Birthday Month!

Hey Flan (who is probably knee deep in committee),

Happy Birthday to The Sister!!! My one and only darling sister is celebrating her birthday today. Well, we're all celebrating, just not all together. Her plans for the day, 1: do not go to work, 2: go to the spa, 3: buy shoes. I've taught her well.

Here's a picture of my lovely sister. (If my future BIL is reading- this is NOT her W dress, which is, as we have explained ad nauseum, bright purple with feathers)It's been awhile since I regaled you with any mention or photo of my utterly delightful niece, LittleBabyGirl. So neglectful of me as her doting auntie, but on the other hand, I'm not entirely sure that The Brother really wants that many pictures of his darling daughter all over the internet, so I'll try to be selective.Isn't she adorable?!?!?! Of course she is. Happy sigh.

Knitting update. Gracie chose either option 1 or 3. I had both patterns and yarns all ready to go so not a moment would be lost when the decision was rendered. I chose the third option, pulled out the Jaeger Siena and was off. Actually, I turned out to be off pattern and not off to the races. The deceptively simple 4 row repeat soundly kicked my arse and after three separate start-overs, I declared it "not meant to be". Three strikes and you're on permanent time out.

I pulled out the yarn for Option 1 (which turns out to be "Lyndon Hill" and not "Bristol". Memory, it seems, really is the first thing to go). I was delighted by the discovery as I think the Pima Cotton/ Silk blend will be much better suited for a late July baby than one of alpaca/ silk. The pattern is as heavenly as the yarn and, by repeat count I am 1/3 of the way through!

YAY!

Hey Flan,

Sorry for "going dark" like that with no warning. It's been a busy couple of months adjusting to being back in my beloved Pacific Northwest.

Now, for some truly exciting news- Gracie's having a boy! She has asked me to make the baby blanket and I had 5 options- two for girls and three for boys, more for the boys because that's what I was predicting she'd have. I've sent the choices to her and she'll pick whenever she leaves the doctor's office, runs around and finds all things blue, gets home, has a nap and then finally checks her email.

Here are the three that I had picked:
1. An "Ostrich Plume" from one of the Vogue Knitting to go Baby Blanket books. The yarn would be the sumptuous "Bristol"- a delightful alpaca silk blend.2. I have been dying to make this cabled baby blanket of Debbie Bliss' ever since I first saw the pattern years ago. Inconveniently, everyone's had girls and the Rowan yarn I have that would be perfect is blue. Maybe it'll finally get it's chance!

3. Lastly, the "Heirloom Silk Shawl" from Erika Knight's "Baby Bloom"- though I think it's in "Knitting for Two" as well. There's a truly beautiful Jaeger mercerized cotton in a pewter blue which would be so nice.
So who knows what she'll pick. I'm excited about knitting any of them and am really honored she'd ask me to make her son's baby blanket. I have been trying hard to stave off startitis, having what I feel is far too many WIPs (as always), but knitting for babies doesn't count, so I can cast on just as many things as my little heart and big old stash desires. Happy sigh.

Charlotte

Kathleen-
Aubree of Knit Night and the previous baby shower, had a beautiful baby girl 3 weeks ago (3 weeks ago today, actually). So in honor of having seen Aubree almost every week of her pregnancy, and the Baby Blanket, C has to be for beautiful Charlotte. Tonight Charlotte came to Knit Night for the first time (or at least the first time not in utero), and slept through the whole thing.


And yes, she is wearing the Baby Surprise Jacket I made her (I'm so proud!!)


Her accomplished knitter of a mother placed knitting needles in her hands...
And she grabbed on like she was born to....which of course, she was!
And see those cute booties knit by a great-aunt?


Aubree and Charlotte at their first post-birth Knit Night!

So C is for Charlotte....a baby truly wrapped in the love of handknits.

Befuddled

Hey Flan,

So it's Mardi Gras weekend! That means, for citizens of two US cities (ours, the one where Mardi Gras started, and the other one who borrowed it and made it famous), there are two days with no work (!) following two weeks of parades, balls, coronations, etc. Today is Joe Caine Day. Mr. Caine was the man who restarted Mardi Gras following the Waw-uh (The War of Northern Aggression if you're on this side of the line) and today is dedicated to him- and I heard something about a football game happening but didn't really pay attention.

