Calendar, Anyone?

Amelie's ear infection didn't clear up all the way, so we just finished Round Two (ding! ding!) of antiobiotics. She's also teething again. Equals not much sleep for mama. On top of that, I'm applying for a scholarship for National Board Certification. Yes, I like being on the brink of insanity, what about it? In knitterly news, I am almost done with the back piece of Wren, and just need to pick up a skein of cheapo wool to seam up Excellent. The bulky yarn it's knit with would make very chubby seams.

Someone donated a bunch of brand new 2007 calendars to our staff and there were a couple of page-a-day knitting calendars left over. Leave a comment if you would like either of these... photos hotlinked to amazon for info/reviews...





Finally, maybe it's the sick baby, but I've been feeling quite domestic lately. I've been baking, cooking more, spring cleaning, etc. when I've had a moment or two. Tonight's dinner included this lovely, simple (thanks to my buddy Cuisinart) Leek and Potato Galette that I've spotted floating around blogland recently. Yum.

Pink Eyes and a Pink Dress

Well. I fell off the blog planet for a couple of weeks after finishing the February Baby Sweater. It's been a busy time, though...

Baby A had her first Easter egg hunt. The other children were running around, loading up their baskets with piles of eggs and we were very excited with the three that we found. The eggs made a noise when we shook them! Yay! So much fun. This egg hunt was on a farm way out in the country and Peanut got to meet her first horse that day, too. Seeing things for the first time all over again is such a gift.

The following week, she had pink eye and an ear infection. So. Miserable. I don't have pictures to show you and you wouldn't want to see them, anyway.

Then came the real Easter day. Church service with grandma and grandpa and a pretty pretty dress. She was feeling much better by then. After Easter, I had spring break. With spring break and a few "sick days" off with the Peanut, I haven't been at work for almost two weeks! Lots of time to knit, right? ... kind of ... I really wanted to knit Wren during spring break but what I have done is come *this* close to finishing the Excellent Jacket.

The sleeves were done first. Since it's such a chunky garment, I decided to knit the body all in one piece to avoid the bulk of side seams. Now I just have to pray that it fits the way I hope it will!

Next up, Wren. Also? I've decided that I have too many stalled projects and I'm going to finish one old project for every new one. So I might actually have something else to show you before Wren gets too far off the starting block.

February Baby Sweater

February Baby Sweater
from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac

Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, color #829, one ball plus a smidge of another, approximately 300 yards or fewer altogether.
Needles: Addi Turbo US7/4.5mm
New technique: The Russian Join!

I really wanted to knit one of these for my own little peanut, but as she's quickly growing out of the little sizes and into bigger and bigger ones, and since Elizabeth Zimmerman doesn't include schematics with her pithy instructions, I decided to knit one for a tiny baby first. I think this one knit up at about a size 6 months. Now I know approximately how to size the sweater up if I were to knit it at this gauge again.

One modification I might like to try is a stockinette stitch, raglan increase yoke, a la Linda. Garter stitch has never been my thing, aesthetically, and I really like the cleaner look of the stockinette stitch yoke she made.

I really wasn't so sure that the Cascade 220 Superwash was the right yarn for the project. It didn't feel very soft and I didn't want to gift something that felt acrylic-y. So when the knitting was all done, I tossed this little lacy number into the washing machine with a load of towels. If the color bled, I'd rather it happened on my navy blue towels than on a load of Julia's pretty baby girl things. In the end, the sweater came out very, very soft and has a slight halo. I've completely changed my attitude toward 220 Superwash. I want to use it again, soon. As for colorfastness, there was one light blue towel in the load and it didn't seem to change color at all.

I also want to say mille grazie to Kristen and Amanda for answering questions about adding the underarm stitches.

For Baby Julia, born February 2007

Cross posted to the Zimmermaniacs.

edited to add:

Here is a picture of Miss Julia at about seven months in her FBS. Notice that I would have made the sleeves a bit longer if I had to do it all again; as EZ says, babies come in all sizes!

iHop

...onto the Wren bandwagon, that is...

