Marie Grace Designs

The hardest part...

So I'm sitting here typing this post and looking through about a zillion pictures Mac Daddy and I took over the weekend. I'm one of those people who rarely leaves the house without the camera because I feel there's just so much to see no matter where I'm going or what we're doing.

Some people take pictures of vacations, famous places and things, and rare occurrences. I do, too, but really my favorite pictures are the ones of all the things that surround me everyday. Little snippets in time of the things that make ordinary life worth the effort it takes to live it. Small pieces saved of a day that flies by way too fast.

We don't have many professionally set-up family pictures. The kids (obviously) don't get school pictures every year and I haven't taken the whole crew to one of those places with a coupon for a sitting fee in years. Our family pictures are mostly candid shots taken by me and Mac Daddy and enlarged at the local photo printing joint.

I've never really understood the whole family photo set up deal. The kids moan about having to wear stiff clothes and they squirm the whole time. The juggling act needed to keep the little ones still and semi-smiling just isn't worth the end result... a picture of kids that look like mine but with don't seem quite the same.

So I take pictures of the people around me being who they really are and I sit back and I am thankful to have that little snippet saved so I can go back and remind myself that the real things are the most beautiful things. That life is busy and hard and dirty and painful, but that the rewards are there if only we take the time to not just look at them but really see them.

The face she makes when she reads (which she does a lot)...

The quick glimpses of an inner character...

A truly relaxing day when he's doing something he really loves...

What happenes when they realize the camera is pointed at them...

So if you're into a philosophical Monday morning, and a rainy one here to top it off, think on this...

Why is it that one of the hardest things there is to do in life is just be... real?

I guess this is all stemming from my worries over some of the things I need to do and places I need to go over the next few weeks. I worry so much about first impressions (and second and third ones, too). And I really don't want to wear my stiff clothes and a semi-smile just to get through. I have a really hard time selling myself with this whole designing thing so hopefully the knitting is good enough to sell itself.

See, we can't all be witty all the time and we can't all be beautiful. But we can all be real, even if its the hardest of all to do.

The fever gets higher...

Spring fever doesn't even begin to describe it. If I wasn't so stiff and achy I think I'd go outside and roll down a grassy hill like a kid. Well, right now it would be more of a muddy hill... and I'd look pretty silly... okay forget I even said it.

Anyway...

The local farm market (reason #8,452,947 for moving home) opened this past week so we had to stop in. I've had this day marked on the calender for months!

There's fresh things to eat now...

Things to plant (to eat later)...

And flowers, flowers, flowers!!

The holiday weekend was nice. The kids and I made homemade peanut butter eggs and I gotta tell ya if you've never made peanut butter eggs with kids you're miss'in it! Its like peanut butter play-dough and family tradition all rolled into one. And you get rave reviews from the family get-together when you take a whole pan or 2 to pass around.

Kid update...

Well, Purl has herself a big little brother... meaning he's younger than her but bigger in size. His name is Zeke and he's a Toggenburg baby, and quite a handful. He's totally different than Purl and has sort of thrown the family balance around a bit.

I must say, I'm having a really hard time staying focused on much of anything these days. All I can do is stare out the window wishing we were hiking and poking at salamanders down by the creek. Scary timing as I've got my first print magazine deal and need to have everything done and out of here in the next week!

The Little Things...

Isn't it amazing how Little Things can make such a big difference in your day, your project, and your mood?

A cheeky kiss can send you out into the world with hope and promise.

A friendly phone call in the middle of an otherwise hectic and demanding day can pull it all back into perspective.

Finding the last donut still in the box before the kids wake up... pure heaven.

But at the same time one single snarky comment can wreck an entire day before its even begun. One more seemingly senseless demand can make an already busy day unbearable and seeing the donut box from across the room only to find it empty is just plain cruel.

Little Things really can mean a lot.

The same is true when it relates to knitting, sewing, and any other hand craft. Little Things can really make a difference in the final product.

One thing I'm really picky about is joining a new ball or skein into a project. Its really a Little Thing but if you aren't sure how to do it neatly you can end up with a knot that keeps coming to the surface or a wierd pulled-lumpy thing where you made the join or even a hole.

The following process of joining a new working yarn works with any yarn but may not be the best for very open work like lace and isn't good for stranded color-work. This is how I join in stockinette, textures, cables, and any other situation where I'm working with a stable knitted fabric and need to join a new working yarn of the same color.

So... you're knitting along and notice that the end of your working yarn is fast approaching. When that tail is about 6-8 inches long simply drop it and begin working with a new ball/skein. Don't do any fancy fidgeting just forget about it and continue working. Do this every time you need to add a new working yarn.

When your piece/project is completely knitted its time to go back and weave in any loose ends including the ones from new ball/skein joins. From the wrong side of the project you'll easily see all those loose spaghetti ends hanging. From the front you'll have a hole...

Look closely at the wrong side of the work where the hole is. You'll see quite clearly that you have 2 perfect, yet very loose, stitches...

The first thing you need to do is snug them up to get rid of the hole. Grasp the hanging yarn ends and gently pull them straight down. Don't try to pick and force the yarn ends to do anything weird. Pulling the loose ends straight down will automatically keep the loose stitches in line and even with their neighbors as you tighten them. Doing any sort of fancy twisting and relocating at this point will leave you with twisted and uneven stitches on the front. Pull them just until the loose stitches appear to be the same size as thier neighbors...

You'll still have hole but the previously loose stitches should look good. To close up the hole simply tie the 2 ends together in a knot just like when you tie your shoe. The really cool thing about this is that if you look real close at your new knot it looks a lot like a weird purl bump...

