Startitis

I finished the hunter orange socks. Yes, they really are pretty much that orange. The name of the colorway is"goldfish," if that gives you any idea. I thought that the intensity of the color needed a delicate stitch pattern to mitigate it.






I think I chose wisely. I really like the look of this. Of course, there is how things look, and there is how things are. I'm sending these to my mother so she can road-test them, since they are 100% bamboo fiber, and not very elastic.

Also, I have de-classified a secret project. They were intended for someone else, but The Man asked for them and, well, a yarn like this needs to be with someone who can appreciate it. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. Behold another pair of self-striping Man socks:



Up there on top is the beginning of a pair of socks for Nephew Henry. His mother told me he might get a kick out of hand-knit socks. I sure do, but I've never heard of a kid who gave a fig about socks. This could very well be a set-up to punk stupid old Aunt Dirtbunny. I don't care, though, because

I LIKE KNITTING SOCKS

If Nephew Henry would prefer to fill them with gravel and use them as a weapon instead of wear them, well, that's up to him. Once I give it away, I have no say in what happens to it. However, in case they do end up being weaponized, I'm also going to make a pair for Henry's little brother Peter. We wouldn't want Peter to be defenseless.


Did you know that I have dogs here? Well, I do, and about two years ago I got a book of dog sweater patterns and proceeded to order yarn to make about half of the patterns in the book. It has been a year, more or less, since I made a dog sweater, and we all know how Bunny feels about Ye Olde Yarne. So I have invaded my stash and cast on a Wahoo Doggy Sweater:




I showed it to The Man last night and he didn't recognize his own school colors. In his defense, he was watching Serie A soccer (Juventus and Udinese--Gigi has apparently gotten a haircut since Euro 2008, if you are interested), and Bunny should know by now that he shuts down during TV sports. I mean, geez, he works so hard and has to put up with so much crap around here; is it really too much to ask that he gets a little time to watch el futbol without a lot of bullshit?


Here is the really big news. Bunny worked up the nerve to open her Ab-Fab kit. It has all the yarn it's supposed to have and I picked which of the patterns to use. Guess what?

Three hanks of MOHAIR! You betcha. The first three hanks are wound and ready to go. It's not officially on the needles yet, but it soon will be. As will my winter cardi. I am going to swatch it this week. I swear!

Laceweight

I have lace weight yarn. Not a lot, but some. Zephyr in five colors. A variegated Australian mohair blend. At least half a ball of Helen's Lace in "Black Purl." I have lace patterns. Books with patterns, and single patterns. I have ideers. Many many ideers. I can make any number of scarves with what I have in stash.

However,

I do not have enough of anything to make a respectable shawl. I want to try to make a shawl. In order to make a shawl, I will have to buy more yarn. This does not make me happy. I was hoping to use up stash.

But enough about my problems. The mommies now have all their baby stuff, so let's take a look, shall we?

Poppy's Stuff

The Bean's Stuff

The Bean gets a longer range because Kirby wanted to help display them. So we have blankets, sweaters, mini-socks, hats, and scarves for the mommies. The Bean's mommy is hoping that The Bean wants to be born today. It's a nice day to be born, so come on out, Bean, and meet your family and get your real name. Poppy, maybe you could stay put just a little longer.

I managed to get out of this baby-knitting frenzy without making a Baby Surprise Jacket.

The In and the Out

I ripped out the badly-done seam on The Bean's sweater and sewed the sleeve back on where it was supposed to be and now we are all done:







By all done, I mean the projects for Poppy and The Bean are all done. The babies are still gestating (at least they were the last I heard) so I met my arbitrary deadline. Good for me. I have pictures, but I thought I'd let the mommies have the loot first.



Silly Bunny. It was really all for Bunny and not so much for the babies. If Bunny had thought about babies for one minute when planning these projects, she would have made them from machine-washable yarn. It's not like I never met a baby before. I know what they do. [Aside for The Man, who doesn't know much about babies: Sweetie, babies make various excretions. It can't be stopped. They aren't culpable; it's just they way things are. Washability is a big advantage.] So apart from the sheer and complete impracticality of it all, I am pleased with how the projects turned out.