My WEBS package arrived today. Yippee! This will be my spring break project. I ordered extra yarn, just in case, and want to knit up Wren soon so that a) I will actually be able to enjoy the sweater during the right part of the year and b) if there is any extra yarn, I can send it back.

Wild Bear in Captivity

This one's for Meredith... she sent this sweet hat to Baby A long ago and I wanted to let her see how stinking cute it is on our scary little bear.

Roar!

Tink, Tink, Wash, Spin

Friday:

You know at the very moment you think these thoughts: "Ooooh I love this lace stitch, it's so easy to follow without even looking at the directions anymore!" that you'll look proudly at your work and realize your stitch count went off on a lunch break a row or two back?

Tink, tink.

Enjoying EZ's February Baby Sweater, thankyouverymuch! It should be finished this weekend. Did I just jinx myself again?

Saturday:

FBS knitting is done (need buttons) and currently taking a bath with a load of towels. It's knit with Cascade 220 Superwash and I want to test the superwashyness of it before gifting it to my friend.

PS I heart Ladytron.

Koigu Love

Perfect example of me being stubborn and insisting on figuring it out all on my own when there are a kazillion sock patterns out there in the world. This simple pair of socks should have taken a couple of weeks to knit but NO, I had to do it my way, and use up literally every inch of my two skeins of Koigu while I was at it, and I'm actually quite proud of myself. They're perfect. The leg is just the right length. I don't understand why I kept reading that two skeins wouldn't be enough. That's a MYTH! Trust me, I don't have tiny feet. I wear size 40/9.5US.

Karma's Toe-Up Ribbed Socks:

The Cast On: 28 stitch Magic Cast On For Toe-Up Socks. This is a truly magical, and yet easy and logical, way to start a sock. I'm in love.

The Stitch Pattern: 2x2 Rib with a stockinette sole. Normally, that much ribbing would make me die of boredom. Thank goodness for Koigu's short bursts of color changes.

The Heel: Wendy's Short Row Heel (.pdf). This is the excruciatingly detailed version of her Generic Toe Up Sock pattern. Because the short rows are double wrapped, there are no holes!

The Bind-Off: EZ's Sewn Bind Off. The first time I heard about this bind off method, it sounded complicated, but really, it's simple, easy to do, stretchy and perfect. Of course it is, it's EZ's.

The Yarn: two skeins of purple Koigu goodness, P426

The Needles: two Addi Turbos, Size US1/2.5mm

I-Cord Cast On?

The Koigu socks march on and I hope to have a finished pair and a full report for you very soon, including info about how I made my short row heel without holes.

The socks were purely diversionary, though. I was moving right along on my Excellent Jacket when I had an aha moment that I needed to think about. This chunky jacket is purely stockinette stitch. The hems don't have any other design features that would prevent rolling. The sleeves were already done (I did eliminate the cuff, though) and the back was almost to the armholes. I decided I could live with a roll on the sleeve but not on the hem of the body. So I started thinking about how to modify the design to remedy this problem. Most patterns that utilize a garter or seed stitch edge seem to call for four rows of said stitch pattern. That seems like a lot with this chunky gauge, texturally and visually.

What about i-cord? I could use Annie Modesitt's i-cord edging for the front edges of the jacket. I could also use a matching i-cord cast-on for the hem of the jacket.

Would an i-cord cast-on solve the rolling problem and be stretchy enough for the bottom of a jacket? Any ideas?

What a heel!

I've been off work this week (can I get an amen) and keeping myself busy with all those things we do (eye exam, teeth cleaning, organizing baby's boatload of stuff, house cleaning, et cetera). But I've also been very occupied with reinventing the wheel.

Sneak peek at sock numero uno of the pair...
Koigu madness

We were supposed to have a yucky, rainy week here but it has turned out to be quite mild and, dare I say, sunny. Yesterday, Peanut and I walked for three hours in the neighborhood with various friends. Like a relay race. Started out with one mama and baby, ended with another. Didn't mean to be out that long but it was beautiful out! We had fun! Now, off to the aquarium, perhaps?

