Mommysmarketplace’s Weblog

I have been married to Matt for 18 1/2 years. Before that, we dated for 4 years. I can’t imagine my life without him and I don’t want anybody but him. So while, monogamy in marriage is good, I find that monogamy in knitting is BORING! Currently, I have 6 knitting projects and 1 crochet project for my personal enjoyment. That doesn’t include the dishcloth I’m crocheting for my store or the new pattern that I’m working on. I enjoy having several things to work on so I can suit my mood. If I want mindless knitting, I’ve got that and if I want to think a little, well, I’ve got that too. Every so often, I get a hankering to finish my projects and then I might pick one and work on it alone for a while. Or, I’ll go through my projects and frog some if it’s clear that I’m never going to finish it. It works for me and I’m sticking to it.

I wanted to add that while I don’t subscribe to monogamous knitting, I really admire people that do.

Today was a pretty uneventful day.  I managed to get my son to the bus stop on time.  I also started swatching for a new sweater pattern.  I’m going to start with a doll size and see how it turns out.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture:

Today was my son’s first day back at school after spring break.  I had a hard time going to sleep last night so when the alarm on my phone went off, I meant to hit snooze not dismiss.  However, I hit dismiss.  I laid there in bed for what I thought were a few moments before getting up at 7:13 to hit the shower.  After I got out of the shower, Tyler yelled up to me that it was 7:51. Ooops, we had missed the bus.  I’m still not sure what happened but I think that I misread the clock when I got up.  I felt kinda off all day too.  I’d look at the clock and it would be later than I thought it should be.  Hopefully, tomorrow will go better.

This weekend my husband was out of town at some vintage motorcycle races.  So, I had a lot of knitting time.  However, while I had a lot of knitting time, I worked on so many projects that I didn’t get a whole lot done on any one thing.

So here are some pictures of what I worked on:

My son Tyler is on spring break this week.  So today, we went down the hill and did a little shopping.  Tyler got Star Wars figurines and I got a couple of knitting bags.  The bags I got are to organize my needles, hooks, etc.  I got a larger one at Joann’s for all my stuff and I got a smaller makeup type bag to take with me when I’m out and about.

I’ve had this insane urge to knit/crochet my way through my yarn stash so I didn’t buy any yarn.  I have been doing some knitting though:

I’ve also had the problem of what to do  with my yarn needles so I don’t loose them.  So, I knit up this and it seems to do the trick:

I have been baking chocolate chip cookies for a long time.  I’ve gotten tons of compliments on them over the years.  Recently, I bought a Cuisinart stand mixer.  While I was reading through the manual, it said not to soften the butter/margarine in the microwave as this could effect the texture of the baked item.  Hmmm, I’ve been doing this for years when I make my cookies.  So, for the next couple of batches, I softened the margarine by letting it sit out.  Big mistake!  I was very unhappy with the taste and texture of my cookies.   Today, I did it the way I always have and they were very yummy

I’ve done this before with knitting and crocheting too.  I’ve been shopping for yarn before and have had little old ladies telling me not to use this type of yarn for whatever reason.  I have found that when I listen to others opinions on how to do something that I’ve been doing for a long time, I’m very rarely happy with the results.  The lesson in all this?  Trust my instincts and knowledge.  I’ve been baking cookies for a long time, as well as crocheting so I think that I’ve learned something along the way.  However, that’s not an excuse to be cocky or a know it all.  The key is to learn when a new or different way might be better and when to stick to the tried and true.

I wrote up the pattern for the placemats that I recently made for my kitchen.  Last week, we had company visit and I realized that I didn’t have any placemats.  So, I came up with an easy, quick pattern for them and was very happy with the results.