Snow babies

In unusual form, Louisville was dumped with 11 inches of snow Friday night/Saturday morning. In my life, I can only recall getting enough snow to play in four times. In '94 we got 24 inches, in '98 there was 22. Fast forward to '04 and I nearly missed Christmas because of 14 inches topped with an inch of ice.

Al, Maddy and I built my second-ever snowman:

We spent the afternoon making snow angels, throwing snow bricks at each other's heads, wallowing with the dog, and acting like 8-year-olds. And it was perfect!

The view out our front door when we got up:

The view out the back:

Maddy had never been in this much snow before but she loved it. Came up to her belly :)

Proud of our hard work (check out my orange scarf - my first knitted project!):
And my new favorite picture ever - the two things I love most in this world:

Al's wearing a crochet scarf I made for his birthday LAST year. We'd only been dating 2 weeks but I knew he'd be around to wear it :) Maddy's such a sullen teenager. Too-tight tshirts, dirty looks...she's got it all. Even the eye-rolling :)

Exciting knitting news to come... hold onto your britches!

Finally...

...the tree is down, y'all. PRAISE JESUS, right?

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, Al self-motivated and started ripping the tree apart one night. I, thankful, jumped into action and w/in 20 minutes The Tree was disassembled in the nick of time. I had already begun plans to cover it in shamrocks and mini pots of gold for St. Pat's day.

Good logic would tell you I haven't been knitting much either. Good Logic would be wrong, my friends. While Baby doesn't give a rat's ass about The Tree, she does care about The Knitting. It's a shame that Ravelry sucked the blogging life out of me though. I so enjoy this blog but I spend the time I used to devote to it (albeit only for a couple of weeks) on Ravelry now. I spend hours and hours looking at projects and patterns and yarn. Oh my!

I've completed quite a bit since October:

I made a shawl:

The pattern was easy as can be and a super quick knit but the yarn wasn't ideal for this project. It tends to be a little fuzzy so dropping the stitches irritated me. It sheds worse than my dog though. I can't wear it w/most anything I own b/c I'll be covered in fuzz. I should try washing it to see if that'll help. I don't wear it often b/c of this and b/c you can't see the pattern now. It tends to draw up on itself so it just looks like a wide scarf in stockinette. Bummer.

I made a red red red scarf. It's a basic 1x1 rib except I used three kinds of red yarn held together. It's beautiful and I Love It but OHMYGOD is it hot. It's great when it's cold but if it's above freezing, it's too much scarf. Also, my winter coat is green so I always look like Christmas in it. Perfect in Nov/Dec, not in January:



Al's Basket weave scarf was finished JUST in time for his birthday (1/15). I love it more than anything else I've made (except for the fleur de lis purse) b/c it's all sentimental. Best of all, HE loves it and is always sure to pass along compliments he receives. I got lucky and was off work the day prior to his birthday so I was able to finish it and make an attempt at knitting an earwarmer. That didn't go as well as the scarf :)

My model is less than thrilled yet easily bribed:

I'm just thrilled with this:
The headband is a little teeny but I'm able to squeeze it on my huge head. Fortunately Al has a smaller grape but thinks it's a little fruity so it doesn't get used. My feelings are far from hurt b/c I spent all of 20 minutes on the thing and he loves the scarf:

And one more b/c it makes me smile:

I finished Baby K's blankie and it's SO CUTE. Not as cute as Baby K, but cute nevertheless. Oh! Despite his early arrival, I still finished his blankie EARLY. No last-minute knitting this time!


I laced a sheer blue ribbon around the edge but realized later that it wasn't machine washable so it will have to go. Bummer. Mama, Daddy, and Baby all seemed to like it. Yay!

I jumped on the My so-called Scarf train and HOLY SHIT. Baby's over this pattern. It's so so slow and I don't know if it's me (likely) or the yarn or the pattern but at this rate, it'll be finished in time for NEXT winter. I'm using Noro Silk Garden in #227 and it's so so stunning. I'm in love with the colors. I do like how the stitch pattern shows off the yarn w/out overpowering it.

My current major issue, however, is the curving of the work. See:
What the hell? Look at how straight my needle is and how the scarf is making its way toward the wine rack. I feel that it will all be okay once I'm finished, but we'll see. In the mean time, it's bugging Baby.