Tie a second knot on top of the first knot. The "trick" about tying the knots is to let the yarn ends be on the side they want to be on... meaning don't yank and twist them... just pick them up and tie them nicely. You can see from the pictures that everything looks "natural" and nothing looks "stressed".

Remember that hole on the front? Its gone!

Now, I've heard that tying knots in your knitting is one of those things that could potentially get the Knitting Police sent on their way to your door but I've never heard from them and I've been tying knots in my yarn for a very long time. I've also never had a knot (of this kind) work its way to the front of the knitted piece.

Now, weaving in the ends is also a topic of hot debate. I prefer to duplicate stitch them on the back. To me neatness is very important and this is the neatest, most stable and dependable way I've found for weaving in ends. I keep the back of my work looking as nice as possible and I've been known to flip over other peoples knitting to look at the back. Call it a snotty character flaw but its true. Even the samples from yarn companies hanging at the LYS don't escape my private-side scrutiny.

One more thing I want to mention is that I never end/begin a working yarn at the end of a row of flat knitting. I know a lot of books will encourage this but I've always found that it makes the edge messy and uneven. Trying to seam over a lumpy or loose edge is difficult and leaving a weird edge exposed at the front of a cardigan is just not a good idea. It also means that you'll be weaving in an end close to what could be an exposed edge.

If you are forced to cut your working yarn on an edge, like when you need to temporarily abandon stitches to divide front and back sections, leave a long tail. When you come back to this piece and need to rejoin the working yarn first use the old tail to knit across and get away from the edge. Then drop the tail and join in the new working yarn and continue as above...

Yup... Little Things sure can make a big difference in your life. Like 99 cent wind-up toys from the craft store. She's played with that Little Thing for hours a day and still isn't tired of it.

One of these kids...

is not like the others.

Yup. She's a goat. And she currently resides in my dining room. And plays on my stairs.

Other reasons she's not like the other kids:

-She'll soon be living outside.

-She won't grow out of her shoes.

-She'll never ask for the keys to my truck.

Anyway... this little girl is the first of our "hobby herd" of Pygmy goats. She'll be joined by a few more over the next few weeks. She's not a week old yet and we are bottle feeding her. Luckily we have a friend that runs a goat dairy so we have fresh goat milk for her.

She's a great excuse for taking wandering laps around the side yarn about a million times a day. And just incase you are wondering how having a goat in the house could possibly work... she hasn't puddled on the floor once which is more than I can say for somebody else we know when he was at that stage...

I'd go on and on about how happy I am here on the hill with spring around the corner, the (human) kids wearing shit-kickers boots, and a baby goat scampering around the yard pasture. I'd tell you all about how this was the driving force behind all the stress and moving. I'd explain that this is what I was missing. Fresh air, a beautiful view, small town life, and livestock.

I'd go further and get all analytical and come to the conclusion that before we moved I narrowly missed an all out not-quite-to-mid-life-crisis one morning when I woke up to the sound of heavy road equipment in front of my house and realized I was entirely too close the city and thought about what my life would be like if I was stuck there til I died. I'd try to give you a clear picture of the moment that my brain popped and yelled "Run! Run back to the country! Run before its too late!"

I'd attempt to give you a sense of what it feels like here. How the tension has drained away from not only me but the (human) kids too. I'd tell you how relieved we are. I'd tell you that truthfully, I feel like we narrowly escaped some stuffy existence and that I just can't imagine not being where we are now.

I'd tell you a about how Mac Daddy sat at the dining rom table on a Sunday morning reading the Sunday paper looking in the sales section for a decent used Farmall. And how Tater has been drawing pictures of chickens and the older kids are trying to come up with good names for goose eggs. (Our neighbor has ornery old geese that lay eggs every spring but won't set them. We're going to put them in our incubator.)

I'd tell you all that fluffy stuff but I'm afraid you've had enough of my fluffy stuff and are really here for the knitting. So here ya go...

I know its just a peek but its all you get for today. I will tell you its a hooded jacket, slightly long in length, and sized for kids from 2 to 14. Its totally cute, totally warm, and totally seamless!

And just incase the little goat melts your heart as much as she does mine I wanted to let you know... her name is Pearl Purl.

Anticipation...

There's a faint electric charge hovering in the air around the house right now.

After a few teaser spring-ish days the energy level has gone up yet there's still isn't really a direction for it all.

The ground is soggy, the air is chilled, and today the sky is ominously dark and cloudy.

But the buzz inside is something you can actually touch. Decisions are being made on fencing and shelters. Delivery dates have been figured and strawberry plants have been ordered.

Days are being crossed off the calendar, sometimes with a crayon, sometimes with determined calculation.

I'm having a hard time focusing even on current knitting projects. Its not that I'm not enjoying the knitting, its just that I need some fresh air and some sunshine and the smell of fresh spring soil and the sound of little spring things.

I need to wear my boots and my jeans and my leather work gloves and carry some hay bales. I need to hang sheets outside and hear them snapping in the breeze. I need to watch the kids out the kitchen window and I need to hang out on the deck with a Corona while Mac Daddy grills some burgers.

I need to get out of this house before I suffocate.

In the meantime the knitting is good. I've got a great little jacket for the kids going with a fabulous yarn. O~Wool is a pleasure to knit with and next to the skin soft. Truly, this is a wool that could change your mind about wool if you're a non-believer. The colors are rich and deep and I just can't say enough about how nicely it knits up.

I'm hoping to keep my wits about me enough to go over a few techniques in detail as they relate to this project. The best part of all... its totally and utterly seamless.

Ya know... I've been catching a lot of flack lately for not doing more adult designs. Let me take a moment just to let you know that there's more going on here than meets the eye. That's all I'm say'in.