Knitters are the best people...
Once upon a time (like, high school), I was sure I was going to grow up and own a dairy farm. Years later, I've got a house on a quarter-acre, and no cows to do the mowing...
Well, Bump is years ahead of me - not even born, and she's already got her very own farm, thanks to some wonderful MMKG friends.
With cows, and sheepies, and a donkey, and a pig (and the tiniest piglets!),
And fences, and a lake, and hay bales, and hedgerows, and plowed fields, and stone fences,
And a barn! (which everything folds up into - it's a bag - neat, eh?)
And some more fun toys!
Everything is made with such skill out of beautiful tweeds and textures and chenilles. Unbelievably, I never saw/noticed any of these adorable projects in progress. Knitters are the best people! Thank you, knitbuds! I am sure the babe will love them all. What a great group of chicks...
Cheesecake success
Big knitting shindig over the weekend! Margaret Radcliffe of Maggie's Rags came in to teach workshops for MMKG. This post is mostly just to answer a few requests for my cheesecake recipe. I had never made it before, but got the recipe from here. Don't look at the ingredients unless you really want to know...Kinda decadent. But I think cheesecake has to be, right?
Sweatergirl's small victories
Yay! I finally figured out exactly how long to microwave a poptart in our office microwave (22 seconds).
Some days, you take what you can get.
Sweatergirl's new favorite yarn
I am insanely disloyal, and perhaps have posted a "my favorite yarn" declaration here 10 times in the past year. But my new favorite has got to be Dale Baby Ull. I dismissed others' declarations of unending love for this stuff, thinking, frankly, they were nuts. It's tiny, it's expensive, etc. And the only thing I had ever tried to use it for was a pair of black, textured gloves, and I had only tried to knit them in a darkened sound booth on size 0 metal dpns. Hey, no one ever said I had to be fair in my opinions/testing methods.
Here's my current project - a little tiny Fana hat with earflaps:
One strap left to go. I do reserve a little bit of commitment to this yarn until I wash it and see if I can get the fold lines/hem to work correctly. But the knitting has been lso smooth and pleasant, despite the too-tiny-for-Tracy needles. In fact, this is the second rendition, since my gauge was a bit too tight on the first go-round.
Next Baby Ull project - a matching sweater. I'm thinking Christmas photos. We'll see if the love endures through a longer-than-one-week project.
In more baby news, some wonderful friends came over this weekend and threw me a semi-surprise shower. It was the sweetest thing, and the Bump received some lovely lovely gifts. I am slightly glad to be far from the grandparents-to-be right now, but very happy to have such wonderful people nearby!
And even more baby news (boy - this is quite a pterrn, no?) - I had been worried because I hadn't been having any Braxton-Hicks contractions, and "everyone else" does. I asked the doctor while she was doing the heartbeat thing, and she told me I was having one right then - didn't I notice? Nope. Not at all - weird. So here's hoping that the real thing is not so bad. (Please, please, don't squash my hopes! It's keeping one source of stress away in these final weeks of waiting/working overtime/organizing.)
And in non-baby news: I am soooo looking forward to dinner out tonight! Yum.
The waiting game
Along the way, I've been checking in with some other expectant knitblogs:
Baby Claire was born - go over to to Quixotic Musings to welcome her! Congratulations and best wishes!
Sweatergirl, aka "Dances with String"
Two nights of knitting time consumed producing this:
from this:
Wish my hair could hold a curl like this yarn. Now washed and dripping dry to be remade into this:
Hopefully a much nicer grey ribbed sweater that actually fits S.
In other news, tying a quilt is not a job for a very pregnant person. Ow, my aching back - and only 3 of 16 squares tied! I gotta get back to knitting, my preferred way of dangcing with string, where I can sit in a nice comfy chair with my feet up!
Kiss me; I'm Hungarian
In my grade school, half the kids were Irish, and the other half were Italian. Ok - some were both. And then there was me...Everyone's a little Irish today, I guess, but I think I'd need a swig of Guinness to feel the spirit.
David blogged about carbon nanotube yarn the other day. And then today - I find out that they are already making yarn that contains either talcum powder or ground red pepper (depending on whether you need to be soothed or stimulated). Coming soon to a yarn store near you? What I want to know is - will they be making the infamous willy warmers from this stuff? Red pepper socks as an instrument of torture?