That's my current project. I have a 1/3 of a dishcloth I started in November on the beach that I'd like to finish by Saturday for Grandma's birthday. We'll see.

I did finish a small project last night. I made a Baby Genius burp cloth from the Mason-Dixon book. Easy pattern, cheap yarn, great travel knitting. It's evident, however, I worked on this start-and-stop b/c one end is 1/2 inch wider than the other. Whoops.

In progress:
*Note the cute, green coat that doesn't go well with red red red scarf*


Notice how wonky the left side is. Killer :)

And finally, an injury and a near-casualty. Al, in dramatic fashion, leaves his empty lunchbox on the kitchen counter for me to fill with lunchy goodness. Most days I just roll my eyes and ignore his sad notes and pitiful behavior. Last night, however, I was feeling benevolent (American Idol was on) and went to make lunch. I saw a piece of plastic (or possibly ice as I had just filled up my cup) on top and brushed it away with my finger. OWIE! Yeah. That wasn't plastic or ice. It was glass and Baby got hurt :(

The offending object:
*Note the pink sheen to it. That'd be Baby's Blood.*

I quickly fashioned a bandage out of papertowel and tape and went about my business. Part of my business was now NOT making Al lunch since his lunch box tried to kill me.

Back to the couch and American Idol! The bleeding stopped (you'd be surprised how much a little cut like that will gush!) and I began to bind off the burp cloth. Noticed the needle felt sticky but whatev. That happens. Looked down and whatthehell. I bled on my bind off edge:
Granted, it's not THAT much blood, but it's still blood. My DNA is IN this burp cloth. Looks like we have a new kitchen towel!

Baby's not happy about her injury and word on the street is she's milking it for all it's worth:

That's one sad Baby. And yes, that's a Knight Light behind me. Clever, no?

1 + 1 = 3

So we're all clear, thus far, all my knitting disasters haven't involved poor knitting, but poor arithmetic. Baby's not so good with the simple math. The hard stuff, I got. Adding? Not so much.

This gray yarn. This pretty, reasonably expensive, gray yarn. It's Lamb's Pride Superwash Bulky in Charcoal Gray for those that give a rat's ass. In the interest of disclosing all info (this is critical in having the whole story) it was $10/ball at my LYS. There are 110 yards per ball and each ball is also 100 grams. Again, critical information.

Since we all know I suck at math, I decided that the simple math in making a swatch was just trouble waiting to happen. So I got out my trusty food scale (Weight Watchers is my babydaddy), switched it to the metric setting, and weighted my yarn and one of my needles. Yup. There are 100 grams of yarn and one needle is 10 grams. Made notes. Started knitting.

I finished one pattern repeat and weighed it. Did the "hard math" and determined if I kept my current gage, that my scarf would be just the right length.

So I knitted. And I knitted. And I counted rows. And I miscounted rows. Then I bought a row counter (all problems solved then!). I knitted until I finished the first ball almost entirely. Then I weighed my work. Then...then I measured it.

There's no coincidence that SHIT and KNIT rhyme. Baby said a lot of bad words that night. My wonderful hard work was only two feet long. Let's do the math together:

1 ball = 2 feet

2 balls = 4 feet

4 foot scarf + 6'3 Hunk of Man = Too short scarf

Too short scarf = Baby losing her shit

Al tried to console me and suggest just going to buy more yarn. Genius! Not so much :( My LYS was OUT OF THE COLOR! I damn near passed out. What was I to do?? The Lovely Ladies Who Knit suggested I get another color and add it to the ends. Too bad all they had in stock was Frilly Girly Man colors. This just would not do.

I came home, employed Al's help and we set off searching the internet for said yarn. I had rationalized that dye lot wouldn't matter at this point. I'd just work the new yarn next and the old yarn last. That way, when around his sweet little neck, the ends would match and the middle would match. I'm so smart!

But the internet failed us. While Baby is desperate for this yarn, she's also not going to spend $6.95 to have it shipped to her. Oh hell no. I searched and searched to no avail. I decided I'd give it 4 weeks, then I'd rip out and start over. *sigh* Al offered to buy another type for himself so that I could still use this beauuuuuuutiful pattern. How sweet. While sweet, that had me knitting TWO scarves for his sweet little neck. Baby already crocheted two for him last winter. Two more already? Goodness!

