An Actual Post With Actual FO's

What do you do when the Shout Gel (a nursery necessity) tends to live, unsafely, on the edge of the crib because it's close to the hamper there?


You knit it a little hammock, of course!


Problem solved.

Okay, well that's a fairly lame FO, but its creation was something of a revelation because I knit about half of it while nursing the baby.

It helped me realize that given the right type of project (small, mostly mindless, ideally on circulars) I could knit while feeding the babe. This got me all excited and itching to knit. But, alas, none of my current projects (I really need to do a wip post) fit the bill. Well, gee, I just had to start up a new project then, didn't I?

I cast on the Easy Baby Cardigan using some Misti International Pima Cotton/Silk. I'm really pleased with it. I used YO's to increase at the raglan lines. I also added an eyelet row on the cuffs and hem, which was an idea I completely ripped off from someone on Ravelry.


It's currently big on her, which is what I wanted. But not so big that she can't model it.

(Lying on my back on the floor holding the camera while Minnie is sitting on my tummy.)

Unfortunately, my knitting while nursing came to an end while working on this sweater. My poor girl has developed painful reflux. She's always been a big spitter upper, but now it really hurts her. To try to ease her discomfort, I've changed her feeding position and I'm no longer hands free while nursing. It's a no-brainer decision, of course, because the new position does help a bit. The meds (prevacid) and time will take care of the rest.

Take care until next time.

One Week

My official due date is one week from today.

I suspect this baby will come sometime after her due date, but the reality that it could actually happen at any moment is starting to sink in. I have such a weird mixture of feelings. I'm getting pretty uncomfortable and I'm tired darn near all the time. So in that respect, I'm really looking forward to once again being the sole occupant of this body. But at the same time, I feel like I've finally got pregnancy figured out. I've been doing pregnant for nine months, what's a few more weeks? Parenthood, however, there's a whole new challenge! Early in the pregnancy, I worried that I would somehow fail at being pregnant, that I wouldn't do a good enough job of growing the baby. After all this time, I finally feel pretty confident in my ability to take care of this child while she inside me. Now I'm worrying about my ability to take care of her in the big, scary, outside world.

A mom friend of mine said to me that the fear is a good sign. That if I wasn't afraid, then she'd be worried. I suppose you can't help but worry about the ones you love. And when they are tiny, innocent and helpless isn't it just magnified?

So what's a knitter to do? Knit!

I whipped up this little baby sweater on the fly. After making the baby zombies, I wanted more instant gratification baby knits. I hadn't yet made a sweater for Minnie and was gripped by the urge. I wanted it to be colorful and I wanted to use stash yarn. I dug out some left over Araucania Nature Cotton I'd used years ago and cast on. I knit it as a bottom up, seamless cardigan in about two days. The ties are crocheted chains.

Colorful, instant gratification mission accomplished.

Time Off for Good Behavior

As a thank you for using him on the sale and purchase of our houses, our real estate agent gave us a two night stay at the Montage in Laguna Beach. Holy crap, you guys, this place was sa-weeet!

Our balcony

The view from our balcony

We went down on Thursday and came back Saturday. It was a heavenly little getaway for Chris and me. We soaked up enjoying a last vacation as just a twosome.

It's about a one hour drive away. But we had these nightmare visions of me going into labor and us being stuck on the freeway in rush hour traffic for, like, four hours, trying to get back to our hospital here in LA. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

The service was absolutely outstanding. Every single hotel employee we ran into was extremely friendly and helpful. Upon check-in, they brought us complimentary champagne. When they saw that I'm pregnant, they came back with sparkling cider.

Of course, I was knitting. The Sock Madness round two pattern had been released on Monday. I had gotten in some good knitting time on Monday, but not as much on Tuesday and Wednesday. On the drive down to Laguna, I was working on the leg of the second sock. By the time we got there, I didn't have a whole lot of energy for much more than sitting on our balcony. So I knit while enjoying the view, the sound of the ocean, the smell of the sea air mixed with flowers... it was wonderful.


As the sun began to set, we saw little bunnies come out on the grass. There were tons of them. They're probably the scourge of the grounds keepers, but to us they were completely adorable.



After a delicious room service breakfast on Friday morning, Chris and I went out exploring the grounds and took a short walk on the beach. It was too chilly for our delicate SoCal constitutions to entertain going in the ocean or pool, though there were people doing just that. Instead, we walked around bundled in sweaters and enjoyed holding hands and hugging for warmth.







