The Man Cold

Ah yes, as the weather finally starts to turn (emphasis on starts...we had snow again over the weekend), our home has been invaded by the dreaded Man Cold. KittyDaddy caught the bug last week, took a day and a half off of work and slept the whole time. Now the kids and I have said cold. Boy, do I wish I could take some sick leave and sleep instead of tending to sniffling, cranky kids. We did manage a mass nap piled on the sofa yesterday when I could. not. keep. my. eyes. open. anymore. Yeah, all four of us. Does that tell you how wiped out I was? Fortunately, I am feeling better today!

I have been MIA lately and for that I blame Ravelry. If you're not a Raveler, feel free to skip ahead. In Rav, I made the mistake of looking at the MCY thread and have been hopelessly addicted (lurker only). I think I'm finally cleaning up my act, but boy, I still want to see what comes of it (if anything). Also, I have been stealth knitting. So knit happens, but it does not feed the blog much. Pics on Ravelry if you're interested (I'm pretty sure the intended recipient is NOT a Raveler).

I did start the Laminaria shawl with my Malabrigo. I am about two and half repeats into the star part (of six repeats) and just LOVE the pattern and the yarn. This is going to be one cozy and soft shawl. I can't wait to get to the more open "blossom" part of the pattern. My only gripe with the pattern (and it's a small one) is that chart winds up asymmetrical. The chart is repeated twice with the middle line between and one one side there is a very visible horizontal line and on the other a very visible vertical line. I'm pretty sure I could rip back and substituted sssk for the k3tog parts and it would come out symmetrical, but I have decided to be happy with it. I think it will smooth out some with blocking and I will probably be caressing it and calling it "precious" instead of looking at symmetry once it is done.

My only beef with Malabrigo is that it is a little hard to knit with compared to other lace weights I have used (most notably Jaggerspun wool/silk and KnitPicks merino laceweight). The thickness varies slightly and it is not tightly spun (and is single ply), so it can occasionally be difficult to figure out where one stitch ends and the other begins if they are bunched together or to split the ply. I can't complain much though, because the end result will be worth it, but if this were a first lace project, Malabrigo might make lace knitting seem somewhat harder than it really is. (And yes, Deb, I am looking at you right now!)

Cuz we all know the best way to get malingering projects off the WIP list...

is to work on completely unrelated items, right???



Okay, it isn't quite as impressive as it looks. I started this sweater for Bean in 2005 and made a matching green one for Bug. I finished Bug's sweater, but not easily. I had to reknit both sleeves as they were VERY short and finishing has never been my favorite activity, so by the time I finished the green sweater, I was so sick of the project that I couldn't face the pieces of this one. Eventually, the pieces wound up stuffed in with about twelve mile of leftover heather green and dusty rose wool-ease and I ran across them not long ago while organizing my stash, taking pictures of yarn, and updating my Ravelry stash. Coincidentally, Beeb is almost big enough to fit the sweater pieces, so, in my deep commitment to trying to get WIPs finished up, I found something totally different to work on. I got a FO...it just didn't help the WIP list!

Specifications
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease
Needles: Denise Interchangeables and some random straights for ribbing
Pattern: Bo from Rowan Babies by Kim Hargreaves
Verdict: Glad it's done, even if it is long after it was supposed to be. The color? Beeb is secure enough in his masculinity to consider himself suave and handsome in dusty rose.



And one more pic for the winning smile:



The sweater was well timed, as poor little Beeb has a snuffy nose and is trying to break through two new teeth at the same time. There is a general clinginess going on, and I suspect that a cozy sweater feels kind of good.

And, in my continuing commitment to clearing out some of the current WIPs, I have been cranking out finger puppets. If you are in Ravelry, you can have a sneak peek on my projects page...otherwise, I'll be posting about them before long.

Eat your heart out, Martha!

We don't need to take our Halloween decorations down. We just turn 'em into Christmas decorations. I made nine little Santa hats for the bats living on our sliding glass door and Bug put the hats on the bats. The pompoms on top came from the three-hole punch. I haven't yet come up with any bright ideas on how to Christmasify the spiders, but perhaps inspiration will come!

Completely unrelated (yeah, one of those posts *snort*)...I got my Ravelry invitation over the weekend. Oh my. Very cool stuff. Of course, that means I can see the potential for another huge internet time suck. For now, I'm trying to behave and just enter things a little at a time. I'm KittyMommy there too, if anyone wants to add me as a friend!

In other knitting news, I am doing my best to convert a non-knitter to the dark side (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha). Another knitting friend and I have been extolling the virtues of knitting to the victim non-knitting friend and seem to have gotten her hooked. I gave her a pair of homemade needles and a little ball of yarn with the promise of lessons in October and we are finally getting together this afternoon. Even better, it will be late afternoon, so I KittyDaddy agreed to come home a little early and watch Bug and Bean. He is willing to have Beeb too, but the Beebster is still happy to hang out in the sling and not dump hot cocoa or remodel furniture or otherwise leave a trail of chaos and destruction in his wake. That and it's easier to take him along than to pump. Some actually Mama-time! And on Friday, I'm planning to go to the Late Night Knit at the Sow's Ear on Friday. Twice in one week, which is pretty much unheard of! In case you are wondering, both events will probably look a little like this.

Finally, today we celebrate Beeb accomplishing one-quarter of a trip around the sun. Little dude is three months old today. It doesn't seem possible...it's just going too stinkin' fast. Don't even start with the fact that I will have a five year old in less that two weeks. Ack!

Late to the Party

When the buzz about Ravelry started traveling around the knitblog community, I swore I was going to stay away. Things are crazy enough without another internet time-suck. I finally gave in over the weekend and put myself on the wait-list. Based on the blogs I read, I figured I was the only person in the known universe that hadn't joined, but when I looked back today (less than 48 hours after putting myself on the wait-list) here was my status:

• You signed up on November 11, 2007
• You are #56058 on the list.
• 9991 people are ahead of you in line.
• 1011 people are behind you in line.
• 79% of the list has been invited so far

I guess that means that there are people slower on the uptake than me! Dudes, save me a seat...I'll be joining you sometime!

In other knitting news, I am approaching the first corner of the shawl doing the edging. All along I had been thinking that the edging was a relatively small part of the whole, but I did the math and the border is close to 20% of the stitches! So I'm not as "almost done" as I thought, but I just love how it is turning out and it will be so worth it! I have also been picking up the Kitty Man sock at odd moments. I discovered (once again) that I can't swatch for beans, so I ripped out a huge toe and about a half an inch of foot and started over with fewer stitches. As I knit socks I have been trying out different toes and heels and trying toe-up and cuff-down and I think I have finally hit on *my* combination, so I will have my own generic sock recipe. Not that it is anything I have invented or I am deluded that I am the first person to use this particular combination, but it meets my own unique combination of neuroses needs. In a nutshell, they are toe-up so I can maximize cuff length and not wind up with tons of teensy balls of leftover sock yarn; I don't have to join in the round and worry about twisting; no toes to kitchener; and if I use a single kind of yarn, the *only* finishing is weaving in two ends! I will share more details when the Kitty Man socks are officially finished objects.

I am proud to say that I think this is the first post in a while that doesn't contain bodily functions. No one said being a mom was boring!