I finally finished ONE sock for my MMKG sock buddy, thanks to some quality knittingtime/storytime at the guild meeting last night. Not with red pepper yarn, but alpaca. Yum. No pics - it's a secret. I hope it fits! We are making socks from measurements; it measures correctly, but still. I also hope I can get the second sock to match.
I've been coding all day - well, revising someone else's undocumented and painful code. Blah. This makes me churlish, since the guy was way overpaid for a) doing it wrong, and 2) not even bothering to name his variables other than Rs1, Var2, etc. This activity has also somehow inspired this incredible urge to buy either yarn - or a patio set. Huh? Maybe both, though I can't carry the patio set myself. Anyhow - perhaps a yarn road trip is in my future for Saturday. Eaton Rapids? Howell? Charlotte? Ann Arbor? Oh, the possibilities. For the locals - if you were shopping for, say, basic DK-weight cotton, where would you go? Perhaps Knit-A-Round so I can talk to the Koigu too - assuming they still carry it?
Sweatergirl's superstitiousness
Whew! I made it through the Ides of March. Ok - I am not a superstitious person generally, but lately...well, I'm not necessarily (just) myself. Maybe the Bump is a superstitious kid.
I was ominously expecting to go into labor yesterday just because of a confluence of weird signs:
All this despite the fact that I am convinced I will deliver late...well, it was just a weird day.
Ok, for the Grammar Avengers who might be out there - the first paragraph of a front-page story about the governor's "plan" to increase the NUMBER of college graduates (or percent of adults that have college degrees) in the state (from the student newspaper - written and edited by college students):
"Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced Monday that she plans to create a commission focused on increasing the amount of college graduates in Michigan."
Emphasis added - but shouldn't that not be "amount", but "number"? Or have the rules changed since Sister Anne drilled me in third grade? Pot, kettle, and all that, but c'mon - this is formal writing - and not only that - but the article is about the value of a college education! Grr. I am so glad that I don't teach these kids, or I might end up doing something like this.
Oh - knitting? I did some, I suppose. More baby-knitting...not much to photograph. It's all tiny. But I did start and finish an afghan square for MMKG's charity projects. I had been thinking of making this (from VK fall 2002):
So I made this:
Dang heathered yarn - hard to photograph. The pattern is all done with increases and decreases, not cabling like I had suspected. See how it sort of bulges downward? It was worth swatching, because I am not sure the hemline will be totally okay with me, should I make the sweater. It is sort of like a shirt-tail, maybe. It doesn't show in the picture at all, but the model is sitting. To VK's credit - they do show this in the schematic of the sweater. What do you think? But it may not work for our afghan! Oh well.
Anyway - this is the same issue of VK that has this sweater designed by Kristin Nicholas, recently knit by Geane: (nice picture of front here.
Also on my I-want-this-and-I-already-have-the-yarn list! This is one of my favorite VK issues.
Sweatergirl's weekend knitting adventures
Another long week with little knitting to share! Tomorrow, though, will be a knit-ful day. In the AM, the charity knitting group is meeting at Starbucks, so I will start an afghan square for the collection. Then, tomorrow night, Yarn For Ewe is hosting a knit-in. I have to work on a project that I purchased there - so I will either sew in the last sleeve of my Dale and start embroidering it (blech), or I will start the baby Fana cardigan in Baby Ull (yay!). Starting or finishing - which will win out? Oh, the adventures to be had while I wrestle with my knitting conscience...
Random thoughts
Geography is everywhere: Did you know there's a whole group of internet geographers out there? Wanna see maps of blogdom? I actually came across these while doing real work - they were not what I needed, but the google keywords were matches!
http://www.sustainablegis.com/blog/http://geourl.org/
Breathtaking science: Sarah mentioned that her family members are big fans of the extra-super-duper-gushing-butter microwave popcorn (although she prefers the plain). Apparently this stuff might be hazardous to more than just your arteries. Oh no!!!! I guess I will stick to my air-popped with melted butter...Somedays I wish I was a food scientist though. Yum.
Sweatergirl's warm fuzzies
I've got the warm fuzzies because of these warm fuzzies:
Sarah knitted them for the Bump! Aren't they the sweetest? Isn't Sarah the sweetest? A raspberry, a strawberry, an eggplant, and a pumpkin. I can't wait to put them on the babe's little head! I brought them to work today to just fondle and adore. Thanks, Sarah!
