe they really don't match enough.
(And no. The yarn is not here yet.)
Well. At least it looks like I'm waiting patiently.
PS: Hey, dig that... remember my spinning wheel?
According to the tracking info (thanks Loopy Ewe, that's super handy for obsessive types) the yarn I'm waiting for is currently in Los Angeles. I think this means that I can stop checking the mailbox every five minutes, and start being amazed that it's made it this far, this fast. The blanket and I are eagerly awaiting it's arrival. 
There you have the thing, with all but one little bit of the border done.
(For those of you who are the type who want to know, it's measuring about 120 cm across. That's about 4 feet - so I have no idea where all this yarn is going. It's really not a massive blanket. Ken was over looking at it the other night, and he posited that it's all going to surface when I block it. Maybe - but I just think this pattern is more dense than the last few.) 
Yesterday when I finished all the yarn I had, I took a deep breath, did my best to accept The Way Things Are, and folded it up, and put it on the table. Then I opened a knitting bag to find something else to work on until the new yarn arrives, and a miracle happened. Snuggled amongst the socks and such that got set aside when I took up with the blanket was one little half skein of this yarn. I just about cried from happiness. It wasn't enough to finish, and I knew that when I saw it, but it was enough that I could pare down what's left to do when the yarn arrives - make it so that there's only a few hours of work when the yarn comes through the door, and that matters.
Robyn is close enough to the end that any minute now she's going to start looking around for the reason for why she's still pregnant, and dudes. I don't want it to be me. I know it's a little unreasonable to be thinking that an unfinished blanket could be what's holding the whole thing up, but I remember being this pregnant, and it's a pretty unreasonable state. I could say something to her like "babies come when they're ready" but if there's ever been a reason to punch someone in the kidney, that would be it. Hell hath no fury like a woman with an entire human being jammed between their lungs and bladder, and if there's a way to send that rage in another direction, then I'm going to do it. (Hold on. I'm just going to check the mailbox again. Maybe the website is wrong.)
Once it arrives (and no, it wasn't there, dammit) I have only about 3 hours of knitting to do. Then there's a rather ridiculous blocking mission, for which Joe and I have to give up our bed, since it's the only place big enough to do it. (I think that if it takes more than a day to dry, Joe won't care if we have to camp in the living room. (If he's smart - and he is, then he's as afraid of Robyn as I am.)
Meanwhile, I'm knitting some handwarmers out of Sakura Cotton. The weather has just now started to change, and Sam's complaining of cold hands. 
Let's hope that I don't have time to finish them. I'm just going to go check the mailbox again.
(PS. The pattern for the handwarmers came with the yarn as a set. How funny to see that non-other than Kate Atherley is the designer. Didn't notice until I'd started. Hi Kate!)
My friend is laughing. I've just told her something that I believe about parenting and being a mum and what it does to you if you do it long enough, and I'm laughing too, but her kids are little and mine are big and I don't know if she knows I really, really mean it.
We were talking about a kid we know, and how they really didn't want to do something that the mum really wanted her to do... and how the mum was all upset about the kid being upset and was going to have to tell her "no" even though it was going to hurt the kid's feelings. "It's hard..." my friend said. "That's a hard place for a mother" and I shrugged at the phone and took a swig of coffee, and I almost didn't say anything, but then I did.
"How hard is it?" I finally asked. "You just say No" and when I heard that she was a little taken aback, I said "Don't listen to me. I've been a mother a long time. I don't really care about children's feelings anymore."
She killed herself laughing and I laughed too, and I tried to explain because it sounded so bad. When I say I don't care about kid's feelings, I simply mean that how a kid feels about whatever we're considering, isn't my prime directive. I care what a kid feels, but when push comes to shove, my job is to do what I think is best for them, not what they feel is best for them. I mean, c'mon. I've had at least one teenager who had some pretty strong "feelings" about their privacy and how I shouldn't be all up in their business, and you know what? I didn't care. Until your frontal lobe is developed all the way, you get privacy in your room and privacy in the bathroom, but I get to know where you're going and what you're doing, and if you want to keep a secret about where you're at from me, you're going to have to work hard at it, and it doesn't really bother me if you're upset about that.