Happy Valentine's Day From Seattle

Photo by Kelly Johnston

IK Spring 2007

Everyone and their brother has posted a link to the IK spring preview, but when the magazine hit my mailbox this afternoon, I was so excited to get it. I *love* the new layout and look. It's very clean and easy to look at.

I've been checking out knitting books from the library lately and want to post some reviews over the next several days, if only to remind myself which features and designs impressed me most.

Finally, thank you for your comments on family and tradition. I can't believe I didn't write a word about reading together. It must simply be an unspoken truth for me; I grew up loving books and started reading at age four. My brother and I spent many afternoons with our mom at the neighborhood library. Many of you also mentioned family dinnertime together. This is already a goodkarmafamily institution. Peanut sits at her high chair when we eat our dinner and she eats then, too. Every night. It's a fun way for the three of us to share bits and pieces of our days with each other.

Traditions

First of all, thank you to all of you who keep saying that the peanut looks just like me. It makes me giddy to hear you say that. Not because I'm a narcissist, but because of this:

Now. Do you still think she looks just like me?

Anywho, I've got this crazy, mixed up extended family that I felt really close with when I was growing up. They were far from perfect and quite disfunctional, but they were mine. But now that I'm a grown up they're all having grudges and arguments and he-said she-said and not speaking to one another. So peanut hasn't even met, for example, my mom's sister who was my super favorite aunt when I was a girl.

This all makes me v. sad, but it's part of this crazy world in which we live. So I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the kind of childhood I want to help peanut have, and to very intentionally creating new traditions in our own little family.

Some of my warmest memories are sewing, crafting, cooking with my mom. Also, we would make a gigantic bowl of popcorn, snuggle under a big blanket, and watch a Bette Davis movie on AMC together. The best. As for traditions, when I was little, we would make Christmas decorations together. One year it was salt-dough, one year it was felt ornaments, etc. I remember, too, picking buckets of blackberries so my mom could make blackberry jam. My mouth is watering.

What are some of your family's favorite traditions? What are some of your favorite memories from childhood, especially with your parents? If you have children of your own, what are some new traditions you're creating?

Color Theories

For years, red was my signature color. I always gravitated toward it when shopping for clothes and felt great when I wore it.

A couple of years ago I realized I was getting compliments when I wore cooler colors, too. I borrowed that classically tacky 1980s book about finding "your colors" from the library and decided that I should start steering toward aquas, blues, purples, etc. Bluer toned colors. I get compliments when I wear purples. I do look good in aqua, too especially in the summertime when I have a tan!

This week, though, I pulled a red turtleneck out of the closet and wore it with my red wool peacoat. My current favorite lipstick (MAC: Fastplay) is a chameleon; on this particular day it also looked red. I got so many compliments! I noticed, too, that the red I was wearing was a bluer red (as opposed to an orange red), so it fit in with the "cool" palette after all.

So here I am with a bunch of different blue yarns, some purples and aquas, and realizing that I'm coming close to committing the sin that I read about in Big Girl Knits this week: getting stuck in a color rut. I need to keep my mind more open when I'm looking at yarn choices instead of immediately grabbing the one color that stands out for me, whether that be red or aqua.

I'm craving a raspberry sweater. Or orchid. Some of those greens are looking pretty good, too...

Energized

Thanks to Lolly for the idea... I helped 85 kids make huge 3-D snowflakes this month and they're hanging from the light fixtures all over the second grade area. We have been getting tons of compliments on these pretty snowflakes!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your positive comments about Mutant Jemima. I told many of you that I almost didn't post those pictures at all because I still feel "lumpy" (and you were right, this is more about my self-image right now than about the sweater), but I'm glad I did. See, finishing a sweater for myself inspired me to knit more more more (stop the clock, please!!), and seeing the pictures of myself inspired me to start thinking about exercise again. I got lots of exercise when Peanut was 0-3 months old. It was summertime and I live in a pleasantly hilly and pedestrian-friendly area; we hit the sidewalks often with our stroller. And then I started back to work. [crickets chirping] And then winter set in. [double crickets chirping]

Today is a chilly day but the sun is out, so when little Miss wakes up from her nap I think we'll bundle up and go out for a walk. I see that Big Girl Knits is on reserve for me at the library so we might walk up there and get it. I skimmed the section on adding short rows last weekend when I visited Hilltop Yarn and I really want to try this technique out next. Yay for the public library!