I did not bring the sock on our excursion. I didn't even think about it, we were having such a good time. Until lunch. While having a lovely meal at the pool side grill (even this place was pretty schmancy), curiosity began to creep in. Using Chris' iPhone, I checked the standings and saw there were only five slots still open in my division. A competitive fire was re-lit within me.

We returned to our room and I basically spent the rest of the day working on the sock. It was actually perfect, as my energy was quite low by then anyway. Plus, after the baby comes, long stretches of uninterrupted knitting time will be hard to come by.

When I finished the sock, Chris took a picture with his phone and e mailed it to me. I then went down the the hotel's business center and got the picture up on Flickr and sent off my finished e mail to the Sock Madness Mistresses. Phew!

It's quite a cool pair of socks. The pattern is called Reversai because the socks are completely reversible. (It's currently only available to participants of Sock Madness, but I believe the designer will be offering it for sale later.) We had been told the test knit sock was made using Socks That Rock Lightweight. I've never knit STR Lightweight, but I do have some in my stash and I was planning on using it. However, when I saw the pattern started "Cast On 72 stitches...," I knew the STR would make a sock too big for me. So I used some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (Glenwood colorway) and size 0 needles, instead. Now, 72 stitches of Lorna's Laces on size 0 needles with a knit/purl pattern is slow going for me. But the effort paid off, because I'm quite happy with the results.

I doubt I'll ever make these socks exactly to pattern again, but I can definitely see a modified version in the future. I think the charted pattern in a solid or semi-solid darkish colorway would make very handsome man socks. I'd probably do a flap heel and stockinette foot instead of the garter stitch short row heel and foot. I will say, of the garter stitch short row heel, that it was the least troublesome short row heel I've ever worked. I usually get quite frustrated with holes in short row heels, but the garter stitch is very forgiving.

Working the garter stitch foot was kind of annoying, but I'm wearing the socks right now and I'm happy to report, they're very cushy and soft. This is one of the things I really like about Sock Madness. It forces you to knit patterns you might ordinarily pass right over. In doing so, you may find that you really like a technique or design element you wouldn't have considered appealing otherwise.


Plus, you get a new pair of socks in about five days.

When The Zombies Come

Sock Madness 2 has started and it's just as much fun as last year! The first pattern, Zombie Socks, was released Thursday 3/13 and the race was on.

I had told myself that I would not knit at the same all-out frantic pace of last year and I stuck to that - a bit. I allowed myself plenty of breaks but they wound up being only for the essentials (eating, showering, sleeping, walks, watching Lost on TiVo, a childbirth class and, of course, checking everybody else's progress). It's such a fun pattern, it really lends itself to long knitting sessions. Plus, it's easy for me to rationalize that I need to keep my feet up these days, so knitting on the couch for hours and hours is really the wisest thing for me to be doing. Right?

I finished the first sock Friday night (or was it Saturday morning? Wow, totally can't remember. Clearly, the Zombies have eaten what was left of my already diminished pregnancy brain.)

It felt like the second sock went even faster than the first. (I often feel that way, actually. I think it's why I don't much succumb to second sock syndrome.) I had the pair finished on Sunday. It was a fast enough finish that I have cleared round one.


I used Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Solids in Nantucket Red and my trusty 2.25mm aluminum dpn's.

It was such a fun pattern that after finishing my adult sized pair, I made a baby pair.

Aaarrgghhh....the zombies are multiplying!

I don't know how much longer I'll be able to remain in the competition, but I sure am having fun right now. Gotta love the madness!

I also want to say I think it's really cool that this pattern (currently only available to those participating in Sock Madness) made it to the top five most active patterns on Ravelry. By the way, it appears that this will become a free pattern available to all sometime in May. So if you like the looks of it and you're not a sock madnesser, hang in there, it can be yours pretty soon.

I feel like I've been a bad blogger again. I've got lots of things to catch up on. I'll save them for other posts, but I'll try to be a little more frequent with posting, at least for the next few weeks. After the baby comes, though, I hope you'll understand things might get even more sporadic than they have been.

Update-o-rama

My Oblique is all done except for buttons! Even without the buttons, I love it and wear it all the time. As soon as I make a run to my favorite button place and get those suckers attached, I'll take and post pictures.