Instead, my attention has been extremely focused and a gaping anomaly. Ok, when trying to find a top down sweater pattern (btw: big shout out to Shelly who recommended the Barbara Walker book! It's on order and hasn't yet arrived, so that project is on hold, but rescued from permanent hold by her excellent suggestion) there were only patterns in parts to be found.

HOWEVER, when trying to find seaming and blocking methods to use for The PPC (Princess Pram Cover) it seems that ALL blankets/ afghans EVERYWHERE were worked in one piece.

Does anyone ELSE see that disparity?

Sweaters only come in parts, but blankets only come in single bits.

My main findings; block first (check) then mattress stitch (nu-uh- don't wanna). Firstly, I'd like to say that I love the mattress stitch. Absolutely love it. Fantastic for all those sweaters in pieces of nice stockinette that need to be fashioned into one. However, I find that it makes the reverse ugly. Not bad when your tummy and shoulders are the witnesses to the ugly as is the case with a sweater, but not good when anyone (including the infant recipient) could just turn the blanket OVER.

HENCE, a better method is sought and not yet found. I decided that maybe the secret lies in the blocking and I'm going to try it again just for fun. THEN I'm going to call in the Knit Night reinforcements.

Tomorrow: GUMBO and 'nana puddin'. I make ONE pot of Gumbo per year. It takes ALL afternoon and, in my decidedly non Southern opinion, is not very delicious. However, The Hubby likes it and I make it for him.

19 Day Victory

Hey Flan,





Sorry it's been awhile since I posted, but I really wanted something exciting to talk about. As of yesterday afternoon, The Sampler Baby Blanket is FINISHED!! 19 Days after beginning (the second time) it is DONE! There was one person out there who openly questioned whether a baby blanket I began in January would be finished in 4 1/2 months and to you I say "HA!".





What to do when finished with one baby blanket? Start another of course. After hours and hours (and hours) on ravelry, I found this:

It's honestly called a "Princess Pram Cover". How could you not love something with that name?! There's a free pattern for it too. I pulled out the formerly rejected DB cotton angora and cast on. You make little squares triangularly starting with the stem and then put them all together. After finishing one I pulled out my handy dandy kitchen scale and weighed the square and the remaining part of the ball. As always, I'm concerned about running out of yarn. Instead of doing two big squares by three big squares I think I'm just going to do a 2x2 square, all finished with an edging from the Nicky Epstein book. I'm so smitten.

High on the completion of the 19 day blanket, I picked up my Kw/oT, a favorite sweater I would like to replicate and swatched my little heart out. I discovered that a US 3 and US4 are only 0.25mm different and no wonder I wasn't getting a different gauge. I love many things about the brilliance of the seamless sweater, but I really really like to do sweaters top down and am thus trying to reverse engineer directions for how to make that happen.

It made my brain hurt. A lot.

I even considered purchasing sweater designing software until I realized it's not in the budget and that people have been making sweaters for centuries without it and it can't really be that difficult. The main problem I'm finding is that none of the "ready made" sweater patterns are in a small enough gauge. Many hours of odd diagrams and scribbling later, I decided to go to bed and rest the brain- though I did put some books on hold at the library and I'm hoping those will give me a hand.

Hope your weekend is going well.

Plans

Hey Flan,

I'm so impressed with not only your mega hiking but also the fantastic baby shower!

The Baby Blanket continues- at least a reincarnation of one. I was working away with the DB cotton angora and the yarn, the pattern and I were not getting along. All reviews of this yarn say that it fluffs angora like crazy. I think I may have gotten an odd batch or something because there is really no fluffing happening- it is way over plied so that might have something to do with it.

Plan A morphed in to Plan B. What to do when the yarn doesn't work? Get new yarn. I went back to the stash (being on the yarn diet and all) and pulled out some organic cotton yarn I'd gotten from elann awhile ago. Originally, this yarn was going to be used for a sweater for The Mommy, but it quickly got repurposed. Now, the new yarn is rocking the old pattern and everyone, especially the knitter, is very happy.

However, you know how I like to have plans for all of the yarn in my stash, so what to do with the DB?? Embroider that bad boy. Yup, you heard me, with sewing. I decided that the garter and stockinette bits of Plan A looked much better than the pattern bits. Then I remembered that I had seen a cotton bag with some beautiful embroidery in one of the Debbie Bliss books. Off to the local library and the internet to do some serious embroidery research. Have become solidly convinced that most of the embroidery/ needlecrafts available are complete crap, but a small margin might be worthy to grace my knitting. New plan: make a plain stockinette baby blanket with garter edging and embroider it with pretty flowers. It could happen- maybe.

