Year of No New Yarn 2.0

To recap, here's the yarn I started out with:

And here's what I have today:

Plus this. (The Wool-Ease was purchased for me, the beige was a gift, and the gold and navy were bought in January. All legit.)

Now, let's see what that yarn turned into. Starting with big things.

Sweaters:

 Mum-in-law's mohair sweater, finished in January.

 My Blackberry cardigan, finished in April.

Hubby's Old-Man Cardy, finished this week.

M's Delilah dress, finished in September.

D's Kindergarten cardigan, finished in July

D's Whirligig Shrug, finished in May

Mom's Tangled Ribs, finished in May (despite appearances here; my mom wears it a lot, just never when I have a camera around)

Socks:

Mom's Jaywalkers, finished in January

Diana's Striped socks (pre-washing and blocking, hence the distorted look), finished in May

Now, some smaller accessories:

Rachel's Fingerless gloves (above, finished in February for her birthday) and a braided headband to match (below, finished in August). 

Gryffindor hat for baby Griffin, finished in April

Lucas' football hat, finished in February

 

Hubby's Koolhaas hat, finished in March.

 

D's bow headband, finished in October

 

Cottage dolls, finished in July, moved to their new home a few weeks ago.

 

Then there was that bunch of finishing I did for the late Frances. I didn't manage to take before and after pictures for everything, but here's what it typically looked like:

In all, there were five things I finished. That green dress at the bottom was the trickiest; there was only one sleeve knit, so I had to figure out the gauge and the pattern and replicate it.

 

 

 

I sewed a bit this year, or gave the illusion of doing so. Here are tutus I made for the girls, which are now quite ratty, but looked splendid when they were freshly finished.

 

I made two of these bow-tie onesies, one for a cousin and one for a friend. I guess I should add one for my new nephew!

Not pictured in the knitting roundup: 

-two sets of Aviatrix hats and bootees (one in gray, one in green)

-two Baby Sophisticates (one in Hudson Bay colours, one in pink)

-two pairs of gray fingerless gloves with pullover caps (one for Hubby, one for my brother)

-a beard hat

-Hubby's black socks

-a pair of fingerless pullover gloves and eternity scarf for my crafty gift exchange recipient, Sarah 

-two cabled hats (a red one for a little guy named Zach, and a purple one for me)

I'm pretty sure I knit more this year than I did in 2010, on my last year of no yarn. And that was when I only had D to look after! I'm very pleased with what I was able to accomplish, and with the bit of space I've gained from condensing the yarn stash. I have plans for some of what's left, including sending some off to the thrift store. I figure if I've had it for more than two years and I haven't made something of it, I'm not likely to.

The very first things for which I bought yarn in 2014 have been baby sweaters, and that trend will definitely continue. I have my nephew to consider, and my own baby, as well as about half a dozen others that are due this year. My next yarn ban will have to wait for a couple of years, I think!

The day that was February 20th

What an unbelievable day it's been here! Things started out badly, with Hubby's car getting t-boned on his way to work (bright side: he is unhurt, and wasn't at fault), but improved greatly. On a minor note, I suffered an equipment malfunction (my circular knitting needle broke), but I was able to conjure up a spare from my interchangeable set. The sleeves are done, and the collar should be finished tomorrow, if I'm lucky. That would give me the weekend to sew it all up. And find buttons.

Our Canadian women performed beautifully in Sochi today, winning gold in curling and hockey, and I was able to watch a good chunk of each! The hockey had me on the edge of my seat, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I openly wept after each Canadian goal. I could not believe they managed a win, but they totally earned it.

I was texting my pregnant sister throughout the last minutes of the game, and shortly after it finished, she called me on Skype. And what do you know, she was holding her new baby on her lap! Again, much crying ensued (from me; baby was super sleepy). She had him at 2:30 am at the brand-new birthing centre, and was home just a few hours later, looking incredibly healthy and happy. My beautiful nephew absolutely made my day. I will be knitting a blanket with his name and birth date next, I believe, and visiting him as soon as our schedule permits.

A simplified Christmas

After a hectic fall, I was nonetheless excited to head into the Christmas season. I had my little Word document checklist of all the things we had planned for December. We had three parties to attend, and a couple of other fun events, like a birthday party for one of D's classmates, and a craft night at my friend Jasmine's. And of course there was D's school concert, for which Hubby took time off work. But this year we kept it pretty simple.

Decorations: for the first time, we had a real tree, and it did not die in my care! We got it for free through our mortgage broker: she holds an annual client appreciation event at a local Christmas tree farm. We had fun riding the "traptor", as M calls it, and choosing our tree. It fits quite nicely in our living room bay window. The girls helped me decorate it, and would periodically re-assign ornaments to different branches. The breakable ones were up high enough that they couldn't be reached. We also had a cute felt advent calendar on the wall, and the girls would take turns adding a piece every day. The girls also had chocolate advent calendars to open each morning. We had a wreath on the door, ribbon on the bannister, and two nativity sets up on the mantle, with Christmas cards nestled all around them.