In the meantime, I've started a Hemlock Ring Blanket in some white Cashsoft DK to use as a baby blanket for Minnie Purl.

Doesn't look like much right now, but it'll get there.

I also made the adorable Baby Bonnet from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. This is not for Minnie Purl, but for a sweet baby girl recently born to some of our neighbors.


The white is Cashmerino Aran and the peachy pink is Classic Elite Lush.

It really is a very fast, fun knit. It would have been faster, too, had I not ripped and re-knit various parts of it. I ripped not because I made any mistakes. I was doing everything the pattern told me. I was simply doing it very badly. Things improved on the second pass.

I am going to make one of these for Minnie. But next time, I'm going to omit the garter stitch selvage. If having a garter selvage helps you sew seams or pick up stitches, then by all means do it. But I'm more accustomed to sewing seams and picking up stitches in stockinette, so I found the garter slowed me down.

Finally, I have some very good news to share. We have buyers for our house and we're in escrow! We've actually been in escrow since before Christmas, but I didn't want to say anything until the contingencies had been removed. After haggling over credits, we've come to an agreement and everything is going forward. PHEW! It is a buyer's market, so we didn't get the price we really wanted, but we did get more than our "rock-bottom" price, so we're happy. And it's such a relief to have it sold. We move into the new house in just a few weeks!

FO: Presto Changos

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For my first post of 2008, I'm going to talk about some 2007 knitting I somehow failed to blog until now.

Over the summer, I became quite enchanted with Valerie's wonderful Presto Chango pattern. I went on something of a jag, actually.

The top left one was knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton in Nut. The middle right one was knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton in Stone. The bottom left one was knit in Suss Bomull in Raisin.

I made an alternate front panel for both the Stone colored one and the Raisin one. However, I only seem to have a picture of the Raisin one, where I used a fish scale lace pattern.

The extra panel for the Stone one was an interlocking, diamond chain, lace pattern. You'll just have to take my word for it that it came out very well. Actually, I liked it even better than the fish scale lace.

I fully intended to make another panel for the Nut colored one, but I got slammed with morning sickness and never got around to it. I never even gave the sweater as a gift. Now, judging by the picture of the baby on the family's Christmas card, he'll be too big for it. Whoops!

Since I still have that one, the originally planned recipient's loss will someday be the gain of another baby. Maybe even my own Minnie Purl, though probably not. I say probably not, because I plan to make her a Presto Chango out of some Teal colored Suss Bomull and really cute silverish buttons with little cutout hearts.

The Suss Bomull was an excellent yarn substitution, by the way. It's not as soft as the Blue Sky yarn, but it seems super durable and has a very crisp look with great stitch definition. I think that's because it's 4 ply compared to Blue Sky's 2 ply. The spinners out there who are much wiser on this stuff than I, can confirm or correct me on this point.

All three of these were made in the smallest size. The only modification I made, was on the Raisin one. When it came time to cast on stitches for the sleeves, I used a provisional cast on. Later, instead of binding off the sleeve stitches, I put them on waste yarn. This meant I was able to graft the stitches together for a seamless sleeve. I really liked the way it came out and will use that modification again in the future.

This is a wonderful pattern. It's a very fun, satisfying knit. And it impressed the hell out of the other guests at the baby showers. In addition to the always-fun-to-hear "you made that?!?", people were blown away by the cleverness and practicality of the design. Interchangeable front panels -- a genius way to deal with baby spit up down the front of a sweater. Well done, Valerie. Thank you for the spectacular pattern.

FO: Fetching Mitts

These are not sleeves.

These are three pairs of Fetching mitts.


Posed by the chimney with care.


I know I said I wasn't going to do any Christmas knitting (other than one, single sock for my Mom, which I did finish, by the way.) But sleeve procrastination, remembering three people on my gift list, finding the perfect yarn in my stash, and an unwillingness to battle the mall led me to knit these.

They're all knit in Karabella Aurora 8 Space-Dyed. This brownish pair is color 14. I worked a purl bind off instead of the picot bind off, just 'cause. Otherwise, I followed the pattern exactly.


The next two pairs are color 7. On this one, I worked a regular knit bind off.


I knit the last pair on slightly bigger needles for a roomier fit, added an extra cable row above the thumb and then worked a decrease bind off (K2TOG tbl, put stitch back on left needle and repeat). I might like that bind off the best for these, but it didn't come out the way it looked in my Vogue Knitting. Oh well.

