Pink Parade!

I went a little crazy with the pink this Christmas season and decided to shower my little girl with pink knitted things:

First the Upside-Down Daisy hat from Susan B. Anderson Itty-Bitty Hats. It's a very popular pattern and I can see why! The knitting was easy but I didn't enjoy all the sewing on of the petals. Oh well, I cannot wait to see it my little pumpkin's head. So cute! And it's all wrapped up and under the tree. Shhh!

Then I decided that she'd have fun with a little scarf and I had just enough Baby Britches yarn to make a hat and scarf set. I figured, hey, it's cheap yarn, she can wear it on the playground and I won't stress out about it, whatever. But it ended up being one of the cutest things I've made yet, I think! The little white pom just slays me. (I didn't have enough of the pink yarn for the fringe, so I decided to use a white accent color. I think it was a great choice.) Once I wash it, it will be under the tree too!

And though it won't be in time for Christmas, but I'm getting some good work done on the Samantha Sweater by Kate Gilbert. It's a precious little things and I hope I can finish it before the pumpkin outgrows it. ;) These pics are from the back, which I recently finished. It's my very first sweater project and I'm nervous about doing seaming and hemming which will be new skills for me. But as the Yarn Harlot says, it's just knitting and there's none of it I can't do. OK!

Are You Sleeping?

Needless to say, I haven't updated in ages... I hit something of a Knitter's Block for a good while there. It all started with a friend's suggestion to read the Twilight books and I got so sucked into them that I left my knitting aside completely while I plowed through those blasted books. :) That really resurrected my love of reading and I've been trying to figure out how to read and knit at the same time. (Solution: I found a lovely little book holder that I used to use in grad school to hold open a book and keep my hands free to knit. I prop the book on a squishy pillow so I don't strain my neck. Voila!)


I've also decided that knitting with a deadline is Not Cool. In pushing myself to get four pairs of socks done in time for Christmas, I drained my enjoyment right out of those projects. Solution: start spending more time on the couch at the yarn store while The Pumpkin is at preschool (the environment is so inspiring!) and change out one sock project for something completely different because I am tired of socks for now. (I'm sure it's just a phase) I have succeeded in finally getting three pairs of socks ready for Santa to drop under the tree:

and MIL is going to get some cute little snowmen ornaments and her socks will just have to wait.

OK, so maybe I have been productive!

Ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?

No, because you can knit them with red toenails, silly.

I went to Susan B Anderson's blog today on a whim, and found out that she is going to be publishing a new book of toys! YAY!!! Her first book, Itty Bitty Hats is just amazing. It's like reading candy. I really cannot wait to see the new book. (Actually, I still need to see Itty Bitty Nursery, truth be told.) If her little knitted elephant is any indication, I think we're all in for a yummy treat! (Check out the Rav page for these elephants. Adorable. One person even took a photo of the elephant's bottom and it was the cutest thing.)

I finished my two-at-a-time toe-ups today. I have no pictures yet because I am ordering a pair of sock blockers from Knit Picks, as soon as I can call in my order. (Why must I call in my order when they have a perfectly good website? Because they don't have a perfectly good website, and I, like so many other knitters who want to give Knit Picks our moneys, can't get the checkout page to come up without sending up in a crazy loop back to the log in page. Grrr.) Once the much-desired sock blockers come in, I can take a picture that befits the beauty of the Queensland Collection wool. It's such a nice yarn and the variegations are so subtle and pleasing. In fact, of the four ladies using the yarn in my class, not a one got any pooling.

And while I decided I loved the yummy yarn I worked with on the sock, I have to say I did not enjoy the method. I like toe-up, mind you, but not so much the two-at-a-time. It certainly was satisfying to finish the entire pair at once and not have the Let Down That Is The Second Sock. But doing two at once is cumbersome. In my line of work (chasing after a 1.5-year-old), I need to be able to pick up and put down my knitting quickly before it gets yanked out of my hands and stuck in an electrical outlet, and with two socks hanging off the needles at once, the yarn get so tangled up that I have to spend five minuted arranging myself before I can dig in. No, not very practical for me, but as I said, I am so glad to have learned toe-upping and I will continue to explore that path. Maybe someday I'll be the crazy sock lady who knows every which way of doing every type of sock heel known to man. (And I'll still be cute, dagnabbit.)

Silver Bells and Cockel Shells...

... and pretty yarn all in a row!

I'm undertaking a major yarn-organization expedition. I want to be one of those people that the Yarn Harlot loves to hate: the people whose stash is all catalogued, who have swatches and notes lovingly placed in a notebook, whose yarn isn't stuffed into plastic bags and thrown on the floor in a pile.

I'm somewhere in between.

As anyone who has me friended on Ravelry will know, I've just uploaded a gigantic amount of stash info, so online at least, I am quite the organized bird. At home however... I think hurricane is an appropriate word. But that will be fixed! I purchased a little shelving system for the yarn, and it all is in piles--next to the shelves.

I had no idea I had so much yarn!

busy, busy!

I'm taking a class at my LYS about doing two socks at a time, toe-up. It's actually a very simple idea, doing two at a time: just use a longer cable (magic loop) and work from two balls of yarn. No prob. I've never done toe up before, so that's really where I'm learning. Our instructor taught us Turkish cast on which is crazy simple: just wrap the yarn around your needles then start knitting the wraps as if they were stitches! It's like I'm just flinging myself straight into a sock!

Here's the socks I've started:

I received a review on one of the baby hats I made this year. I unfortunately couldn't make the shower, but I sent the gift along with someone else and I hear it was a big hit!

I bet that the mommy-to-be would love the colors. I just wish I'd placed those darn stripes lower.

5 stars!

Well, I now have a review on the socks.

"Squishy."

OK! He said they are thicker than his usual socks (yeah) and that they have a little more squish to them, which is comfortable. Maybe I have a convert? He also said they were rather warm. And he was a good boy and showed them off at work. And Pumpkin has enjoyed running around the bedroom with "daddy's socks." All in all, a success.

More footwear, this time in the Baby Parade of 2008:
Cute, CUTE, CUUUTE little Saartjes for my friend's little boy due in September. I don't really enjoy knitting booties, I've decided. But the cuteness of these makes it worthwhile. It's the buttons.

The pattern was a little wonky at times, but once I finally was able to project the finished bootie in my head, I was able to figure it out. I had to knit a little on blind faith until then. I was going to do this set over again for another friend, but I don't think I have quite enough yarn for both hat and booties. That's OK, though, because this way each of my friends can get something different for their bambinos-to-be, which oddly enough, equalizes things.

Accio socks!

"Honey, what are you knitting?"

"[blah blah, whatever I'm knitting now]"

"You haven't knitted anything for me!"

[in my head:] "But what in the world would you actually wear that I could reasonably knit?"

Well, now I have! DH's socks are done and have turned out quite well. I have yet to receive an official report on how well they wear (because he hasn't had the chance to wear them yet) but they do fit him well. *phew!* And such a nice picture, to boot. He seems to like them. If he enjoys wearing them at all, I might even consider it a yearly anniversary tradition to make him a pair of socks. At any rate, he seems satisfied that I finally made something for him.

The yarn almost ran out on me. I need to figure this out. Poking around on Ravelry, I didn't see anyone else having trouble with this using this yarn. Why is this happening to me? Am I knitting at an impossible gauge? Is it because it's men's socks?

Well, in the future I need to do toe-up, two-at-a-time to avoid disaster. Good thing my LYS is planning some classes on this soon. That way, if I do run out, the ankle is a little shorter, but they're still socks. One toe-less sock would have just been silly.