anyone who knows me knows that i really don't care for halloween. it's usually just an excuse for women to dress up all hoochie and pretend like they are always extroverts when they usually are not. that, and the last time i really got dressed up some biatch dumped water on me at a party and i nearly clawed her eyes out. that was close to ten years ago.
it's nice to have a baby now who i can get all costumed out! look what $15 at oldnavy can do for your happiness quota:
my dragon
she was just too darned cute i had to show her off.
mommy and peanut dragon
in other news, i finished two baby socks. woopee. so exciting i nearly died.
baby socks, under baby shoes
i've been so busy lately. you know how i was going to freelance for work after quitting for 4 to 6 weeks. guess what? i'm still freelancing! this is both good news and bad. good news is that i still get a paycheck and benefits. bad news is there's no time to blog after working and taking care of the peanut all day. i can barely shower (in fact, i'm now showering at night after she goes to bed.) any extra time i may have i've been knitting on the christening gown because i have a solid deadline there.
oh, and family who reads this? no christmas knitting this year. so sorry. i can't handle it.
i leave you with one more peanut pic and the news that i bought 10 skeins of DB pure cashmere on sale at webs. $8.50 a skein! (so much for staying away from rhinebeck so i wouldn't buy yarn.) it's lovely. i can't wait to photograph it and use it.
love that vintage fringe
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now you don't. bu-bye charade sock! it was nice knowing you.
taking a page from laura's book, i decided that these charade socks were just not going to work out. this has nothing to do with the pattern (the pattern actually rocks hardcore) but with my execution. man-sized socks on 2.5mm needles would take me FOREVER to knit and the 72 stitches that i cast on were just not enough. i had KP try them on last weekend and they were tight and damned if i'm going to rip and re-cast on more than 72 stitches. looking back on my progress it took me months to get where i am (or was before i ripped). so my plan is to find thicker sock yarn that i can knit on US4 needles and make faster man-sized socks. any suggestions? i have nothing in the stash except for this that might fit the bill.
so socktoberfest has started and i thought, hey, now that i don't have the charade socks maybe i should gather up my sock yarn leftovers and make baby socks for the peanut! i have quite a few leftovers...
a little leftovers can go a long way
and i think that i can whip them up during october. i really want to try and do it seeing as i failed so miserably at project spectrum. at least i've been mainly knitting from my stash! what little i've knit..
except for this.. (you knew there was an "except" coming, right?) but it does lie within the rules. we're getting the nut baptized in late november and i thought it might be nice to make her a christening gown. one that i can dye when said christening is done and turn into a sweater for the winter and a keepsake for all time. i bought some filatura di crosa 501 on elann.com for a steal and have been knitting this up.
me, a model?
hard to tell in this photo (the peanut is not a good model.. she cries whenever i put this on her!) but it's a top-down raglan-type sweater dress. i got the basic idea from the february sweater and the rest i'm making up as i go along. don't ask for a pattern. i have no idea what i'm doing.
and in regards to my miters, they are just sitting on my couch. i'm enjoying the fairly mindless stockinette of the christening gown while watching "heroes" on DVD. oh god, i'm in love with that show! it's a nice cross between "LOST" and "the 4400". i'm glad i'll have something to watch this fall since none of my shows are coming back till 2008. i was smart enough (amazingly) to start recording this season on the DVR while watching last season on DVD. i should be done by the next week, methinks.
oh, and i'm thinking about starting a project for myself once i get through the majority of this christening gown. i'm thinking flair in artfibers ming. mmmmm, can't wait!
yes mommy!
the peanut approves!
p.s. i'm making adjustments to the full text feed RSS. admittedly, it's changes that i've wanted to do for a while and i'm just now getting around to it. i put comments in the RSS feed about a year ago as an experiment and i think that my experiment is now complete. if i were answering more questions in the comments, it would be a "value-add" as we call it in the business, but it's not. i generally write people back via email or amend the entry if there were more questions to be answered. so, as of today, the comments have been pulled from the full text feed. it will only update when the entry has been updated. i will still occasionally break up a long entry and make you click-through for the full entry but otherwise, you'll get it all! i'm sure this will come as a great relief to many of you ;) no need to thank me.
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believe it or not, i have had time to knit but almost no time to blog. you see, i really need my faculties in order to write up a post. i can't just jump on and whip up a quickie to keep you all in the loop. that's not my style. so the blog has sat pretty useless these past few weeks and for that, i apologize.
a quick peanut update: she's sleeping much better these days. after my last blog post, she, of course, bucked all that good sleep in favor of late nights and early mornings but now we're back on track. she's only waking once each night for a feeding and sometimes will sleep as late as 7:30 (but usually she's up between 6:30 and 7:00 which is god awful early as far as i'm concerned.) i'm hoping that with time, she'll sleep later. she goes to bed around 9:00PM so the hubby and i have about an hour and a half each night to enjoy the peace. i usually spend it knitting or returning email.
her gastrointestinal issues are also getting better now that i know what bothers her. i can't eat dairy which sucks big time. i really miss my morning coffee and ice cream. i've also realized that i can't eat chickpeas which is a weird one but they really do give her bad gas. bummer. no hummus for me!
anyway, she's really turning into a full-fledged baby! she bats at things with her hands now and interacts more with her environment. it's pretty amazing.
here she is loving her new mobile.
wow! a mobile!
some rings...
practicing hand/eye coordination
the giggle ball...
this ball is silly!
and her gymini.
yawn
oops, she looks a little tired in that photo! more in the gallery.
ok, now onto knitting. i've decided to make a mitered square blanket (i can thank cara for this one.) i figured that each square is a small accomplishment in and of itself and gives me something to achieve that's reachable. i got a grab bag of tahki cotton classic on ebay and bought some elann sonata in white as well (these two yarns are almost identical.)
these are the colors i've chosen. originally i wasn't keen on the light purple but now i kind of like it so i'll go with it.
my first try with US6 needles was too loose which i find strange. i did knit kyoto last year on US6s with great results. i guess i'm becoming a more relaxed knitter! so these two squares will not be used in the final blanket. i also decided, after looking at these, that i will always use white as the stripes (color B) and the tahki color yarns as my background. should be fun!
here are the first two squares i've knit and am going to keep. the stitches are much tighter, as are the decreases. perfect. gonna move onto a new color now so that i don't get totally bored though i'm pretty sure i'm going to knit four squares with each color i have picked out.
i also started a pair of socks for the peanut much like the pair that i made for her in february but now that i'm almost to the toe of the first one, i realize that i should make them bigger for her for the fall. so i'm going to rip out this first one and cast on more stitches.
KP's socks are hibernating. i started them before the peanut was born and now i don't like the pattern that i chose. i'm thinking, actually, about making charade in a man's size for him. whaddya think?
one more thing, ravlery is kicking ass. whenever i have a hand free while feeding the peanut, i'm on there surfing patterns, adding them to my queue. or looking at the yarn in my stash and seeing what other people are making with it. it's really addictive. i have to stop! especially since i have a secret project of my own that i was working on heavily before the peanut was born and now haven't touched in two months. crap. i've gotta get back on it so that i can have it live by the fall. please send good working vibes my way. i need them. i can't seem to concentrate.
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