Car Knitting, and Yes, I am Still Here

So yeah, it's been awhile. Travel, illness, sleep deprivation, and a mobile baby all add up to blog neglect, but we are still here, still knitting.

And I still haven't bought any yarn in 2012.

Speaking of travel, I needed something mindless to work on during a recent drive to New York City. I also discovered that I lack a plain, non-lacy, gray neck-thing in my wardrobe. I dug out my not-small stash of gray fingering weight yarn and chose a skein of Colorful Yarn Merino Sock that I'd purchased on a trip to Philadelphia years ago...let's just say Henry was still The Toddler and he was in a stroller when I went to this store.

I cast on for Nimbus, a part of this amazingly beautiful, simple collection of gray knits. I love gray. Have I mentioned that before? The pattern, once set up, is easy to memorize and perfect for the car. Off I went!

And off we went! I have one very enthusiastic City Mouse:

And someone who is undecided, but leaning toward Unimpressed Country Mouse:

Portraits

One of the reasons I wanted a DSLR was to take portraits of the kids. The 35mm lens that came with my camera is perfectly good for everyday use, but the aperture settings don't go down low enough to achieve the "bokeh" look that is popular now.  So with my Christmas money, I bought an inexpensive 50mm lens recommended by my family friend and wedding photographer and set out to experiment. We received a membership to the local Conservatory from my mother-in-law, which provided a great backdrop with natural light. I still need to work on white balance, but I think the composition is pretty decent, no?

 

Christmas Cables of Doom

Apparently I needed over a week off to recover from National Blog Posting Month.

The next time I chirpily announce that I am going to knit the children matchy-matchy outfits for Christmas, ask if me it is July. If it is past July, tell me it is too late for this year. The plan was to make coordinating vests (the Pembroke pattern from Petite Purls) in Christmas colors.

Originally I envisioned the children wearing these for artfully posed photos to send out as Christmas cards. At this rate, I will be lucky to get them done by Christmas day.I have almost the back of Henry's completed. This means I have the front, the finishing, and all of Michael's to go. Michael is real small, so that should go quickly, right? Right?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, so I took a day off from blogging, but it was a busy, bustling day.

I had intended for both kids to wear handknit vests to Thanksgiving, but they both had other plans. Henry has been experimenting with layered looks and ended up in this ensemble, which looked surprisingly hip.

Henry sang the "grace" for dinner that he'd learned that week in school:

Thank you for the food we eat.

Thank you for the world so sweet.

Thank you for the birds that sing.

Thank you for everything.

I Stuck the Other One in the Leaves, Too

Or rather, he stuck himself in the leaves.



Look! It's his Tomten, and it still fits!



These pictures are terribly over-exposed. I can't figure out how to set my camera on portrait AND turn off the flash. I need to suck it up and figure out how to shoot manually. I pinned some tutorials on Pinterest. If you know of any others that have helped you, I'd love to see them!

Too Many Hand-Knits on One Baby, Part 2

Really, the knitting can get out of hand. The adorable hat was made by my friend Karen. It's chilly this morning, so I stuffed Michael into his Baby Sophisticate as well, and tried to cover his kicking feet with his Zig Zag Pram Blanket.

Part One, in case you've forgotten, is his big brother five years ago:

That Darn Vest

After a complete restart and several time-outs, the Pepo Pie is finally completed! My little sartorialist requested a purple vest and declared this color on the Cascade 220 wall to be "perfect."

So, did you buy any yarn in Wyoming?

Yes. Yes, I did.

I have to admit, when you work at a LYS, especially with a boss as generous as Martha, it's easy to get very spoiled by the employee discount. If I am in Jackson, I try to buy something each year from Knit on Pearl because I like the shop and feel it's important to support local businesses. But the discount at home makes me extremely choosy, so what I buy elsewhere has to be special.

Fortunately, that's easy to do at Knit on Pearl. I chose my crack, Manos Silk Blend, in this new spumoni color way because Manos is produced by a women's collective and it's not something we carry at home.

I also picked up some Brown Sheep Lanaloft to make longs for the Butterbean. Brown Sheep is "semi-local" in Wyoming, located in the beautiful panhandle of Nebraska.

Finally, I chose some truly local yarn from Lucy's Sheep Camp, a few hours east of Jackson in Thermopolis. This is a gorgeous single ply bulky yarn that I think will be mittens.

