Pink

With two boys I see very little pink. Orange, yes. Brown, certainly. Blue, in profusion. Pink? Notsomuch. It’s no wonder I’ve been choosing pink yarns and fibers the last few years.

My current (and only) WIP is Ice Queen from the Winter 07 Knitty. I’m doing the 60 bead version, instead of the insane 300 bead one. I picked up the beads from the Twisted Sisters booth at Stitches back in October, without having the yarn on hand. I’m pretty happy with the way the pink foil-y insides work with the yarn.

Somewhere around row 40 of chart A. Again, forgive the camera phone pic

The yarn is Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Infusion Kid Mohair in #617 Rosehip (I’m pretty sure.) I’m fascinated with watching the stripes appear, as I never expected that to happen. The three colors are about 18-20″ long each (23-26 stitches?) so they may lay just right with the gauge to make happy little stripes. It IS mohair, though, which renders it utterly evil, regardless of it’s looks. I, of course, forgot that mohair will only frog if frozen first, and cursed it mightily during a failed cast on. We’ve mended our ways since, and seem to be getting on nicely.

A bit of detail. The beads in the top corner are my stitch markers, not part of the knitting.

Yes, it IS an early spring and too warm already for cowls and neckwarmers, especially when the recipient lives in Florida.  That is the way of knitting, isn’t it?

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Repurposing

I am not sure if blogged about these way back in Em’s newborn days. Have you seen these?

From the looks of the scrawny legs, Em was still very much a newborn here, maybe a few weeks old? Anyway, Kelli gifted me these three pairs of socks before he was born. Each pair was a different size so that he could be in hand knit socks for more than just a week (as baby feet grow quickly). We retired the last pair when he was a few months old, and I thought they were each packed away.

Today, one of the mamas on one of my parenting boards mentioned that she knit a sock for her husband’s inhaler, so he wouldn’t keep losing it’s cap. I thought this was so clever! Em now has two inhalers, one of which needs to travel with us in the diaper bag. I have already lost it’s cap, as the inhaler plugs into an infant chamber and stays that way most of the time. As easy as that is around the house, it doesn’t work as well in the diaper bag. Enter a pair of outgrown socks and I have a pair of inhaler cozies! I think maybe 48 stitches and a 2×2 rib in a matching self-patterning yarn and I have a fully cozied breathing system.

My plan to cover the world in handknits continues apace.

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Another drive-by post

I now have TWO large posts sitting in my drafts, just waiting for me to add pics or descriptions. Unfortunately, I’m feeling half-dead from strep throat* and can’t seem to string together much of a coherent thought. My only comfort right now is these, a much needed gift from Knitter Bunny:

And a detail:

(Sorry about the bad color, it’s pretty grey here today)

Details and better pics in this post.  Thanks, Kelli!

*Em is better, thanks for the good thoughts!

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Cold day, warm neck

Waaaaaaaaay back in January I received a lovely scarf in the mail from Knitter Bunny…but I committed the ultimate blogger sin: I never mentioned it, except in passing. When she sent it to me, she asked if I could block it–she would have herself except she was afraid she’d not get to the post office if she did it. I said “Sure!” and promptly avoided blocking it. For 3 whole months.

Yesterday I was surprised to see that the cold was coming back and temps would be in the 20’s when I left for work this week. In what I can only guess is a fit of pregnancy hormones, I decided I wasn’t going to clean out the sink to wet the darn thing, I would just take it in the shower with me. So I did. After rolling it out in a damp towel, I set it on the back of the futon, right over the heat vent and prayed it would be dry by this morning:

Sure enough, it was:

Doesn’t it look like the greyest, nastiest day out? (I’m guessing that’s why I look so thrilled.) Perfect day for a hand-knit handspun scarf. We even had snowflakes this afternoon.

Thanks, Knitter Bunny.

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Thank you all for your happy thoughts that I’m back. I knew it had been a while, but I had no idea (until I started getting subtle emails with a day count) how long it had been.

