*Gesu Bambino* and Startitis

OK, so I finished off the Barcelona socks yesterday [edited to add that that would be Saturday].

And then I cast on Firestarter in this yarn which Micki painted at Heritage Arts back in August and decided that she didn’t like, because it was too yellow.

So she *gave* it to me at Knit Night, rendering me [only momentarily] speechless.

I hate, loathe, and despise short row toes. So I did a Wendy toe-up ~ the one where you drop the slip stitch after the keeper stitches are established ~ and am ready to place markers for the cables that march up the sides of the foot.

And I found some crochet cotton for a provisional cast-on, so I am picking up stitches for Jeanie which I am trying in my Berroco Denim Silk. As it’s a 137-stitch cast-on, I am dropping in markers every ten stitches to minimize the counting. I may be OCD, but I have standards, people!

Which leaves us with the musical question, what to knit on at church? Jeanie and Firestarter both have charts, neither of which I have completely printed off. The Stripedy Sock needs to be frogged back half a dozen rows because I didn’t pick up all the stitches when I accidentally pulled the needles out, two weeks ago. I haven’t frogged the socks that the moths attacked, though they’re perfectly clean. But I think my friends at church might wig out [now there’s a 70’s expression for you!] if I took my needles and unpicked the toe and started knitting a scarf. So I think I’ll take the yarn that was leftover from making them and use it to make a start on a mitered square scarf.

[Later]
Which is exactly what I did. I knit and ripped, played and ripped, fiddled and ripped, and now I think I’m good to go. I’m working on the third repeat. It’s not ready for its closeup, Mr. DeMille.

I came home and finished picking up the 137 stitches for Jeanie, and cooked up a box of spinach with a block of ramen noodles for lunch. And then LittleBit called for me to come get her.

I made a second pot of ramen for her; she thinks spinach is yucky, which is fine because then I don’t have to share mine. She is now taking a nap, and I've listened to an archived podcast of Brenda Dayne’s and eaten my own ramen and dozed off bolt upright. So I think it would be a good idea for me to gather up the knitting stuff that I flung all over my bed while looking for the right needles for Jeanie, heat up my deer-corn bag for the back of my neck, check to see whether the thermostat is set for heat or A/C, and plug myself into the C-PAP for a short winter’s nap.

I don’t know what is going on across the fence at my old apartments, but it sounds like a whole lot of metal being banged around. Dueling backhoes? Dumpster volleyball? It can’t be anything too serious, as I don’t hear any F-bombs flying through the air.

I had hoped to whip up BittyBubba’s Christmas stocking after church today, but I just don’t have the oomph to dig through boxes until I find the fabric and batting and pattern. It’s all cut out, from when I made stockings for 1BDH and 2BDH and BittyBit. I know I cut them out for Lark and Willow, but I don’t remember if I ever stitched them up. And I couldn’t tell you if I made one for Middlest’s hubby.

Which reminds me that I need to send out an email to the tribe about this year’s gift exchange.

[Later still.]
I ended up with one of those five-hour naps that mean I will be up most of the night, then back down for a shorter nap just before the alarm goes off, so that I don’t fall asleep with my nose in my keyboard later today. For lo! And behold! It is now Monday.

Note to suburbancorrespondent: I googled and searched YouTube, but I wasn’t able to find a video of *Garth* singing “Much too Young”, though I did find several other folks covering the tune. It’s on his first CD [I typed “album” then went back and corrected myself]. Which a lot of critics think is his best, but their opinion and $4 will get you a hot cinnamon apple cider or whatever they’re calling it this year at the coffee place.

I have frogged The Stripedy Sock back to just before where the heel increases begin. I have knit two rounds on Firestarter. And I am so glad that I had made notes on Ravelry about how many rounds I had knitted above the toe increases before starting the heel increases. I knit 15 stitches on Jeanie before realizing that I really needed to eat that lunch that I was cooking, because it had been two hours since church ended, and my stomach was grumbling that my throat had been cut, and I was getting woozy.

I sent off the email to my girls about the gift exchange, and Middlest tactfully informed me that no, I had not made a stocking for her beloved. And sadly informed me that hers has apparently gone missing in one move or another. So, two more stockings on my honey-do list, but possibly postponed until next year.

I think with the admission that I now have **four** projects on the needles, we have thoroughly confirmed a case of Startitis. So we will move on to the topic of Gesu Bambino.

Saturday night was the Madrigal Dinner and Concert at the high school, a fundraiser for the choir program, which resembles a Hummer in terms of its ability to consume cash, but probably gives better mileage. LittleBit is not part of the Madrigal Singers. [There are thirteen choirs at her school. She is in the varsity choir and wanted to be in the show choir but didn’t make it, which in retrospect is probably a blessing but you couldn’t have convinced either of us at the time.]

But because she is a senior, she was informed that she would be participating. She and two other songbirds got to sing Gesu Bambino, which was not in my family’s musical tradition and which I first heard when Pavarotti recorded it umpteen years ago. And they were lovely, all dressed in full Renaissance garb and singing their hearts out.

LittleBit got to sing the part where the notes go on and on and onnnn [like Kenny Chesney’s love, only not]. Maternal prejudice aside, she was marvelous! I had goose-bumps all over, and tears in my eyes, and I kept sneaking peeks at HerBoy to see what he thought, but I don’t know him well enough yet to read him.

I am so glad that I didn’t pinch her head off after picking her up at the tattoo parlor the other night.