A Bitter Knitter

So... I'm composing this post via my cellphone during another of Jo's naps... Bear with me because I have no idea how the formatting will turn out. I last blogged over two months ago. Jo will be five months old next week! I haven't had much time for knitting, but I did complete a hat for the daughter of a friend of a friend who has leukaemia. Jo doesn't like it when I sit and knit. That's boring! But she doesn't mind watching me sort my stash or organise my WIPs because I'm moving around and that's more fun to watch! So I've organised my stash by yarn weight and gathered all of my WIPs together. I currently have 14 UFOs: 2 pair of socks 2 pair of mitts 2 pair of baby booties a sweater a vest a shawl a cowl a baby sweater a baby blanket a doll a "little red riding hood" cape I am determined not to cast on anything new until 10 of these are done! (Yeah... we'll see how that goes...) I have, however, written up the pattern ...

So... March... Where has the time gone?  My baby is now two and a half months old!  Jo is growing great, no longer a scrawny newborn.  She's currently napping, so I'm stealing a spare minute to update the blog! I'm blessed with a great sleeper, so on occasion, during a nap or while Jo hangs out with Daddy, I get to knit a row or two, so I have actually finished a few things... In early January, I finished promised Christmas presents: " Gamer's Gloves " for the eldest CS nephew--the giant!  His hands are huge, and he asked for fingerless gloves.  They're shown here on my hand, but his are MUCH bigger! And for my very patient husband for whom I promised one of these beanies, oh, say, a year ago, I finally finished his Biohazard Beanie : I also wanted to knit a hat for Jo to go with her blessing dress ... That didn't go so well.   The first one started out too small, so I pulled it back and made the next larger size... and...

At the end of the year, it seems that there is always a race to finish those WIPs...  Christmas deadlines and New Year's resolutions and other goals always seem to create a knitting rush.  There were some WIPs that I wanted to finish before Christmas and year's end and some that I had planned on finishing sometime in the next year. This WIP was one that I thought was going to wait until January... But ended up being a December surprise! My baby girl, whose moniker for this blog shall be "Jo," was born December 21st.  I had gone into the hospital for a non-stress test to monitor my blood pressure on the 20th and it was discovered that I had severe pre-eclampsia, so they decided to induce me early (37 weeks) for both our safety.  Jo weighed 5 lbs 5 oz at birth and is 19 inches long.  As you can see, she's got a head full of dark hair (except for a blonde patch in the back).  She's also got long fingers like her mommy. I'm loving being a mom. ...

This November, rather than NaKniSweMo (a sweater in 30 days), I participated in NaKnitMo, knitting as much as possible in 30 days.  Over the course of those 30 days, I competed: A blessing dress for my little one : Booties to go with it : (somehow already lost one, and she's not even born yet.  Ah, well.  Just have to knit some more...) And a Dalek jumper for my little one as well: Plus  I finished another Gaptastic Cowl for a friend of my mother's , a pair of stealth projects (Christmas presents) for my biggest and smallest nephews, and got good progress made on a couple other stealth projects for Christmas as well.  The Gaptastic is pictured on my Red-Headed Sister below: So, all in all I completed three works in progress, started and finished three new projects, and got half-way through two more... all in November!  I feel highly accomplished, especially in comparison to a few months ago!  I aim to finish the two half-done...

At least I have knitting to show for the time that has passed! I have finished one of the two projects I mentioned at the end of my previous post: This is the baby sweater I was talking about that just needed sleeves.  The pattern is "Oriental Lily" and I just love it...  More of these in my little one's future, methinks. I've also completed an itty-bitty pair of booties (pattern: Saartje's Bootees) which are just darling, if I do say so myself: And, third, my contribution to Knit for the Cure 2011 , a "Ground Flower Hat."  I do love the pattern and how the hat turned out.  There may be more of these in my future... In more fun knitting-related news, a couple of friends and I went to the nearest Yarn Harlot book signing  a couple of hours to the north.  Of course, we didn't just go to the book signing... we yarn-crawled our way there first!  The other two ladies I went with knit on the way up, but since the pregnant lady gets ...

I've been keeping secrets... Secrets about a "stealth project" and I've been keeping them for months now... That's the reason that I've gotten nothing done and haven't written any posts... I might've spilled the beans... But now it's bean-spilling time.  Oh, it's still a work-in-progress, but I've reached the point where I'm willing for it to not be so stealthy anymore... This WIP is about two-thirds done and should be finished in January: (The photo is a few weeks old; it's time for a new one.  My bump has gotten much bigger since!)  Oh, and for those of you who will ask, it's a GIRL! As such, I have reexamined my knitting goals ...  (I was off knitting for a few months when everything  made me nauseous and caused motion sickness, including watching TV, being on the computer, or knitting.  I read a lot...)  I set a goal in January to complete at least 24 knit projects.  I have thus far completed fou...

I last blogged two months ago, and in that two months I have accomplished a big whoppin' NOTHIN'.  I have no new finished projects to show, much less any photo-worthy progress on any other works in progress. Instead I have started and frogged multiple things repeatedly.  In this process I have learned: That reading the directions is important.  All the directions.  While this sounds really obvious, it's amazing how many times I keep learning this lesson.  Guess it's not sticking... Before casting on some ridiculous 600+ stitches using Judy's Magic Cast-on, it is useful to read the direction that says to switch the positions of the tail and working yarn.  Uh-huh.  Because otherwise your working yarn is on the wrong side to start the project, and then you have to pull it all out and do it again. I actually ended up saying "forget it" to that cast on and doing a different provisional cast on, only to discover that the pattern and I don't g...