Quilt and other progress

I've spent the last hour since I put Monkey on the bus looking at the phone with distrust, fearing a phone call from his PreK teacher telling me to get my ass over there and pick up my kid already, how could I send him to school this way? The way I sent him to school was doped up on (non-drowsy) decongestant, because he got the first cold of the school year this weekend after a grand total of 5 days of school. He fell asleep yesterday in my bed after waking up long enough to take his seizure meds and get naked. And damn it we are not missing day after day of school this early in the year. I am burned out from all this togetherness all summer and I need my time. I am unable to keep up with the house when he is here this much. Want proof?
He cruised past the useless child lock on the sewing room door, climbed onto a table for my vorpal scissors, grabbed the quilt that has been hanging on the wall for a year which I had finally quilted the night before, and went snicker-snack.

I did not feed him to the wolves. I sat down next to him and looked really really sad, and told him why. And instead of not understanding, he looked sad too and quickly said "Sorry Momma," and gave me a hug. And suddenly the quilt didn't matter much, because that is the first time he's ever empathized with someone who was sad.
Slowly we make progress.

Rocket Jammies!

Not jammies for rockets, sadly. Flannel jammie pants, cut out a week ago but sewn together today because the guest room is back to being a sewing room. The decadence of having an entire room for such things still blows me away.

When I cut these out I was shocked that 1 yard of fabric is just barely enough for a pair of pants for the little guy. They look huge in my hands, but don't seem too big on him. Same with his new school clothes.

It is still about 20 degrees too warm at night to wear these, so they will be tucked away for Monkey's birthday in a few months. Actual planning ahead, hurray!

Jam

Today Monkey and I made delicious plum jam, and clementine marmelade. The plum jam is completely smooth and texture-free, because Monkey was in charge of the food processer and I didn't supervise enough. Then we made bread, because if you have fresh warm jam you need fresh warm bread to smear it on. All this to avoid doing the chores I need to before houseguests arrive tomorrow evening.

Micro sweater

Micro sweater. 2 1/2 inches wide by 4 inches tall.

No pattern to speak of, just fooling around with the basic construction of a raglan sweater as a practice run for Christmas. Knit of scraps of Sugar and Cream on size 6 needles. The sweater is cute, but the neck is way too small ;)

The yoke was an unvention of slip stitch patterning, of which I had heard but had no practical knowledge. I'm not sure you could call it an unvention even, as just the name of the technique gives it away. Worked way better than two colors at a time for me.

Garterlac to the rescue!

I was so glad to have a simple little project like this to pick up and throw in my bag last Thursday night. I had just settled down on the couch for some quiet Erin time, with the Monkey in bed and Lawyerguy at his Jujitsu class, when I hear the car pull into the carport. Lawyerguy walks inside to catch me watching Ghost Hunters (guilty pleasure) and eating Dove Promises (another guilty pleasure), and announces he has broken his clavicle in class.
shitshitshitshitshit.
So I tie his arm up with triangular and ace bandages, high five myself for taking an advanced first aid class years ago, get the Monkey out of bed and drive to the hospital. Things actually went quite quickly-the nice thing about going to a base hospital on a Thursday night. The ER doc complimented both my knitting and bandaging skills. Monkey curled up in my lap and listened to his headphones and I happily knit away during xrays. The good news is that he only separated his shoulder, and an orthopedics doc follow up today confirmed that no surgery is needed. He will in a sling nearly until he leaves for Germany though, the big dork.
Anyway, the Garterlac washcloth pattern gets my praises and adulation, for perfectly explaining how this works and removing completely my entrelac apprehension.

Oops

Yesterday I started the Garterlac dishcloth, squarely addressing my fascination and fear of entralac knitting. It started out easier than I expected, the directions are written out very clearly, and I've been zipping along quickly. Somehow I seem to have gotten lost though, bringing the washcloth into previously unimagined dimensions.
I should try a cube sometime.

Finished!

Cloud Bolero. Knit ever so inexpensively and comfortably out of less than 3 balls of Sugar'n Cream in Jute. I lengthened the sleeves to elbow length, to keep short sleeve shirts from hanging out the end and to actually keep me warm in church. I knit a size large, but on smaller needles for tighter fabric, a smaller neckline, and more wavey old shale goodness. It is very comfortable, it looked great today, and did it's job quite well. I even decided I liked the picot bind off.

Friday Flower

Delphiniums, or Larkspur. Another photo from my trip to Aspen in June.

In high school I worked with a florist (looking back, this was probably the best job ever). Occasionally she would bring in Delphiniums from her garden. When fallen blossoms were left on the white counter in the work room, they would leave little blue shadows on the formica.

Tie-dye

Yesterday I celebrated/mourned the last day of Monkey's summer term of school by tie-dyeing some t-shirts for him and his cousin (also some underpants for him because I think I'm funny). Then I hung them outside to dry. Someday I hope it will stop raining long enough for them to dry, before it starts raining again.