Safe no more....

So my yarn closet is in the family playroom. Despite the fact the the latch is broken, the LIttle Man so far has remained oblivious to it as long as the door is closed. My yarn, fiber and needles have rested safely inside, until yesterday.

After two days of not enough sleep and a day of packing up boxes in a swealtering classroom alongside students who are in serious need of summer break, I was tired out. Not regular tired out, but more the "walking dead" kind of tired. No problem if DH was in good sorts, but he had a long two days and was in the same condition. So here are Mama and Daddy, lounging in the living room in that state of half awake/half asleep that you have to stay in when you have a toddler: eyes closed, ears wide open. Little Man is in the playroom, playing quietly with his trains and nicely giving us a little break. But then this conversation starts up:

LM: "Mama, my toys!"

Me: "Yup, baby."

LM: "Toys, see my, toys"

Me: :Uh-huh"

LM: "My toys, mama, my toys, see my toys!"

By this time I'm hearing more of a commotion so I decided it's time to stop trusting my ears and see what he's up to. I usually only give him a few minutes by himself before I peek in, as you can only trust your ears so much with a 2 year old. I'm expecting something broken, or some new amazing use for toy trains, but no....his "toys?" MY YARN!!!!!! He has found that he can indeed, open up the yarn closet. He has taken all my fiber, a half knit hat, and a few skeins of yarn and spread them all out all over the floor. He also had blue fiber stuck between his toes, which I thought was a nice touch. Nice toys, huh? Luckily, he didn't get into the needle/supply box and nothing was unravelled, but I am getting a serious lock for that closet, and making it clear that those are "Mama's toys." :-)

Needless to say, no knitting was done last night. All three of us were sacked out in bed by 9:30 last night. Which is a bummer, because I was really hoping to get LM's vest done by Saturday for our friend's wedding. Maybe by my niece's baptism!

Ssp?

Well, I finally got the first half of Little Man's vest done. Only problem was the neckline. I had to decrease on both the knit and purl sides. I tried decreasing the second and third stitches in to keep my edges smooth, which looked great on the knit side, but I did ssk and p2tog, and the p2tog looks sort of funny. Is there a purl side equivilent of ssk? I need to check that out, as I'm on to the front side next and would like to be a little smoother.

Not much other knitting done as I spent the rest of the weekend wrestling with an old Western sewing machine. My DH found this in the alley. It's very cool and I paid $100 last summer to have it all fixed up, but now the effing thing won't work, so my beautiful kitchen curtains are waiting in a pile to be hemmed while I try to get the tension evened out. Considering I tried for two hours it's not looking too good. :-( Add to that the fact that DH's remark on my fabric choice was that it "is the ugliest fabric he has ever seen....." I know there is a reason I don't usually sew! Personally, I think all Amy Butler fabrics are great and you can't go wrong. I will say in my defense of fabric choices that DH asked me yesterday if his bright yellow shirt with maroon writing went with his baby blue striped shirt and his army green pants (it looked even worse than it sounds) and I ask you who has bad taste. :-)

Seasons

Have I mentioned that I just do NOT like knitting with cotton? Well, I'm barely into my summer knitting and I'm already sick of it. It slides all over, and the Cotton Twist I'm using keeps splitting it's twist right off. I want to get into some wool, but it hit 80 yesterday, and I need my summer wears done. Plus, I love the feel of the fabric as it is knit up, so I just stick with it.

80 degrees is also the signal that it's time to wash all my wool knits and pack them away. Trouble is I now have a huge pile of scarves and hats in my closet that need hand washing. I suck as getting anything hand washable done; the items usually sit on my closet floor for weeks, sometimes even months. I have seriously been planning on getting to them, but Little Man has decided that 2 year olds really shouldn't be tired until about 10pm, which is also my cut off point for work. Whatever hasn't been done can wait until tomorrow; its my BBC/knitting time. But with the later bedtime (and believe me, we've been trying to get him to sleep earlier!) I'm not getting much else done around the house. So I choose to knit with pain in the butt cotton and wartch the adventures of Hyacinth and Thermo-man and pray that the moths haven't found my closet floor yet!