Gifts: we kept to the 4 items rule of something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. This year, though, we are two days past Christmas and the girls have not yet opened all their presents. Last year, they (or specifically D) were overwhelmed by presents from Hubby and me, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. By the end of the 25th, D had begun asking people "do you have a present for me?" Not an attitude we found cute, to put it mildly. So instead of opening everything at once, we've been staggering things. D and M had many gifts to open at Grandma and Grandpa's on Christmas morning. The next day, we Skyped Nana and Poppa to open their gifts. Today, we opened gifts from one of my aunts. They still have three things from us and one each from Grandma and Grandpa left. The gifts are much better loved and appreciated when the girls can actually play with them right away, rather than being rushed on to the next shiny thing.

Omitted: I've been tired enough that making dinner has been about all I can manage. I opted out of most Christmas baking, although my sister was kind enough to make us some peanut butter-marshmallow squares when she was here! I did make monkey bread for breakfast on Christmas morning, and the girls helped. We also didn't get around to taking a family photo or sending out Christmas cards... maybe we'll do that for Valentine's Day or something. I didn't finish the sweater I've been working on for Hubby in time for Christmas. I didn't even pretend to start making stockings for each member of my family!

None of these things really matter, and it's taken me this many years to understand that. In the past, I've had such high expectations for Christmas, and if anything went wrong, I thought it would ruin the day. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or because I have kids and I know that things can go wrong without ruining an entire event. I read so many blogs where people work so hard to make everything perfect for the holidays, and it seems like a lot of wasted effort to me. This year, we did the things we wanted to do, for the people we love, and cut the dross. We spent a lot of time talking with the girls about what the gift of Jesus at Christmas really means; we explained who Saint Nicholas was, and mostly stayed away from the emphasis on Santa and elves on the shelves. Everyone seemed to be quite content with that.

How knitters celebrate the Olympics

Last winter Olympics, I took part in the unofficial knitter's version, now called the Ravellenic Winter Games. The point is to challenge yourself and try to complete something between the opening and closing ceremonies. It was 2010, and I had a new baby girl, so I made her a sweet little lacy sweater that she wore a few times, and later passed it on to her sister. I have many memories of nursing D on the couch, watching various Olympic events on our own or with family/friends, weeping at our first men's and women's gold medals (Alexandre Bilodeau and Maelle Ricker, respectively).

This time around, while I have more than enough babies to knit for, I'm going to push myself to finish the sweater I started for Hubby in October. It's a gorgeous thing, but I've been losing steam, so maybe this is just what I need to get it done. The body is finished so all I need to do is:

-complete the sleeves
-work the shawl collar
-sew on buttons
-weave in loose ends

That might not sound like much, but it's a LOT to do in the next two and a half weeks.

Especially with cute distractions like these.

Wish me luck!

Where I want to be

This past weekend, I celebrated a milestone birthday as I turned 30. As my friends and fellow '83 babies had their 30th birthdays over the course of the year, I wondered how I'd feel when my turn came. As it happens, I am quite content to leave my 20s behind.

When I turned 20, I was in my second year of university. I worked my one and only co-op term at a nearby agricultural college, studied through the summer, got engaged in July, and spent a few weeks in Australia before heading to France for the school year. I felt like in some ways, my life hadn't started yet. I had wanted to be a teacher since I was ten, and I'd wanted to be a mom for as long as I could remember. That year abroad was one of the best decisions I made: I had the opportunity to study and travel in ways that I'd never be able to do again (or at least for the foreseeable future!). At the same time, particularly around exam time, I wondered how relevant my learning would be, years down the line. I really wanted to be a wife and mother, and did I really need to read Balzac and learn about the Vichy regime in order to do that? I had a vague plan in mind that I wanted to graduate, get married, teach for a couple of years, and then have kids.

At 30, I feel like my life is well underway. I have been done with my own academic schooling for awhile now: I graduated from university six years ago, and took my final AQ course five years ago. I'm getting to see a different side of the school system now, as a parent of a kindergartener, and as the wife of a continuing ed student. I still learn and teach in a couple of different capacities: in raising my kids as a stay-at-home mom, and in leading at our church's women's Bible study.

I ended up marrying my best friend earlier than I thought I would, two years before finishing school. It was neat to have him as my first housemate, having only had roommates (albeit awesome ones, Mandy and Hailey!) in first year residence. We had all kinds of adventures in moving and living odd places, like the top floor of a house in Hamilton, accessible by rickety outdoor stairs! We worked with the youth group at our church, and joined a young marrieds' small group just a few weeks after our wedding. The friendships we forged there are still going strong today. It was bittersweet when we moved six hours away, back to my hometown. But that had been the longstanding plan, and I got a job weeks after graduation, which is pretty much unheard of in teaching today! I taught for two years before going on an extended mat leave, and just this year I officially resigned. I have nothing but respect for women who can have a family and work either full-time or part-time outside the home; for me, motherhood trumped the working world. Or the paid working world, anyway.