I've been busy with the Butterbean, and now my oldest, the former Toddler, is off to kindergarten! I hope to get back into blogging as things settle down and am considering some blog redesign as well. I've been using Blogsy for the past few entries, and am loving the drag and drop features!

The Birthday Hat is still going strong

My "big baby" turned five (yes, FIVE, I can hardly believe it) yesterday, and of course we marked the day by the traditional wearing of the Birthday Hat.

See here for the Birthday Hat in years past.

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Finishing Frenzy

Recently, The Yarn Harlot wrote about contracting the most wished-for syndrome available to knitters, Finishitis, or the desire to clear out the cavalcade of UFOs from the knitting basket. I have to say, while I am not doing "spring cleaning" again, where I didn't cast on for a month, I am trying to clear the decks before the new baby comes. We'll call it the knitters' version of nesting.

I'm pleased to say that I have used stash yarn for its intended purpose. When I walked into the Brooks Farm booth last May at Maryland Sheep and Wool, I saw two skeins of their Solana that I thought would be perfect for a sweater for Henry. Solana is a heavy worsted superwash, that, amazingly, doesn't feel like a superwash. It has spring and bounce and energy, unlike so many superwash yarns.

After some questioning of the recipient ("Do you want this sweater to go over your head or button up the front?"), I cast on using Ann Norling's Top Down Sweater for Children. I can say without reservation that this is a terrible pattern, and I'm embarrassed, having recommended Ann Norling patterns for years to customers. I've knit others before with no problem, but this one is a dud. The proportions are completely off, and the sleeve directions in particular make absolutely no sense, and, in fact, are apt to make someone new to top-down construction or seamless knitting run screaming back to her pieced Debbie Bliss patterns. It makes the construction of the sweater much harder than it needs to be, and after I realized how screwy the pattern was, I simply knit a top-down sweater, thankful that I knew the basic principle.

I am not crazy about the flashing down the front, but the recipient actually likes it and asked to wear it to school the day after I finished it. So despite a shaky process, I call this project a success.

No Knitting at Disney World

I took a short knitting hiatus to go here:

I packed two projects to work on while we were there, but they saw precious little light of day. I was pleased that I got through airport security with my Addis, but when I pulled out my sock to work on while waiting to board the plane, a man across from me started grumbling loudly about how he couldn't believe that was allowed. He also said unkind things about Kate Middleton, so I gave him the stinkeye, but put my knitting away and got out my shiny new Kindle.

One of the projects I brought, I can't talk about yet, but the other is the first in an attempt to deal with my almost-SABLE sized sock yard stash. I joined the Year of Stash Socks group on Ravelry: each month, they choose two patterns or the option to knit a plain vanilla sock. The only rule is that the yarn must be from stash; no running out and buying more. I chose the plain vanilla option, using the Yarn Harlot's sock recipe. The yarn is Autumn House Specks that I bought on our visit to the farm last year.

Again, I don't know how far I'll get with a newborn in the house, but I figure at even my most sleep-deprived, I can manage plain vanilla socks. I hope.

In Praise of the Second Trimester...or How I Continue To *%_#_ Up My Knitting

So I've rediscovered that the first trimester of pregnancy, at least this pregnancy, is not conducive to knitting. It wasn't that the smell of wool or dye made me sick, or the motion of the knitting needles made me dizzy; it was just that the act of knitting, of picking up needles, moving the yarn around the needles, having to think about what I was doing, was absolutely exhausting. I would knit a row or two and put my needles down and sigh resignedly, like I was Beth on her deathbed in Little Women.

The second trimester is proving to be better -- even though this morning I find myself lurching about the house looking for something to eat like a zombie on The Walking Dead, even though I've already eaten a bowl of cereal, my Thai leftovers, and my son's Thai leftovers. Anyway, I felt so much better that I embarked on the Crazy Town that is Christmas Knitting. (If you haven't seen the video linked, please do so. It is funny because it is true.)

However, I am going to rue the day I made the decision to go to Crazy Town. For example, I intended to make these Fuzzy Feet for my father, and I thought I cleverly adapted the pattern to fit his wide, men's size 10.5 feet. See, here they are unfelted:

And here they are, felted. I don't have a picture showing the scale, but let's just say that my four-year-old has a new pair of slippers.

 

Remember kids: felting is an art and not a science. It's probably not a good idea to felt on a deadline, either. 

On a brighter note, at least the handknits from last year are being used and enjoyed, and even accessorized. 

Not too many finished objects around here....