Also, this is done:







The fuzzy purple hat. I used one strand of Cascade 220 in a dark purple and one strand of lilac mohair, and here it is. I remain unenchanted by the mohair but--Hey!--I only have one skein left. I give myself permission to take a break from mohair. I have some socks in the works, and a Man sweater, and a secret project. I think my next project will be something fun and frivolous.




I'm actually down one skein this week on the ole inventory. The Bean's sweater took three skeins of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, and the hat took two skeins. So that's an output of five. I bought four skeins for socks. It's not sock yarn, but I'm going to use it for socks.



Four in. Five out. The stash is smaller.

Hubris

So Bunny is at knitting circle on Tuesday and The Bean's mom is there, fixin' to attach a sleeve to a baby sweater, and she's being all finicky and precise and The Bean's mom sez she sez "Once I just eyeballed it and one side ended up half an inch lower than the other side."

And so yesterday Bunny took the day off and she finished all of the pieces parts for The Bean's sweater with the seed stitch borders and she is fixin' to attach the sleeves to the sweater. She has carefully marked the center stitch of each sleeve and she matches it up to the shoulder seam and she smooths everything out and commences to sewing. The whole time she is sewing, she remembers what The Bean's mom said and she thought, nah, I got it covered.

And then she gets ready to sew the side seams, and she discovers this:

That's a bit more than a half-inch off. No way can Bunny fudge that. I am going to have to rip it out and do it over. Yarn Harlot frequently discourses about the knitting gods and how they lie in wait to punish knitters who cut corners and get all smug about it. That seam is well and thoroughly done. It is going to take a long time to rip out--way, way, way, way longer than it would have taken if Bunny hadn't been so sure she had it covered.

Ape Arms

From all reports, The Bean is growing at an impressive rate and will be a big, bouncing baby when she is born. If you see The Bean's mother, please do not try to impress her with stories about the 16-pound baby you heard about. Or the 12-pound one. The Bean's mother does not like to dwell on that kind of stuff and yet, all sorts of people are dying to regale her with stories.

The Bean's sweater with the seed stitch bands is coming along nicely:

I had most of a sleeve but, since The Bean's mother is not anticipating that The Bean will have arms like an orangutan (we are expecting more humanoid proportions), I have decided to rip back the ape-armed sleeve and aim for something a little shorter, which means re-proportioning the increases. I also need some buttons. But that means (oh no!) a trip to the yarn store to look for buttons. The horror! The horror!

Sometimes I can't believe I spend money on therapy

My therapist has suggested to me that perhaps I should try going without TV and knitting for a week and see what happens if I just feel my feelings, because I have a lot of unfocused rage. I have been thinking about this, but not doing it.

1. We have Dexter Season 2 on DVD in the house. And there's football all weekend. And tennis. And a rerun of Chuck. Maybe I'll give up TV for a day on Monday.
2. We don't have any guns in this house, but we have lots of lovely, high-quality knives, and I know how to use them. I'm also really, really, really dramatic. Let's not mess around too much with unfocused rage, or I could end up tearing around the neighborhood like Norman Bates.
3. Why in the hell would I give up knitting? I love knitting! OK, maybe sometimes I get a little compulsive about it and not every project on the needles is equally fun and sometimes it does get a little bit like an item on my endless to-do list (Saturday: finish bottom ribbing of the front of The Man's red sweater, do 2 repeats on the cable trim of the fuzzy purple hat, finish heel flap of first hunter orange sock and set up leg pattern, knit to the next buttonhole on The Bean's sweater, work the next section of Secret Project Phobos, swatch winter cardigan, etc). Maybe this is not the best way to enjoy knitting. Maybe I can come up with a better way. But I ain't quitting, no how, no way.

I've taken very few knitting photos lately, so all I have to show you is the fuzzy purple hat:

It is not fun. I don't like the mohair and I'm not in love with the color combination of the lilac mohair with purple worsted wool. But it is Ye Olde Yarne, so making progress at finishing off the mohair is giving me some small satisfaction. But I'm done with it for today, and I promise only to work on fun stuff for the rest of the day.