Do I care if a kid is sad? Sure I do. I care a lot about their emotional state and how they're doing, but that's different than caring about their individual feelings on every point - isn't it? I mean, I'm feeling right now like I don't want to go to the grocery store because it's raining, and I'm feeling super sad that I'm going to get wet, but I'm still going, because feelings don't matter if you're a grown up and you're out of toilet paper, and someday my kid is going to have to do stuff way harder than shopping or homework or showing up on time and I want them to have practice.
I've had these conversations so many times, and every time I end up sure I'm the meanest mother in the world. (This is an idea I may have gotten from a kid who was yelling it at me when I didn't care about their feelings about vacuuming.) Someone will ask how I got the kids to eat brown bread and vegetables and homemade yogurt and all I can think is that kids don't have any money and they don't do the grocery shopping and they don't cook and they aren't in charge and really, doesn't that mean that they're going to eat what I make? Or people ask how I limited TV as much as I did, and I can't figure out how they think it would be that I would make a rule (no TV if it's daylight, for starters) and then a kid would say that they didn't like it, and that then... what? We would have another rule? One they made? There were times that I responded to a kids needs by changing a rule, like... the "you have to go to school" rule got trashed because a kid really needed home-schooling for a term. We're all about responding to a kids actual needs, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me that one of my kids needed me to make them a separate dinner because what I'd made them wasn't what they wanted. (To quote my own mother, this is a family, not a restaurant.)
I can't tell you the number of times one of the kids tried to turn on the tv, and I went and turned it off again. A few times the tv got taken away entirely, put in a closet and locked up because they broke the rules, and I'm not fighting with you if you do something untrustworthy, and really, I am a mean and horrible mother who doesn't care at all if that makes you cry. AT. ALL. Television is a privilege, not a right, and you want to scream about it, that's cool man. Let those feelings out, but they won't change my mind. Age, maturity, independence, your skills, your actual needs, that stuff changes my mind. Your feelings? No ma'am.
I can hear somewhere, someone's heart breaking for all of this. They're thinking that I am actually a mean mum, and that it's wrong not to consider the feelings of children and thinking how hard it must have been to be raised by someone who does what she thinks is best and steamrolls all over the tender little hearts of her babies. They're wiping a tear away from their eye right now, and they're the kind of mum who's going to turn to me later and say "But how did you turn the TV off? My kids would be so upset if I did that. They would freak out. I could never, ever take away the TV" and I'm going to explain that the difference between me and them is that they think they need their kid's buy in or permission, and I think it's my TV and I can do whatever I want with it, because I care more about limiting TV than I do about crying children and that makes it easier. Louder, but easier.
I get that parents perspective. I really do, and let me tell you, I care a lot about what my kids needed - and I will still go as far as a kid needs me to if we're talking about their physical, spiritual and emotional well being. I want to talk to kids about how they feel, and what their preferences are, and I have always, always tried to listen carefully to what they want - because they're part of the family and we're on the same team but dudes, that team has Captains and it's the parents and we're looking at the big picture, and it's their needs that matter to us - not what they want, and I'm totally cool with that, because there's a reason that society doesn't let these people vote until they're 18, and it's because they lack experience, and wisdom, and a lot of the things that keep you safe and make you go to the store in the rain when you don't want to, and I have my eye on the prize.
I'm making grownups.
I love my children desperately. I just don't care about their feelings.
If you know what I mean.
Madness. I've been knitting on the blanket like it's a job, and still, there's no perceptible difference. The ball of yarn keeps getting smaller, even though the blanket doesn't seem to change much - later today I'll join the last skein on (and I got an email last night letting me know that the rest of the yarn has already shipped out of The Loopy Ewe - damn they're fast) and if I'm lucky it will arrive just as I run out.
This morning I got a bit of a reprieve, learning that I'd been right about Robyn's EDC all along, and 48 hours got added to the ridiculous deadline that the baby doesn't care about. This shouldn't make me feel better, since whomever is in there has no access to a calendar, but somehow it did. (It turned out I'd taken Joe's word on the thing. That's like taking advice from him on how to organize your kitchen, so I have no idea why I believed him.)
The blanket is lovely (and, I suspect, extremely large) but I think I'm close to snapping. This morning I looked around and saw little mountains of yarn everywhere. Bright piles of yarn - in combinations that are thrilling and delightful, like bowls of candy, or piles of leaves or all the laundry thrown on a teenaged daughters floor. All this white is starting to affect me. Check this out. 
