a custom in progress

I'm currently working on a pair of custom mixed longies. The mama sent me over 10 colorways and the challenge is to blend them together so that there aren't any big blocks of one colorway. I sent her progress pictures last night and she loves them! Her reaction is such a relief to me because there are a hundred different ways these longies could turn out, and I hoped my vision matched hers.

Here they are so far:

I'm hoping to have them done by this weekend. 12" inseams here I come!

reverse rice stitch cowl

Here's the back story for my cowl. This past August, something happened that made my husband feel badly for me. I honestly cannot remember what that something was. I'm going to guess he felt badly that I was sleep deprived and overwhelmed as a new mother of 3 because that was how I felt just about every day last summer (and now).

So, my husband came home from work with a beautiful skein of hand dyed alpaca yarn from a local farm. He had stopped at a farmer's market during the day and had bought me a little treat to make me feel better. If I'm remembering correctly, I believe he also brought me home some lobster, and at the time I was too embarrassed by his generosity to tell him that my parents had already taken me out for lobster earlier in the day. But I got over my embarrassment quickly and enjoyed the dinner he brought me.

On to the cowl: I wanted to make sure that I knit the yarn he gave me into something special. I spent some time looking online at different stitch patterns and came across the rice stitch. What I liked about rice stitch is that the right and wrong sides of the fabric are different but equally beautiful. I designed the cowl to be worn with either the right or wrong sides facing out. Either way will work. In all honesty, though, I find myself liking the "wrong" side of the cowl more.

This is one of the first knit items I've ever designed myself, and I'm really happy with the results. The picot edge was a last minute decision as I was binding off and I think it adds another layer of texture to the cowl.

The "wrong" side first:

The rice stitch:

I will post a pattern for the cowl as soon as I get it written up.

"make me something delicious"

My kids are tired. I don't know if it was the long weekend for Thanksgiving and the traveling and visiting with family, or whether it's something else entirely, but my kids looked like they were ready to fall asleep yesterday at 4pm. Neither of them has napped in years, so a nap was out of the question. Today, both girls were up much earlier than usual. So by the time I picked up my preschooler from school today, she was running on empty.

Her: "What are we having for lunch today?"
Me: "Turkey pie."
Her: "I hate turkey pie. That's not delicious."
Me: "OK, you can have peanut butter and jelly."
Her: "Why don't you make delicious meals? I want delicious meals."
Me: "We're going home now."
Her (standing just feet outside of the preschool with other children and parents around): "I'm not going home. You're annoying me."

I'd like to think that I responded in a way that means that she'll never talk to me that way again, but I know I didn't and I know she will. My daughter can be pretty sassy, especially when it comes time to eat. She informed me just last week that the meal I served her was "the most disgusting meal she'd ever had in her whole life" of just 3 and a half years.

So back to her being tired: she took a 3 hour nap today. That's unheard of for her. But now it's almost 10pm and she's still up. I knew that the few hours of quiet I had this afternoon would be paid back this evening.

I think that we've fallen into a pattern where even if I served donuts for dinner--one of her favorite foods that she gets only once every few months--she'd complain that they were disgusting.

So here I sit crocheting donuts for a custom order thinking it would be nice to have a real one right about now.