When it comes to blogging and knitting, I’ve fallen down a bit over the last seven months. This morning, though, I felt a twitch. Not a baby twitching in my belly, not a twitch from wondering just how sick my husband really is (how come so many men seem to be just dying when they simply have a cold?), but a twitch that I felt all the way down to the tips of my fingers.

I think my knitting mojo is coming back. Shhhh, don’t say anything, yet.

Before I get to that, though, I want to show off an awesome gift that showed up in my mailbox. I was on my way home on Monday, after a snoozy day at work from a late plane arrival the night before (did I forget to mention I was in Florida for a week?) when occurs to me that my sweet husband might have forgotten to get the mail while I was gone. (Apparently the mail person noted this, too, as our box was rubber banded shut) To my surprise, I found packages! Look what Kristi Scrappy & Gangles sent us:

How cute are those bibs? Mr. CygKnit is crazy over anything with dinosaurs on it (see the dino button on the blue?) and I have long been in love with the green/brown/cream colorway. AND Kristi included yarn for me to make my own 🙂 Though, of course, the boys didn’t actually knit them themselves, “each bib was entirely made holding a baby (or two).”

While Mr. C and I are quite tickled at the surprise gift, baby CygKnit (aka Buster, at 27 weeks) had nothing to say:

I say, don’t get your picture taken outside wearing a low-cut top when it’s snowing.

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We interrupt this morning sickness to tell you…

That I’m (mostly) back in action. Whoo hooo. My Mac is back from the Dr., Mr. C’s hard drive is installed and operating, our cell phones actually work (there was a recall on the chargers because they weren’t charging. I’ve been telling them this for months, but to no avail) and our camera? Well, at least it runs on batteries.

So, all in all, I’m back in blogging action–at least as long as the AA’s hold up. To that end, I have pictures! I was home alone the day I realized I had batteries, so took these belly shots myself. Sadly, the lighting in the bathroom is wretched and I was forced to try out snazzy effects to make the colors less garish.

Here is a flash-less shot at 17 weeks & 4 days:

And one to say hello, since I rarely show my face around here:

Don’t I look too big to be still getting sick?? Yeah, I think so, too. However, it seems this baby is in charge and I’ll be doing the porcelain Rhumba until he/she decides otherwise. On a positive note, I’m 45% of the way through, AND I find out on Thursday if I can write HE or SHE instead of he/she in my posts. Yay! (I’m kinda excited about this.)

Right, knitting…

I have finally determined that part of the reason I’m not knitting so much right now relates to the projects I’m working on. The socks for my mom (seen here when I thought I could finish them for Socktoberfest. Ha!) aren’t fun to knit as the yarn (Sockotta) is rough in my hands and I think the color is a bit…garish. My Mom picked it out, though, so I don’t have much choice. I do need to get them to her by my sister’s wedding on Jan 27, which means I need to get working. It would be nice if I finished the second bed sock for my grandmother by then, too. Although she won’t be at the wedding, my dad will be able to deliver them for me if I can get them done. I think I just need to just put on my big girl pants and get over second sock syndrome.

Of course, instead of working on either of these, I’ve cast on a new project to remove me from sock funk. I think I’ll save it for another post, though, as I think it will deserve it’s own.

In other news, I got a package!!

This is from the Lovely and Talented NeedleTart. What you see is a Burt’s Bees Baby kit, a wonderful board book, a book titled “101 Secrets A Good Dad Knows,” a book of her own recipes (wow!), a card/social game about food, and the best (hiding behind/supporting everything): a wonderfully scented “rice thingie” (her term) that when microwaved for a short time gives off warmth and lavendar-y scented comfort. She even included a spare cover for it! If you can click for big, you’ll see the knit sheepy pattern, too. Ms. NeedleTart must have read my mind, because I’ve been having trouble the past few weeks with sore muscles at night. Thank you from both me and Mr. CygKnit!

On the blocking board right now (ok, the ironing board) is a wonderful gift from Knitter Bunny. I hope to have a pic of it next time, too. Hopefully, next time won’t be another two weeks…

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