See those two skeins of yarn? Suddenly, I think they go together PERFECTLY. A week ago I would have thought that was bold as brass, but now? Oh lovely. Just lovely.
This morning I wondered why I don't own any red shirts. I washed Sam's green pants in the fond hope that she'd wear them. I think having a black cat is lame. I left out a rainbow roving, just for ornament.
All this white is getting to me, but I know what Denny would say. "At least you're not knitting it in January."
PS. I know. You need to know what yarn that is. It's String Theory Casper Sock in melon and winterberry.
PPS. Yes Presbytera. The links for events in WEBS and Maine are right here.
PPPS: for everyone wondering how I kept warm in New Brunswick after I forgot my woolies? I didn't need 'em. It's October in Canada and it was warm and lovely. That's either fabulous or scary.
I had the loveliest weekend. The nicest students, the prettiest venue, the satisfaction of teaching at home, in a province I adore, the smell of the sea... 
It was KnitEast, hosted by Cricket Cove in the beautiful town of Saint Andrews by the Sea, and my fellow teachers and I made the most of it. The days were busy and full - and had a Canadian feel that you just couldn't ignore. The Algonquin hotel was the intended location, and when they didn't finish construction in time, Cricket Cove did their level best to make it all work - and there ended up being a certain unique charm to it... where else could you find the marketplace in the local curling rink?
One of the evening events was at a local aquarium, and we got to touch all sorts of yucky but interesting things
(One in every two million lobsters is blue. I learned that there.)
and we walked to and from the town for supper at night, and really, it was truly lovely. 
That's Deb Barnhill, Susan B Anderson and Ann Budd. 
That's just Deb Barnhill and Ann Budd, and no. I don't know how I got them to do that. They were pretty tired. Maybe their resistance was low. (I think there's a picture out there of me doing the same thing, so maybe I should be careful what I post.) Deb and I had a ton of fun being tour guides to Passamaquoddy Bay. (If each of us had a dime for every time we explained about the highest tides in the world...) 
It really was lovely, and I owe a round of thanks to my students, who were charming though a few rough spots. (I'm thinking from now on, maybe I'll pack an extension cord? ) 
Maybe it's how pretty it was and how nice my students were or who knows, but all weekend long I knit on the blanket, on and off, and didn't freak out about it. Much. A few comments were made about how it was sort of largish, but it is a blanket, and it is near the end, and so I ignored that. 
I also sort of ignored it when I couldn't really ram it into my bag any more, and I just vowed to finish, so I could stop dragging it around - but I was on the edging, so I'm wasn't super worried. Fast forward to last night when I realize three things.
1. I have been doing the edging for a while. It is not getting done very fast. That's weird.
2. I have been wrong all along about Robyn's EDC. She's expecting her baby sooner than I thought, but only by two days, but still. That's not good news when combined with #1.
I was sitting there worrying about all of this and doing a little math (there are more than 1000 stitches on the needle. Each repeat of the edging finishes 6, plus the extras to get around the corners so how many repeats of the edging do I have to do?) when I picked up my ball of yarn to move it, and it felt a little light. You know the feeling - the ball is squishier than you were expecting, and you think something like "Where the hell is all that yarn gone?" I wasn't that worried or upset. I knew I had ordered TONS. More yarn than you could ever use for a baby blanket, even if you have a propensity to make them a little larger than babies (or University students) typically need - so I went to get one of the other skeins and that's when I realized #3.
3. I don't have enough yarn. Not even close. I'm short by at least 200m, maybe way more. Again.
I handled it straight away, ordering it from The Loopy Ewe at daybreak (looks like they have enough in stock) and I'll just have to cross my fingers that it gets here before a baby does - preferably with enough time to knit it up. I've got 1.5 skeins left, and the baby will be here anytime. I'm just sitting here chanting "first babies come at 41 weeks. First babies come at 41 weeks. First babies come at 41 weeks" but I don't really believe myself. Robyn's not the type to be late for anything.
This is going to be a close one. I've got to go knit.
PS. Anybody up for a little pre-Rhinebeck amuse-bouche? I'll be at WEBS for a great sock thing and a Knit Smart lecture thing. It will be a fun start to the holiday. (We all agree Rhinebeck is a holiday - right?)
PPS. Anybody want to hang out with me in Maine? I'll be at Over the Rainbow Yarn.
PPPS. I know. I should do the tour page. It has a technical issue I'm working on.