She's baaaaack...

Well, Birch is back to almost where she was before I restarted.
And I actually followed the lace pattern this time!

Unfortunately, I did most of the knitting in a the emergency waiting room at the hospital. Everyone's fine, but there was a pretty big scare with my boyfriend's stepmum tonight. Gaaah.

Amazing how focused and pulled-together I could be when knitting. I highly recommend it to everyone... except maybe the scary woman in handcuffs sitting across from me. She didn't need to have anything pointy on her. Especially with all the alcohol that was in her system.

I'd post a progress photo, but I think I need to decompress right now. Just pretend there's one right here that looks like the last progress photo of birch that you saw, but is actually knitted correctly this time.

OOOOh, shiny imaginary progress photo.


Isn't that a nice imaginary photo? I thought you'd like it...
Off to bed.

Happy fibre-filled dreams!

Crap.

I have to start Birch over again.
Good thing my TV is now working.

Le sigh.

Wish me luck.

Just a little bit of Birch

Just a little bit of Birch to show you, but I think the hard part was done.

I hope I never have to count to 299 again! Every single time I counted I got a completely different number!

But look how lovely she is:


Well, she looks lovely to me, anyway.

Bo Squiddley Pattern

By popular demand (Karlie), I present to you the free Bo Squiddley Baby Blanket Pattern. I've stuck it in the sidebar for your knitting enjoyment.

You can also grab it from the link here:
The Official Bo Squiddley Baby Blanket Pattern.

As this is my first pattern, please feel free to email me/comment here with any questions you may have.

Enjoy!

can't. fight. it. anymore.

Well. It has hit me.

I am going to knit birch by the fabulous Sharon Miller, from Rowan 34. You must check out her site, Heirloom Knitting. It's to die for!

My favourite birches that have inspired me:
Yarn Harlot's Birch in High Park,
Sweet Georgia's lavender Birch,
Julia's Birch Stole,
and WhiteStar's Birch.

I'll be knitting it in the gorgeous Madil Kid Seta (70% kid mohair, 30% silk) in a luscious cranberry colour. It's the fuzzy red goodness in the top left corner of this photo:


Wish me luck for this 299 stitch cast on.

I swatched (and frogged and swatched and frogged) a fair bit last night, and I think I can handle this challenge. We'll see how many false starts I have today.

I think there will be a whole lot of stitch markers in the works.

I present to you...

... the blanket which shall henceforth be known as:
The Bo Squiddley Blanket!


Ok. The blanket's done. Now the baby can come!



Project Details
Yarn: Red Heart Soft Baby, chosen by the mum-to-be in colour Pinkie (7725). This really is a shocking pink!

For an acrylic, this was quite nice to work with. It'll be totally machine wash- and dryable. And it's really soft. It did have a tendency to split a bit while I knit with it. But it's very forgiving. (I just wish it had been wool so I could block it!) I bought two balls, and used parts of each. If I had to estimate, I'd say I used just over one full ball... maybe 800 yards?

Needles:
Addi Turbo 4.0mm circular needles, 80cm long.

Pattern: Unvented by me. Inspired by:

The gift that keeps on giving...

So today, I met up with Lisa, my SP4 Secret Pal from last year.

What a great day!

We had a very tasty breakfast (at lunch time, the best way to do it), moved on to yarn shopping at Cloth and Clay, bought way too much rooibos at the amazing Distinctly Tea, and ended with a round of drinks at a pub!

Because this is a knitting blog, I have some yarn pr0n just for you:


Tasty Koigu KPPPM (P858), it's not so yellow in real life, more orangey:


Misti Alpaca (100% baby alpaca) Laceweight in colour C743 -- so cheap, so soft, so gorgeous... and of course, destined to be a shawl:


I was also gifted with homemade rhubarb jam. And I'm not sharing.

What the...

Somehow the baby blanket grew. Magically.
So I'm nearly done.

Actually, I'm so close I can taste it -- 6 more rounds (of continental purl...) and weaving in about 6 ends... yeah. I can handle this!

Hopefully FO picks soooooooon!

Tealorangepurple

Best yarn ever.
Check it out:


Yes, my dye-o-rama pal, Lisa, sent me a lovely treat -- this yarn... (just imagine the socks this will make) and a skein of tasty tasty dove grey Cashsoft DK!!! (Yes, it's my favourite.)

Thanks, Lisa! You're wonderful!

Another Join

The incomparable Eunny has done it again.

Check out her technique for joining non-wool yarns in lace.

Ch ch ch ch changes...

Yeah, it's been a crazy couple of weeks.

We switched my basement bedroom with the second-floor office, and my knitting has been all packed up.

Helpful hint to anyone planning a move:
Don't pack your knitting!

You'd think I would have figured this one out. But no.

Sigh, off to try excavate the baby blanket... wish me luck!

Row after row after row...

The baby blanket is officially halfway done.
And the photos are not exciting, so I'm not even posting them.

Just imagine ever-increasing rounds.
In a screaming shade of pink.

Halfway there means that I have 464 stitches in this round.
The last round will have 640 stitches.

Ow.

Good thing the baby still has a month to go.
Next time, I'll knit a shawl.

Peach Sunset... one last time

Well, my dye-o-rama pal, Rebecca, got her yarn... and got a much better photo of it than I did.

See:


I love her greenery, too.

And in crazy news, I sent dye-o-rama yarn to Rebecca and she sent to my friend Vanessa!

It's a small world, after all...

If it's June, it must be blue!

Well, I have a new Project-Spectrum-inspired banner! And I love the blue.

But somehow, I miss the green.

Crazy, that. I don't even like green.

And Wednesday -- on the last day of May -- I bought a green shirt!
The horror!

Hope you're all knitting up a storm!