...but there is one major WIP (work in progress), which accounts for my lack of productivity! Henry's Baby Brudder is due in May!

"Mom, you're a really good knitter"

For any mom who knits, this is music to her ears. The Tomten continues to be Henry's favorite sweater.

I love this Hipstamatic app that makes any crummy old cell phone picture look good!

Not that I'm bitter or anything

A customer and friend once asked, after looking at my Goodreads feed on Facebook, asked me how I have time to read so much and knit so much. Here's the secret: I neglect my child. No, seriously, and I don't know how this happened, but The Preschooler has always been remarkably self-entertaining. Right now, he's lined up his Toy Story figures on the windowsill to watch the landscapers and is having his Buzz Lightyear, Tickle Me Elmo, and two baby dolls act out this elaborate game based on something he saw on Dinosaur Train. I am not allowed to play. I know how lucky I am.

So, Summer of Socks and Lace. I lost. I'm okay with that. Really. Steven is a worthy competitor. I finished eighteen projects:

• Six shawls
• Nine pairs of socks
• One pair of baby booties
• One lacy baby cardigan
• One semi-lacy scarf
• 9539 yards total

My mistake? I knit from stash, which wasn't always Natural Stitches yarn, which counts for double.

I did, however, get through at least some of my Socks that Rock stash. I finished my Ten Shawls in 2010! Overall, it was a pretty good summer, knitting-wise. Now on to knitting something in plain stockinette!

The birthday hat lives!

The birthday hat: year four,
originally uploaded by bookscatsyarn.

I made this hat for Henry for his first birthday. It was a little large at the time, but little did I realize just how very large it has turned out to be. The hat is the Wooderson of knitwear: Henry keeps getting older and the hat stays the same size. All right.

Bowls

Like much of the knitting world, I've jumped on the yarn bowl bandwagon. You'd think that as the daughter of two potters, I would have been all over this a long time ago. But yet, although my mother and I have sketched out several prototypes, we've never gotten around to making one. The bowls I've been using aren't made by my mother nor are they Jennie the Potter models; they are a small tea bowl from Pottery Barn and a handmade bowl that The Preschooler chose at the Empty Bowls Chili Cookoff at the Braddock Library.

Imagine my surprise when I left the room for a minute and came back to this. Peek-a-boo!

Just because I'm not acting like a crazed weasel...

...doesn't mean I'm not thinking like one. I may not be casting on, but I sure do have the itch to start new projects.

Yesterday my mother came in to Natural Stitches with The Preschooler in tow. (And to those who were in the store, I'm so sorry if you weren't amused by Steven and a small child playing KABOOM! in the chunky yarn section. They are apparently BFFs now.) She'd asked me last year for a small black shawl, but we both agreed that we didn't want to do it in a "flat" solid black color. We'd originally planned on Socks that Rock Rauen, but when she saw my finished Hederas, she thought the color was too brown. After much consultation, she chose Madeline Tosh Sock in Oxblood for a small Shetland Triangle. It's a Mother's Day present. Surely I can cast on for a Mother's Day present?

A few weeks ago, my mother, mother-in-law, and I went to Phipps Conservatory to see the Spring Flower Show, where I fell in love with this color.

I've been thinking about making a "Wandering the Moors" shawl in this gorgeous Road to China Light for awhile, and when we got in this new pink colorway, it seemed like the perfect match to the flowers that had been dancing in my mind. The sheen and halo of the fiber seems appropriately textured while the dusty pink acts as a homage to the early Victorian sensibilities of Jane Eyre. But I'm not going to cast on.  Nope.

Then just this week, we got this new color of Dream in Color Smooshy in. I have pink on the brain. But no, I won't cast on. 

Happy Easter!

Henry did some modeling of finished projects for me today.

Kirsten Kapur's Pembroke Vest, from the original issue of Petite Purls. The vest is made from Brown Sheep Superwash.

Henry also offered to model my Olatz Shawl, made for Malabrigo March in Malabrigo Worsted in Sealing Wax.

However, I think my mother did a more accurate modeling job.

Twelve Years Ago Today...

My grandmother passed away, as she lost her second battle with cancer. She would have been ninety years old this year. My grandmother is the woman who taught me to knit when I was seven years old, so with every stitch I make, I hope, in my own way, that I honor her. She was a wonderfully accomplished knitter and had a gift with intarsia in particular. She knit for me, and I hope that when I knit for my son, I pass down some of her love to him.