As I rounded out this year, I lost my two dear grandmothers, within just days of each other. I am so thankful to have been able to spend time with them, and I am also thankful that Hubby's grandmother is still here, even if she's halfway around the globe. Just weeks after Gams and GG departed this earth, I learned that a new life would be arriving this July, Lord willing. I had a vague notion of wanting to wrap up my childbearing years around age 30, and even with all the challenges surrounding M, I didn't have a sense that our family was complete. We'll see what happens as this year progresses. I have heard nothing but good things about being in one's thirties, and I look forward to growing and changing in this next decade. For now, 30 finds me where I want to be.

30 is definitely better with people like these in your life!

I think I can still wear these pants at my age, right? Maybe the side braid will have to go... ;)

Quite the complicated haircut

Hubby's work Christmas party is tonight, and I haven't had my hair cut since July, so I thought it would be a good idea to get it done this morning. Unfortunately, I waited too late and couldn't get an appointment with my usual hairdresser, so I decided to go to a nearby hairdressing school. The mall where it's located didn't open until 9:30, and the school didn't start appointments until 10:30 (even then, it's on a first-come first-served basis). Luckily my parents live near there, so I dropped M at their house with the understanding that I'd need to pick her up by 12, because they had to go out then. I got to the mall around 9:45, and I had planned to do a bit of shopping anyway, so I did that first. After debating whether it was worth the time risk, I decided to go for it.

The girl to whom I was assigned was very new; I could see her checklist at her station, and she had only done 3 women's haircuts before. Because I wanted to keep my long layers, after my shampoo I was reassigned to one of the advanced students. By then it was getting close to 11am, and I started to worry about meeting D's bus. Unless I was done and out of there in the next half hour, there was no way I'd have time to pick up M, drive home, and get to the bus stop on time. I texted a wonderful neighbour (whose daughter is on the same bus as D), and she agreed to get D from the bus. Then I called the school to let them know who would be picking D up. That would buy me enough time to finish the cut.

I was nervously watching the clock all through my appointment. Two girls blow-dried my hair, and one of the instructors put the finishing touches on some face-framing layers. I got my coat and bags and practically sprinted to the car.

As a general rule, I don't use my cell phone in the car; today was an exception. I had texted my mom to let her know the timeline, but she checks her phone about as often as I do, so I called her when I was en route. I loaded M into the car, remembered to give my mom a birthday gift to pass on to my sister (whom she'd be seeing later today), and booked it home. On the way, my phone rang, and even though I didn't recognize the number, I picked up. It was the school bus authority, checking to make sure I had okayed someone else to get D from the bus stop. My neighbour also texted me around the same time, asking me to call them. It all got straightened out, and within about 10 minutes I was at the neighbour's to bring D home for lunch. She was having way too much fun, so my neighbour said D could stay until after lunch if it was okay with me. Heck yes it was!

M was asleep in her car seat when we pulled into the driveway, so I carried her inside like a sack of potatoes. She had her lunch and then headed upstairs for a nap, only throwing a minor tantrum. D came home about an hour later, and from the sounds of things, both girls must be sound asleep. Good thing, too! We've got a sitter tonight, and I wouldn't want to leave anyone with those girls when they haven't napped.

How's your autumn?

Well, let's see. Point form will probably be my best bet here.

-D started kindergarten
-Hubby started a new job
-D, my grandma (GG), my dad, M, and my mom had birthdays, in that order
-both of my grandmas passed away within days of each other, meaning two funerals over two weekends
-I've been teaching David Platt's excellent and challenging book, Follow Me, at our women's Bible study
-we drove to Southern Ontario for a reunion with our old Bible study group (known modestly as The Best Small Group Ever)

So, it's been busy and somewhat stressful, to put it mildly. Not surprisingly, there's been a measure of illness added to our daily routine, more so than in an ordinary year because of everything D brings home from school.

Mixed in with the sadness of losing my grandmothers, we had the joy of visiting family. The day after Gams passed, my brother and two sisters drove from Toronto and spent several days here. We had family dinners every night, and it was better than when we were growing up, because everyone's kinder and more mature. And there are little kids to play with and pregnant bellies to pat (my sister's this time). All of my cousins were there for the visitation and the funeral, including one from out West who travelled with a toddler and an infant. (We later had a fun afternoon play date with them!) The six great-grandkids proved a happy distraction and were pretty well-behaved, although my two certainly had their moments.

GG's funeral wasn't really like a funeral; it was a visitation at my parents' house, and people came and talked and ate and saw pictures from my Grandma's life on screens in various rooms. Once everyone had gone except for immediate family, we shared memories of Grandpa and Grandma, funny ones and serious ones.Then we went out to Swiss Chalet for dinner, which was GG's fave. I am so glad to have been able to spend as much time as I did with them, both when I was growing up and in these early years of my daughters' lives. Even though it may become increasingly common as people live longer, I think it's a pretty amazing thing to get to see your grandchildren become parents.

I've been hanging out with this kid a lot

She's been wearing this dress almost daily

They've had a least two naps like this recently