On the same day, I went to Weaving Works and bought a couple of skeins of purply Koigu. Many sock patterns call for three skeins of Koigu, so I'm thinking a toe-up sock is best. I've been playing around with the Knitty magic cast-on for toe-up socks technique (genius! you must try this out) but don't know how many stitches I should cast-on to begin with. Any tips? I have never knit toe-up socks before... Also, I'm thinking of using the toe-up Jaywalker pattern since I still haven't made a pair of Jaywalkers, but would love to hear any of your other suggestions for toe-up patterns that would showcase Koigu well.


Peanut says, "Have a great week, everyone! Eat your sweet potatoes, they're good for you!"

Mutant Jemima

Jemima, My Fashionable Life
RYC CashSoft DK, Ballad Blue and Lime
Addi Turbos, US6 and US8
Photos and art direction by various second grade students

It all started with the yarn. I bought the CashSoft on eBay with an entirely different project in mind, but later decided it wasn't for me after all. Soon after, I saw Jemima, a cozy, whimsical top that called for the exact same yarn. Bingo.

Except that I wanted it to be more fitted, longer and have waist shaping. So I used the pattern for my VK Shawl Collar Pullover for the length and shaping of the lower half of the sweater.

Then I decided that I would never find buttons that I liked or that matched the yarn well. Mom was a seamstress when I was young and I learned that buttons can make or break a garment. I talked to her about it and decided that it would be best to ixnay the button placket altogether.

So, you see, this really isn't a Jemima anymore.



This was my first time with the tubular cast-on and I loved it. I learned how to do a tubular bind off from Jody; her tutorial is fantastic.

As soon as I put it on, I loved the feel of the fabric; this yarn at this gauge produces a lovely drapey fabric. So warm and soft! Right now it feels very comfortable, like a luxurious sweatshirt for a cool, casual day. The arm hole fits me really well. I think that's what I'm trying to say... whenever I buy ready-to-wear anything (tops, bathing suits, wedding dress), I have to shorten the straps; they're always too long on me. I ended up with a short armhole for my short torso, yay!



In the end, it's not my favorite sweater, but they can't all be favorites. I think I'll like it even more next fall when I'm done nursing and am all the way back in shape.

Wiki Tiki Tavi

Did you know that there's a knit wiki? I had no idea until I noticed a couple of referring links from this page. I'm being quoted about Artfibers Kyoto, the yarn I made my fabulous corkscrew scarf with. I still get tons of google hits because of that scarf.

The word wiki still seems so silly to me. Did you know that it originates from wiki-wiki, or "quick-quick" in Hawaiian?

I'm tired of winter already. We just had another snow day today... at least tomorrow we go back to school, two hours late. Only 63 days 'til spring.

Snow Day!

Another snowy day in Seattle. I don't remember having this many "snow days" off from school when I was a kid growing up in Seattle... this is our third of the year. It really couldn't have come at a better time, though. I really needed the rest. I got to sleep in just a little today and I'm still in my pajamas. Feeling much, much better.

Discovered a few weeks ago, thanks to Almost Felted Lauren, I believe, that Knitty Gritty is now being re-run on HGTV. I don't have DIY so I'm enjoying these episodes. It's fun to see familiar bloggers and designers, like Marnie, Jenna, Kristi, Shannon, and Candi. I haven't seen very many projects on the show that I must knit. Hello, fun fur steering wheel cover and matching dice? However, I'm a mostly self-taught knitter -- a friend helped me with casting on and the knit stitch a few years ago and I hit the ground running with my Stitch 'N Bitch in hand -- so watching these shows is fun. In many of the episodes I see how someone does a technique quite fluidly (like picking up and knitting stitches, something that for a long time I did really awkwardly), or shows a different cast-on than I'm used to using. So it's a fun, quicko, 22 minute thing to unwind with after work while I cuddle with the peanut and the Mr. gets dinner started.

