closet

I cleaned out my closet yesterday. It's not a huge closet, but once I had all the yarn and unspun fiber out on my bed, it was frightening. I have a cedar chest in there and 6 big canvas bin thingys that I bought for off-season clothes. Haha. They hold my yarn. It's a very good thing that Eric and I don't have a lot of clothes, because they wouldn't have anywhere to go.

There were some happy re-discoveries: this Elsbeth Lavold gold Silky Wool that got swatched and then forgotten in the rush to make Presto Chango; some Dalegarn Stork that's meant for a little lacy bolero for PeeWee; some blue 1824 Wool intended for my middle son; and this beaded wool from Blue Heron Yarns in Leaf--that I had no plans for, but I bought anyway because it was just so beautiful. (Go look at those Blue Heron color cards--they're gorgeous.)


I ordered it from my LYS based on a color card and a sample skein of the colorway in Egyptian Cotton. When the beaded wool arrived it was vastly different from the color card and I was rather disappointed. (You may kindly remind me that cotton and wool take up dye very differently.) I promptly socked it away in my closet.

Boberly walked in my room yesterday just as I was taking the beaded wool out of the bag to look at it. She started saying words like "lurve it" and "make me a sweater" and "pleeeeeease". I'm sure you can guess what came out of the closet next. Yes. The swift and the ballwinder. I now have a ball of Leaf and an anxious daughter. She pestered me all last night about when I was going to start swatching for her sweater. She drew up a design and with a little help from Maggie Righetti and Sweater Design in Plain English, I will be knitting the Boberly Sweater: a top-down raglan with an off-center two-button placket, stockinette body, and deep ribbing at the cuffs and bottom. My two Maggie Righetti books (the other one is Knitting in Plain English) are the two most frequently referenced books on my knitting shelf. I HIGHLY recommend them. They're not flashy, there's no eye-catching color photography--but there is the wisdom of a veteran no-nonsense knitting instructor who will spell it all out for you at any time of the day.

I'm still spinning away on my Hello Yarn BFL for my Bohussy mittens. It's slow, but steady progress. Hmmm, am I seeing a color theme in this post?

Have I done any good in the world today?

Once again, it's not just a song, it's a way of life. It doesn't really have anything to do with this post, but it's on my mind. And in answer, I must say...not yet. I should probably make like a responsible person and feed my children. But first, I have to do this: An anonymous commenter thanked me today for posting (it was part of my 7 things meme) the words to the "Breathless" song that I was certain had faded into obscurity. Anonymous, you're welcome, but I hope you come back because I have the words to the whole song, not just the first verse. Your wife needs to hear the song in entirety.

And so, without further delay, I'm Breathless (as I remember it from my childhood):

If I had a dictionary, I would read the customary
Complementary phrases when I want to sing your praises,
But I'm up to here in trouble, my adversity is double,
And to make the matter worse, I'm breathless.

When I try to be poetic, you are never sympathetic.
As it is I do my best and hope and pray I pass the test,
But up to now I'm in the soup, my heart is doing loop-de-loop,
On top of all of that, I'm breathless.

You take my breath away.
My castles are all in a heap--
You've got me right where you want me.
Baby, you walk in my sleep!

So I...
Take you for a little walk, 'cause I'm a guy who likes to talk.
You leave me on the porch and then I wind up with a torch
For every single time that I'm inclined to tell you what is on my mind
I'm darned if I don't find I'm breathless!

We used to have races to see who could sing it the fastest. Ah, good times...

Now I just need to figure out how to attach a MIDI file with the tune...

I have an idea. (We're back to knitting content now.) I've been petting this 5 oz. of Blue-Faced Leicester wool (color: Cricket) from the Hello Yarn fiber club. I LURVE it. It is everything I love about wool and color in one tidy package. I want to make something for me that I will use on a daily basis--so as to maximize the time I get to spend with it. I have decided that mittens are the answer.

I've been waiting for the right moment to knit Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens, and I thought that maybe this was it--but then I decided that the colors I love in this wool might mute and blend too much for my liking if I spun it that fine. So I started looking for stranded pattern ideas with thicker yarn.

I was cleaning out my closet and found this sweater. (Hahaha, I had you going there, huh?! I wasn't really cleaning, per se, this sweater actually fell off my shelf when I was trying to stuff something else in next to it. Cleaning. That's funny.) The patterns are kinda Bohus-y, don't you think?

Then I was flipping through Marcia Lewandowski's Folk Mittens and saw her Bohus mittens. I think I should probably not post an image from the book, but I'll just say that it got my gears turning. On top of all of that, Adrian (Hello Yarn) is knitting a Bohus-inspired sweater that is so gorgeous. (Can you tell that I'm pretty much in love with everything she makes? Yeah. It's kind of obvious.) Anyhoo, I'm going to make some Bohus-y (I like that: Bohussy, that's me!) mittens using the sweater patterns and the BFL Cricket, and one other yet-to-be-determined color. I'm going to spin the Cricket so that it has distinct color changes so it can serve as my slacker version of multi-colored stranding. That's my idea. I'm sure I'll have enough Cricket left over from the mittens to make a hat, too. Now I just have to get past the planning stages and actually knit it!