Sharp Sticks and String

Baby hat and STASH!!!

We went away for the weekend to upstate New York, waaaay upstate in the uppermost reaches of the Adirondacks.  My husband went to summer camp for years and years on the lake where his uncle now owns a cabin and we go visit almost every year.  This year it was quite cozy with six of us in a small cabin, but luckily we had some good weather.

I started T's baby hat, so here's the let me try this on your head picture:

He didn't seem to mind -- that was taken near the beach on Saturday.  Yes, he's wearing a fleece outfit in August -- it was cold up there, especially with the breeze off the water!

While we were gone, my massive (for me -- I've heard of bigger ones!) order from Blue Moon arrived.  I'm in sock yarn heaven!

That is, from left to right: Lovers Leap, Fire on the Mountain, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Mystic Kelp, Lettuce Knit, and Falcons Eye.

Left to right again:  Haida, Crazy Lace Agate, Ms. LaRock, Rolling Stone, Highway 30, and Watermelon Tourmaline.

Lover's Leap is *bright* but I like it.  Falcons Eye goes much paler than I thought it would, so I may try to trade it for a skein of a different semi-solid, or I may hang on to it to see if it inspires a different project, since it won't work for what I meant it for.  The Haida is so hard to photograph, but it's gorgeous!

It's a good thing that sock yarn doesn't count as stash, right?  ;-)

Flower hat!

I finally turned a WIP into an FO -- it only took over a month.  :-)

Here's G's flowered baby hat:

Because of the ribbing, it looks a little funny when it's just set down, but being worn:

Is that cute, or what? 

The pattern is just a 2X2 ribbed hat out of Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora left over from her kimono sweater with a knit flower out of a scrap I had in my scrap basket.

Next up is one for T out of his leftover kimono yarn with something appropriately boyish for an embellishment.  :-)

Knitting for babies

Knitting for babies can be lots of fun:

That's G at 5.5 months, who was kind enough to try on the hat I'm knitting for her out of leftover yarn from her baby kimono.  She's grinning a bit even though her teeth are really bothering her, hence the massive drool.

BMFA is *EVIL*

Although it's good evil instead of bad evil, I hope.  I've been meaning to place a biggish order to take advantage of my Rockin' Sock Club coupon anyway and Tina helpfully posted to BMFA's blog that several colors will be taking a vacation in a couple of weeks *and* that they'll be increasing their prices at the same time, so I think it's a good time to take the plunge.

I've already decided that I'm not going to renew my RSC membership next year.  The unpredictability just isn't for me and I'm one of the ones who has been disappointed to get so many shaded solids when I was honestly expecting some of BMFA's trademark many-hued yarns.  Oh well.  If I fall in love with any of next year's yarns, I can certainly wait a year to get a skein.

In my cart are:

Little Bunny Foo Foo *
Watermelon Tourmaline
Fire on the Mountain
Highway 30 *
Crazy Lace Agate *
Lover's Leap *
Ms LaRock *
Dutch Canyon
Falcon's Eye
Haida

The starred ones are resting soon, the rest are either ones I've been eyeing forever or are destined for a specific pattern.  Wow, that's a lot of yarn - hmmm...

A pictureless post

Is better than no post, maybe?

Life has been very busy lately.  I'm almost at the point where I'm ready for school to start, although I'm not sure it'll make that much difference since the babies keep me running and they're obviously not starting school.  :-)

I have snuck in some knitting time, a new project of a simple seed-stitch scarf.

I got my July Rockin' Sock Club yarn and, well, ew!  Totally absolutely not my thing at all.  Luckily my six-year-old daughter loves it so I'll make socks for her and maybe matching ones for my baby girl, too.

I recently added a bunch of things to my trade/sale page on Ravelry.  I'm hoping to find new homes for yarn I won't use and get a little spending money to buy some I will (like BMFA colors I adore, for example).

In a purple mood

Wow, having babies makes posting even more difficult than before...  (Duh!)

For that reason, I've opted out of Secret Pal 12 since it wouldn't be fair to a spoiler not to be able to get a sense of who I am, other than as a very busy, and sometimes slightly insane, mother of four.  The babies are doing well.  They're three and a half months old now and I feel like we've finally turned some kind of corner and I'm able to get a few things done aside from nursing all day and half the night.

During one of the darker hours before we turned that corner I decided I needed an easy project for some knitting therapy, so I picked some chunky baby alpaca out of my stash and started a seed-stitch scarf.  It's intended for my friend M, whose favorite color is periwinkle.  I bought the yarn online and I'd say it's more of a cornflower, but it's lovely and soft and definitely works for a project to knit on when there's little actual brainpower available.  (As an aside, it seems Typepad made some changes between my last post and this one and I'm not sure how the whole image insertion is going to behave now.)