If this post seems a little rushed and loopy it's because I am. We leave for the airport in a few hours. I still need to shower, call the cab, finish packing, etc. Meanwhile, my stupid alarm clock has decided that it will go off at 6:09am, regardless of what time you actually set it for. So I'm up earlier than I wanted to be.

But I am glad to be able to get this post up. And most of all, I'm very glad to be able to wish you all wonderful, safe, happy Holidays!!

FO: Mama Mouse

Due to my first trimester blog hiatus, I never told you guys that I went to England. In October, my grandmother (who lives in Bournemouth) had her 90th birthday. My mom threw a big party and the whole family gathered from far and wide to celebrate.

Gaggy, as I call my grandma, said she didn't want any presents. She's 90. She lives in a fairly small flat. She pretty much has all the stuff she needs. So while I can totally understand her request not to acquire more things, I figured a small, hand knit gift from her granddaughter would be acceptable anyway.

I happen to know that my grandma has a weakness for small, cute, fluffy toys. She has a whole teddy bear collection, several piggie things scattered about the flat and she and I went on a Furby kick together however many years back (8 years ago or was it 9?).

So I made her Mama Mouse from Mel's Mouse Family (raverly link) in Knit 2 Together.

I used the recommended Classic Elite Lush yarn for the body. For Mama Mouse's cocktail dress, I held one strand of Koigu KPM together with one strand of Skacel Karat.

I gave her a pearl necklace.
I think she came out quite cute.


I did make a few minor modifications. The directions call for knitting the arms and legs flat then seaming them up. I didn't really see the sense in that, so I knit them in the round instead. Since the legs are started at the feet, I used the figure eight cast on to avoid even sewing up the bottom of the foot. It made the foot look much cleaner, too.

The cocktail dress is knit in one piece. You then put it on the mouse and sew it up at the back. The only mod I made here was to leave a hole at the back for the tail to stick out.

Gaggy loved her.

FO: Diamond Fantasy Shawl

The Diamond Fantasy Shawl for my Mom is finished.

See the beads on the tip of the shawl?

Here's a better look.

I wanted just a tiny, little touch of something extra. I'm shooting for the four beads to echo the diamond motif.

Before I forget, Margaret requested blocking pictures. And, well, I aim to please.

This next picture is for Christene, the charming, goof-enabler at SheepsPyjamas.

Pattern: Diamond Fantasy Shawl
Designer: Sivia Harding


Yarn: Sirdar Just Bamboo in Oriental Blue
Needles: US 8 Bamboo 36" Circular
(I got a little kick out of using bamboo needles and bamboo yarn. I'm easily amused like that.)
Gauge: Roughly 3.5 - 4 stitches per inch (in pattern). The lace pattern in the bamboo yarn had fantastic drape and lots of stretch in all directions, making an exact gauge nearly impossible to identify.
Yarn consumption: Approx. 750yds

I didn't get precise finished measurements (couldn't find the long tape measure), but judging from how much space it took up on the futon while blocking, I'd say it's 70-72" long across the top, which was exactly what I wanted. After pre-blocking, I calculated that 8 repeats would be just shy of the length I wanted. Therefore, I figured I'd do 9 repeats because I'd rather have it too big than too small. Then I had a light bulb moment and realized I could finish off the shawl at 8.5 repeats and get precisely the size I wanted. Which is what I did. Good thing that worked, too, because I'm pretty sure I would have run out of yarn if I'd gone for 9 repeats.


This was my first time knitting with 100% Bamboo. I learned a lot about this fiber. Like it's very slippery. If I dropped a stitch, it wanted to run away faster than a vegetarian fleeing a bacon convention. After learning the less than fun way, I worked really hard not to drop stitches.

I also learned that bamboo behaves differently than many other fibers in the blocking department. Contact with water caused it to stiffen and contract. But as it dried it expanded and became softer. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable, scientific explanation for this. But I'm just glad to have learned through experience. After blocking, the yarn lost a fair amount of the crispness and luster it had initially. If you were especially fond of the crispness and luster (which would be perfectly understandable), you might be disappointed to loose it. For the purposes of this shawl, I didn't mind that change.

A lace shawl knit with bamboo yarn makes for a soft, cool, summertime wrap with a delicate touch of sheen.