The realization that babies in utero probably won't wait until proper embroidery skills are acquired and then baby blanket be knit before arriving into this world means that the DB baby blanket probably won't be done in time for this particular child was shocking. The fact that I realized it before attempting this feat shows progress I think.

So... for the time being I am trucking right along on the cream cotton baby blanket and am 23% done. One week ago it didn't exist, so am feeling pretty good about that. The fact that 23% got done in one week and the laundry and dishes didn't might not be too impressive to The Hubby but at least he knows by now not to comment.

Hope your week is going well too.

Surprise!

Kathleen-
So we've spent months plotting a baby shower for Aubree (technically due at the end of the month, but she's full term). And tonight was the night. Aubree knew we were doing a little thing, but not about the extra surprise we had in store.

In the past few months, 14 knitters knit sections of the Circle of Friends Blanket. At knit night, pieces would be slipped in my bag when her head was turned, or handed off surreptitiously in the coffee shop next door. This weekend, I seamed. And seamed. And wove in ends. And more ends.

The finished project was so worth it!



There were, of course, other knitted gifts. An adorable (matching!) hat.

An ruffly pink hat:
The Baby Surprise Jacket I knit earlier in the year:
An an adorable sewn sleeper gown.

So now the baby is properly outfitted, she can arrive!

Right Aubree?


Coming up in my next post: our Grand Canyon trip in pictures. And: New Knitting Priority List.

Too Early to Be Awake

Hey Flan,

For some reason that will remain unknown forever, I woke up at 5:37 on a Saturday morning. During the week when there are such horrors as going to the gym I will occasionally be awake during the ungodly hour of 5 am but this should never ever occur during the sanctity of a Saturday. After it became sadly obvious that I would not be sleeping any more I decided to get up and negotiate with my camera so that I could have photos in the post.

Alas, now am I not only awake far too early, I can't find the camera connecty bit. The Hubby rearranged the computer stuff not too long ago and seems to have disappeared the connecty bit. Naturally, he is asleep and it just seems wrong that more than one of us should have to be awake right now.

The "no it isn't" baby blanket is finished! Ends woven in and blocked and everything. I love it. The Hubby loves it. I was showing it off and he was loving it and then he asked, "um, how much do you like the person you were going to give it to? 'Cause if you don't like her that much, um, I'd be happy to use it." I informed him that, although I don't know the intended recipient all that well I know and like her mother quite a bit, so he couldn't have it. I will show off pictures in November when it is gifted at the baby shower. The pattern was very fun to knit and anything on 9s goes pretty fast and I love Cascade Sierra, so I told him I would make him a "grown up" one... at some point.

After basking in the glow of a FO I managed to get through a whole 2 rows of Clue 2. So far so good.

Last night, before waking up at a truly absurd time, I dreamt about the fair isle hat from brooklyn tweed. Somehow in the dream I had knit the entire thing in an afternoon or some craziness like that but had neglected to do the lining and was freaking out. Sleeping can be so stressful. Now the question is: should I start the hat? Was the dream a warning against fair isle? Is it the universe telling me I learned nothing from my aspartame hangover last Thursday and punishing me for having a diet drink yesterday? I'm voting for the latter and going to try and find some water.

Slowly Mysterious

Hey Flan,

Have you read Stephanie today? She's joined the Mystery Stole too! I so excited that the Harlot herself is doing the same project as we are. However, there was something that made me a little shocked and a bit surprised all at the same time. The person Stephanie was referencing said that the first clue took only ONE AFTERNOON to complete. Who is this woman and how fast is it that she knits??!! Good grief.

That was a big ol' slice of humble pie. It took me 2 tries and 4 days to do the first little bit. I have to have almost complete silence and go very very slowly in order for it to come out remotely close to correct. I feel like I'm on a track for "special" lace knitters and should just sit quietly on the sidelines (muttering "yarn over, knit two together" to myself) and watch all those fast people speed past.

[Sidenote: I wish people would refrain from posting finished pictures until the next clue comes out. It seems to spoil the mystery.]

The only consolation at all is that I am getting blessedly closer to the end of the "no it isn't " baby blanket. I was stuck in the black hole of having something 1/2-2/3 done and no matter how much you knit it doesn't seem to make a difference. I watched a Miss Marple and refused to let myself knit on anything else. I think it's about 3/4 the way done and am extraordinarily relieved.