Back to the babies before I post a photo of the amazing Rockin' Sock Club colorway for May.  It's the end of the single-color studies (Yay -- I really joined for the amazing multi-color colorways STR is known for, not these studies, although they've been interesting) and it's my favorite of the year so far.  I do adore purple/violet and I'm glad if we were in for another color study that's the one we got.  Anyway, babies, sort of.  We had their three month portraits done on Friday and before we went I remembered to grab these booties that belonged to my dad.  The rumor has it that my grandma was convinced he was going to be a girl, so they're mostly pink.  They look like they were made from a kit, with knit uppers and sheepskin soles.  Unfortunately, moths got to them at some point so we didn't have the babies wear them, but hopefully some of the pictures the photographer took with them and the babies feet came out well.  I'm anxiously awaiting a call back about scheduling a viewing session.

And last, but not least, the May selection for the Rockin' Sock Club.  I don't know if I'm going to sign up again next year -- July's and September's kits will probably be the deciding factor.  I love the idea of an annual club, but can't afford more than one and I'd heard wonderful things about Sundara Seasons club (plus, having more control over color ranges is very, very appealing -- I may be looking to sell or trade my Dragon Dance to another club member.  I just don't think I'll ever use it myself).  Here's the lovely Incredible Shrinking Violet:

FOs of multiple kinds

So, months ago I started two baby kimonos for the twins.  And then foolishly did not finish before...

They arrived!  (G on the left, T on the right)

Tristan and Genevieve were born on February 15th at 7 lbs 6 oz and 7 lbs, respectively.  :-)  I cannot believe they're over eight weeks old now.

Yesterday, after knitting a row here and there between intense nursing sessions, I finally finished the second baby kimono:

Then this morning we did a mini photo session, so I have some documentation that they wore them at least once:

Tristan took it rather well, especially given that his is too small already (he's bigger than Genevieve is).  Genevieve, however, was not at all impressed!  Eventually we got them both settled and got at least one okay picture of the babies wearing their kimonos together:

So, those are the finished objects around here.  :-)

Cute, huh?

Bad blogger

Wow, time really got away from me over the holidays and now that I'm well into my third trimester!  I have been knitting some, though, and a couple of weeks ago I got my first shipment from the Rockin Sock Club.  There's a photo near the end, so don't scroll down if you don't want to be spoiled!

First, the boy's kimono is totally done now:

I'm happy with how it came out and love the ribbon addition.  I'm about half-way through the sleeve increases for the girl's kimono now and am really hoping to have it done before they arrive.  If I have any time after that, I've got enough yarn leftover to make baby hats, too.

Speaking of baby hats, here's a simple one I did for part of an online baby shower exchange:

I hope the recipient likes it.  I got her a nice cotton/soy blanket (super soft!) but decided to knit a hat too at the last minute.

In other simple knitting news (all I've had the attention for, sadly) L finally got his own mommy-made scarf.  His sister has about five and he seemed sad over Christmas not to have his own, so I made him one out of a skein I got in a gift exchange.  It goes great with his winter coat, which is navy, and he's so excited to wear it:

It's an unfortunately goofy picture of him.  :-/

That's all the knitting news, but here's the January shipment for the Rockin' Sock Club:

The colorway is called Dragon Dance and it varies from peach to Chinese red to brick red.  Not really my colors, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.  I do think I'll knit it up in a simple pattern since I think that the lacy pattern (even though it's a simple lace) is too loud with the varigated yarn.  I know a lot of people out there like it, but having seen some completed socks on Ravelry now I'm certain that I don't.  Still, nothing says I have to used the intended pattern, right?  ;-)

One down, one to go!

I finished the first baby kimono today.  Well, almost finished -- I still need to get some ribbon to thread through the eyelets and use for ties, but it's 99% done:

I just cast on for the second one in green and have finished the bottom garter stitch border.  If I make these again, I'll lengthen the body by about an inch to allow the diagonal increases to end well before the bottom edges of the sweater.  I like the look in stockinette much better than garter, but it does lengthen the increases overall.

If I have baby knitting energy when the girl's kimono is done I have the pattern and yarns to make baby gowns for them, too.  :-)  I'm 27 weeks today, so officially in the third trimester.  Twins can safely arrive as much as 4 weeks early, so in theory I could have two more babies in just over two months!

SP 11 revealed :-)

I got a lovely package from my pal, Katherine, late last week.  Unfortunately, she didn't tell me where her blog is, so I can't link to it.  ;-)

She sent me two skeins of Maizy, corn-fiber sock yarn, which looks cool.  The colors are great and I have a feeling they'll become my favorite socks to wear with jeans.  There are also two bibs for the twins and a bar of lavender dark chocolate.  Not pictured are some delicious dark brownies and a bunch of ginger candies.

Thank you so much, Katherine!  If you're still reading, comment with your blog address so I can come visit you virtually.  :-)