Speaking of picking up stitches, I'm seaming up Jemima today and looking forward to wearing this pulli in the wintry weather.

Did you see Sarah's finished Lucky cardi? It looks so cute on her. I didn't finish mine. I started it without really thinking about how the dimensions would work for me... and put it down about halfway through when I realized that I should have made it longer and done a few other minor adjustments. So it's nice to see one that's Mission Accomplished in the true sense of the word, not in the GWBush sense. heh.

Just watched An Inconvenient Truth last night. Holy shizzle. I knew things were getting serious but the film was quite eye opening. Please see it soon if you haven't already. Melissa at Neoknits has been talking about global warming lately and SuperGirl's Blog featured links from Slate last month about steps we can all take to help out our poor planet.

Must get back to seaming, adios!

Resolutions

In the year 2007 I resolve to: Start a cult. Get your resolution here.

But seriously, one of my resolutions is to blog more often than I have been and another is to get my knitting mojo back in gear. Become a little more efficient around the house (if that's even possible these days) so I can click and clack a little bit more.

Our second graders were writing NY resolutions this week. One boy said that he would like to "wipe his mouth every day." That would make sense if it were written by the boy who *always* spits when he talks and has to be reminded to swallow every now and then, but it wasn't. Random? Nah, just an 8 year old boy.

Various and Sundry

I've been helping a friend with her new knitting skills this year and she gave me these for Christmas... black for me, white for Peanut.

Cool, eh?


I'm playing around with MacGourmet, a new (to me) program that organizes your recipes like iTunes does your music and iPhoto does your pictures. This is good and bad; I am trying to organize my home and my life, step by step, and it's helping, yet I could spent hours importing and playing around with this new toy! I've decided to start small and just import the recipes I have in my Epicurious recipe box and then slowly add things as time goes on. You can try it out before you buy it, goody goody.

Speaking of recipes, I just tried out this Tomato and Sausage Risotto (from Martha Stewart via Ring Around the Rosies) for dinner tonight. (Picture from Martha's site.) Mama mia! I love one-skillet meals that are healthy, delish, and pretty all at once. Ding! Ding!

Dumb knitting question of the day:

Does a yarn have approximately the same gauge if it is knit in st st as it would if it were knit in a Fair Isle pattern? I guess that depends on how tightly or loosely one knits Fair Isle, is that correct? I have yet to try colorwork with knitting, but I've fallen in love with the shape of a Fair Isle sweater pattern and want to knit it in a solid color. I have a feeling that my question is a little too lame to even ask. Just remember that I'm running on about 2/3 brainpower... the other 1/3 was lost when I got pregnant. D'oh.

An End and a Beginning

As 2006 comes to an end, I have a half full/half empty perspective on the year. I mean, how can you possibly feel grumpy about not getting to your knitting (and home organization goals, etc.) when you have this little face to look at each and every day?

Peanut turned six months old on Christmas Day. She started rolling over about two weeks ago, from her back to her tummy. Today she rolled back all by herself! Yay! She's now eating fruits and veg, too! Peas, pears, sweet potatoes, carrots, yeah baby. And she's clapping her hands! Oh, and she giggles -- no, truly cracks up -- when she sees and tries to interact with our Lennon kitty cat. So if I think of this year in relation to her life, it has been amazingly productive. A year ago, you could barely tell I was pregnant, and now we have this brand new human being with a sparkling personality and a killer smile. What more could you ask for?

I have to remind myself of that once in a while when I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all. And when the new knitting magazines come to my mailbox. And when I see all the beautiful things you all are knitting! :)

Jemima is sitting here, ready to be blocked. I did knit the two sleeves for my Excellent jacket during my two weeks off. That's something to be excited about. So 2007 will feature at least those two finished projects! Yay!

Happy New Year, everyone. Try to remind yourselves, once in a while, of what makes your glasses "half full".