Yesterday, in a fit of desperation, I started calling other LYSs in the area. A dear, sweet woman across town confirmed she had one ball of my so-desired yarn. ONE BALL. I begged her to hold it and she did! I offered my first born and my Visa number, but she declined. I'm picking it up on Tuesday (my day off). Cross your fingers and needles!

Warshrags

Yeah. I said it. Warshrag. WARSH. Do y'all have any idea how much that word hurts me? I think my left index finger is cramping from reaching for the "R" key. Baby calls them dishcloths and that's what she'll continue to call them. This warshrag business...I just can't go there.

Moving onward.

I decided that while I wanted to expand my knitting skills, I didn't want to waste time and good money on expensive yarn. Whatever is a girl to do?? I sweet-talked Al into being a Big Strong Man and carrying my tote o' yarn up from the depths of the basement. Inside I found some looooovely cotton yarn. I got to knitting and made some pretty stinkin cute dishcloths:

Seed stitch:

Basketweave (I winged this one. Baby couldn't read patterns at this point):
Pretttttty cute :) I was delighted with myself. I just HAD to buy more yarn! HAD TO. I made a quick lunch-break trip to Walmart and got some pretty pretty colors and started pouring over the internets for good ideas.

What I found was a beauuuuuutiful scarf pattern, the Ballband Dishcloth craze, and lots of things that were too hard for me. Oh and I found Knitting Help. This site is badass. It's gotten me through a lot of rough times.

In the midst of all this my favorite LYS held their annual Huge Sale. I was drawn to it like White Trash to Twinkies. Al was sweet and went along (conveniently enough, his favorite coffee shop is next door) and picked out some nice, manly gray yarn for himself. I purchased 2 balls and was off! Oh and I bought a half dozen balls of Alpaca for meeeee but who's keeping track of that?? ;)

So I have yarn and nothing to do with it. The horror! Back to this beauuuuuuuuutiful scarf pattern...It's lovely. It required minimal pattern-reading skills (handy since I have zero), was simple, AND looked really really hard (key when you're Egotistical Baby). I didn't want to break out the gray stuff yet, so I whipped up a dishcloth in the pattern. I had a sorority sister (I told y'all I was in the south!) getting hitched and thought handknits would be a fantastic gift! I just happened to have cotton yarn in "our colors" so I started in on the beauuuuuutiful scarf pattern on this cotton yarn. One and a half pattern repeats later I had this:


It's too bad you can't REALLY see the pattern b/c of the variegation of the yarn, but you get the idea. The beauuuuuutiful scarf has scalloped, rolling edges and is just so so so darn pretty. And Manly. Don't forget, my hunky, Big Strong Man Al is going to be wearing this scarf.

Anyway, dishcloths need friends so I made another seed stitch one to go with it, shoved a Walmart gift card in the center and tied a white ribbon around it all. Thoughtful, inexpensive and useful. Baby is unstoppable.

Oh but she's not...I hope my foreshadowing of the beauuuuuutiful scarf disaster wasn't too subtle...because things make a terrible turn for the worse very very soon...

Novice Baby

I learned to knit two months ago in one of those "Learn to knit in 2 hours" classes at my LYS. I'd been crocheting for three or so years prior to that but my skills in the hooking department are miserly. I can double crochet and that's really about it. Boring? Very. Quick? Extremely. Baby has hooked out dozens and dozens of scarves. All my friends have warm necks except for a few of the fashionista ones. Burberry I ain't.

Knitting has been a mystery for sometime. Baby's a lefty (hence the lack of crocheting skills) and thought knitting would be difficult because of that. Au contraire! Who knew one could knit Continental and it'd be easy as pie?!?! I breezed through my first scarf and started right in on my second scarf (more on that later) and dishcloths and now I'm ass-deep in felting.

For those at home who are confused at my Bob Dole-esque third person references to myself as "Baby," you must turn your attention and blame to my boyfriend. It's all his fault. Al's a sweet hunk of man and calls me "baby." It's endearing and cute considering the alternatives. I'm a bit of a sass, so I mouth off a lot and tell him "Baby doesn't iron," "Baby doesn't do windows" and things of that nature. It's stuck and I now refer to myself as "Baby" so much that it's taken the place of nearly all personal pronouns at home. I've even caught myself saying it in public. The horror!

But this isn't *really* public, right? ;) I mean, most of y'all aren't even wearing pants.