Some slightly better pics, kidnapped from Sarah's site (check her February 2004 archives):
Sweatergirl's short attention span
Since I last wrote, I finished (and washed) the little green sweater. I lied. The chenille/wool mix (Harrisville's Jasmine) doesn't worm, but does bias. A bit. I'm ok with it for this project, but just an FYI. You can see it in this pic in the ribbing at the bottom of the sweater.
I feel like I am just jumping from project to project. Since I last updated:
So - no significant progress on anything, except passing on the cold. Lack of sleep continues - this time from his coughing fits. I hope I didn't pass on to the knitters, but they don't store their toothbrushes near mine, so I am hopeful. This is all preparation for waking every 2 hours with the babe, I am sure.
As for the bootie - well, I think I will knit another frame in shadow boxes for the grandmothers. With a little cross-stitch with the kid's name and birthday. Not that I have successfully charted a cross-stitch before, but feeling confident. Heck, if they are going to let me loose with a kid, what harm can a little needle and thread do?
Sweatergirl and the little sweater that could
Thanks for the compliments, guys! Chris - the cape is really quite quite cute, but a lot of knitting! 17 inches on the bottom capelet, then another (shorter) capelet, then a hood! Whew!
But look what grew overnight!
I didn't really need to study for that stats test anyway...I got myself intrigued to see how the cables would turn out if I carried the chenille-y stuff in the background. It was a bit of a pain to do (take 3 stiches off the needle - one crosses from the left to the right, one crosses from the right to the left, and the chenille one has to stay in the back and in the center), but it's a small sweater with few cables, so doable.
And nearly overnight - my daffodil shoots shot above the ground, and there's no snow left to hide them! Very exciting. Time to start thinking about another PicKnit for the summer? (More orange and green?)
Perhaps I do like orange and green together - check out the socks of the day! So it's not just hormones.
Yarns International sent me more directions for the steeks in Aberlemno, so I may get back to that tonight, but, gee - it's really tempting to finish the little green sweater...
Sweatergirl presents...
It's picture day!
The Little Green Gal (Don't ya love orange and green together? But I think it works.)
The Little Red Riding Cape (I might be starting to get lace after all)
And, since you're here, BearBear...ohmigosh, she lifted her head! (She's quite the lazy pup!)
Sweatergirl and the spare day
So, I hope everyone enjoyed their Leap Day! I decided it was appropriate to start new projects, as, aside from the cold, I am also afflicted with Startitis. Probably brought on mainly by the temporary breakdown of the Yarn Diet/No-Yarn-Pact. Which was brought on by visiting two fabulous yarn stores on Saturday: Clever Ewe, with the MMKG retreat, and Little Red Schoolhouse, on my own, because Clever Ewe didn't have the one thing I had convinced myself I needed.
What did I start? Well, a Rosemary's Little Sweater, from the Green Mountain Spinnery book. Being suggestible, I am making it in green. Did you realize it only takes 96 stitches around to make a size 2 sweater at 4 st/in? And only 8.5 inches to the armhole. Wow - it's like a hat or something. So, the little green sweater is progressing. Of course, I had to make SOME changes for the Little Green Gal. I did a corrugated ribbing with some fabulous yarn found at Clever Ewe. It's Harrisville's Jasmine, which combines 1 ply of variegated chenille with 1 ply of wool. I've spun some yarn like this (well, spun the wool and plied with chenille), and it tends to stabilize the chenille and prevent the dreaded worm infestations.
My second new project is the Little Red Riding Cape, from the Oat Couture pattern. Red Encore worsted weight. Since size isn't a huge deal here, and I liked the available worsted-weight color better than the available DK color.
Since I was already off the wagon, I looked through the sale bins and found some Cestari cotton-wool DK-weight yarn and some 16" bamboo circular needles. Yippee. I'm sorry that I forgot to upload project pictures - so tune in tomorrow.
The retreat was quite lovely - we had great weather for driving through the countryside (the shop was about 10 miles off of the highway), and we got to within a block before we got lost. No problem. The smell of yarn drew us to the shop, and the yarn fever was contagious. After a good morning of shopping at Clever Ewe, a wonderful shop with lots of beautiful yarns, we had a tasty lunch at a deli around the corner. Yum. S was a bit surprised when he heard I had been to Ada, which is apparently an MG mecca, thanks to University Motors. So now we have an excuse to go back! The rest of the crew proceeded to another shop or two, but I headed home for a nap. Apparently a good time was had by all, however!