A new clue comes out tomorrow and I really hope it's the slow tortoises among us who will faithfully plod along and actually finish. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself while everyone finishes it before I have a chance to click "print".

Recombobulated

Hey Flan,

For some reason last week was especially crazy and, although the weekend will probably be just as nutty, at least I don't have to go to work. The Hubby and I actually took ourselves out on a date last night and had a fabulous time. Sometimes I forget how much fun I have spending time with my husband and it's always nice to be reminded.

How is your mystery stole coming? I gave myself a certain number of rows for "homework" each day. I think I got to row 34 or so yesterday and am very excited about today's section. While I was working on it I was thinking about what on earth I'm going to do when it's done. Then I remembered that The Mommy's Mom is having her 90th birthday in September. (She's the one that doesn't want to get older than 80, so we've had her 80th birthday every year since.) I probably won't be able to go, but I could send her a hug in the form of a knitted stole. She probably won't wear it, but I think she'd like to have it.

I've also been working on a baby blanket. It's sage green and turning out just fine if I do say so myself. I happened to have it at work yesterday and was showing it to my co-workers. One of them loved it. The other one thinks I'm even more nuts than she did before. She first asked me what on earth that thing was, and when I said it was a baby blanket she flat out disagreed. It wasn't in the proper colors- blue, pink or anything found in rainbow sherbet. I tried to tell her that the expectant mother is a hippy chick that wants browns and greens. My co-worker just doesn't agree and claimed that the future child will be quite upset when they grow up to find out that their mother didn't give them only baby blankets in "proper colors". Somehow I think this future child will be a bit more grounded that than, but you never know, I might be the subject of future therapy sessions as the woman who knit the wrong color of blanket.

Gracie and I are headed to the Farmer's Market this morning. Last we we each bought watermelons and had to schlep them a very long way back to the car. Maybe this week we'll stick with lettuce and other light things.

P.S. (Two hours later) The Mystery Stole and I are currently not speaking. I knit a row and thought I had was one short, but re-counted and thought I was ok, until I knit the next row and still was one short. I then TINKED back to the "lifeline" (what a joke) where I left off last night and SOMEHOW I have one too many! We're on an official time out and I think this is knitting that must be done in tranquil silence, only punctuated by my murmuring, "knit 3, yarn over, k2tog..." and rocking.

"Grab a Jacket...

... the high is supposed to be only 58* today"- actual quotation from this morning's public radio weather forecast.

Hi Flan,

I hope your father's recovery continues to go well.

The yarn arrived yesterday! "UPS tracking" was almost classified as an official sport after the amount of time I spent clicking the "track now" button. The (long suffering) Hubby had to endure 2 hours of me asking "where's my yarn" in 5 minute increments. It has arrived and is beautiful and all is well. I was a bit surprised when I pulled out the gi-normous cone of yarn and was a bit befuddled as to what to do next. Aafter realizing that the entire two pound cone would not fit on the ball winder and would thus have to be cut into smaller pieces, I skeined, tied, washed in Dawn and then in Eucalan and took over the bathroom as the yarn drying area. I wanted to make all the skeins about the same size, so the winding and then counting each one took awhile. I'm not completely done, but 3 1/2 hours of sitting on the floor pulling yarn off a cone took it's toll and my back hurts. It's almost dry but I think it needs one more washing just for fun.

Yesterday while awaiting the arrival of my yarn I experienced a fit of start-itis. The Mommy's socks are going well, but I had started them the day before so needed something new. I had read part of EZ's Knitter's Workshop during lunch and was completely entranced by her pattern for a baby blanket. It's utterly brilliant. While in WA visiting last April I picked up an obscene amount of pink baby yarn. It's from Austrailia and called "Heirloom". Machine washable and wonderful in many ways. The only place I have ever seen it is the Wool Station (sadly website-less). I had purchased enough for a baby blanket in garter stitch. I don't know exactly why I felt that I would realistically knit a 30" square blanket on size 3s, but I purchased the yarn nonetheless. Casting aside all fears, I cast on and after a grand total of 3 rows I'm loving it. I have decided to keep it in the car for some entertainment. The pattern is completely stress free and there is no time limit. Pretty much the perfect mindless knitting.

The Hubby is going camping as part of one of his class requirements this weekend. I'm planning on a fantastic weekend of watching DVDs and knitting. Hope your weekend goes well.