March in Minnesota

It got to 63 degrees on Monday (yesterday), and after a sunny and mildly warm weekend, last Friday's snowmen are gone... Mid 50's today, mid 40's tomorrow, and I should know better than to have even looked at the 10 day forecast. It may snow again next Tuesday, but then again, it may not, those 10 day forecasts aren't always that reliable...

At any rate, even given Minnesota's reputation for snowy Marches and even Aprils, now would not be the best time for this knitter to embark on the pair of beautiful mittens I intended to knit this year. Which beautiful mittens? Oh, any beautiful mittens... I hadn't even decided, there are so many I like, I just knew I wanted to make a pair of fancy, beautiful mittens. But do you know what I wore all winter? I wore a pair of those stretchy little glove thingies I picked up last year for $1. Pathetic. Though I did think they were pretty cool when paired with and worn under my Evangelines.

I'm not going to feel like knitting mittens in August, but would somebody be kind enough to remind me to start some lovely mittens towards the end of summer? Thanks.

I think this time of year would be good for a big comfy pullover- kind of like a hooded sweatshirt but less like something you'd wear to the gym. Or maybe a cozy cardigan, for when easy layers are needed. I'm itching to knit something big, like an actual sweater, for me, but I'm having serious decisiveness deficiency issues... Any suggestions?

In the meantime, while I hem and haw over that one, I've got some more little things to put some finishing touches on. Right now I'm working on a girls' shrug and I'm playing with some embellishment ideas. Embellishment can be so tedious, but it can make a garment so much more than ordinary, it is almost always worth it.

One more sleeve to embroider, then I'll pick up and knit the edging, then, hopefully soon, I'll have a finished object- yay!

Teenager has a violin 'performance class' tomorrow- I need to get a better/faster memory card so I can catch some good video, that, and look up the studio's address so I know where in Minneapolis I'm supposed to be heading... Probably shouldn't knit at a function like that, eh? We'll see...

Happy knitting-

ali

Little Ear Flaps for New Little Ears

Despite having knit 2 little baby hats during the recent Ravelympics, I've been feeling the need to knit more. It might have something to do with the fact that I can't decide which cute little baby sweaters I want to knit in 3-6 months size, and which ones I want to knit bigger to fit when the first round of hand knit baby dressage is relegated to hope chests and teddy bears. It might have something to do with having too many single skeins in my stash and not having the time, energy, or budget for very many multiple skein purchases, when there are things like new cribs and car seats to be buying...

I think it has more to do with my very short attention span as of late, that, and a life-long love of hats. At any rate, I've been smitten with the idea of a little ear flap hat- we do live in Minnesota, after all, the land of 10,000 lakes, large and blood thirsty mosquitoes, and more bitter cold, frost covered, toe-numbing months than hot muggy ones every year. (Why, oh why, are the times in between the extremes so short?!)

For Warm Little Ears Hat #1, I went with Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed in Coffee, with a simple single crochet contrast edging in Squash, perfect fall colors. Cotton will give baby a comfy, cozy, feel, while giving mom carefree washability.

Warm Little Ears Hat #2 has been cast on in the scrumptious Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight (100% baby alpaca) in Natural Dk Brown and Avocado. This one will be striped, because I'm addicted to the stripe. The soft baby alpaca will be a sweet luxury for baby, so soft and deliciously warm, totally worth the hand washing.

I have several more variations planned, including some fun embroidery embellishment. I'm typing through my cryptic design notes, translating them into a readable pattern, to be released as soon as a few more hats are finished and modeled.

Fun stuff to pass the time, eh? 20 days 'till 'due date'...

Happy knitting-

ali

PS- I ravelled my finished Loppem, and hope to post soon about my little cable mishap...

Team BSA- Group Photo

Here they are folks: Team BSA, taking a moment in between stitches to pose for a group shot-


The feverish knitting has begun, as well as some silly time sucking activities like making home movies, designing shirts, mugs, and certificates of achievement- some of us might be having a little too much fun...

I decided to start with a smart little Baby Hoodie, in a very boy-ish color combo of my favorite Dyed Cotton, for our up-and-coming wee one. Yay! I finally knit something for the baby!

Team BSA

Event: Baby Dressage

Pattern: Baby Hoodie

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton

Needles: US 7 & US 8

Cast-on: 8.8.08 around 7:30 am

Finished: 8.12.08 around 11:45 am

Despite casting on fairly early (though it was 1/2 hour past official start time, 7am here was whatever time opening ceremonies were there...) I had a very distracted Friday. I did manage to finish the back by late afternoon, cast on the front and then started tidying up the place for a little opening night knitting fun. As I had secretly feared, there was much chatting, lively laughter, silly antics, and very little knitting accomplished... not to mention little time for sleeping that night, ehem, (trying to remember the last time the blonde knitter left my home before midnight... hmmm, there might have been one time...)

Saturday saw more napping than knitting- um, it may just be me, but staying up that late seems to be a bit harder in my 30's than it was in my 20's, or say, like when I was 17...

Sunday was busy, and I can't even remember Monday, so it must've been busy too... it took me until Tuesday just before lunch to finally weave in my last end and get my pic posted at the finish line.

Next up for me was this hat, a future pattern, hence the sneak peak pic-

Team BSA

Event: Designer Discus

Pattern: my own

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed

Needles: US 6

Cast-on:

A fun and quick knit, in a lovely lightweight yarn, with so many possible color combinations!

Gotta love hats for that quick (if not instant) gratification aspect- this took and afternoon and evening, and about an hour the next morning- it could totally be a one day hat, if cast on earlier and maybe without all that peripheral stuff like feeding people and cleaning up after them (and yourself.) Easily a weekend project for those less obsessive...

On to some more Baby Dressage and a couple attempts at WIPs Wrestling! Go, Team BSA!!

Happy knitting-

ali

Just a Couple Little Things

As there has been no major project completion since the Cropped Cardigan I whipped out for the TDFKAL 2008 (Tour de France knit-along), I'll take a moment to point you to a recent easy-squeasy freebie Simple Baby Hat pattern I did for Blue Sky Alpacas using their new Skinny Dyed. This new cotton is absulutely perfect for baby items, and knits up quite well for adult sweaters too. My Skinny stash is growing quickly...

It's a super simple, rolled brim baby hat, worked in the round. It would make a great 'first in the round project', in fact, now that I mention it, I think I may have my kids make a couple for their new baby brother... hmmm... The care instructions for this yarn say "Hand wash or dry clean. Wash in tepid water using a mild soap. Do not twist. Shape and dry flat on a towel. Store your little treasure neatly folded, after all, it may be a family heirloom." but it has been known to be machine washed and dried (see description at Jimmy Bean's Wool...) I plan on machine washing mine.

I've been playing with the Skinny Dyed a lot the last couple months, in addition to knitting that raglan I wish was for me... and have a couple big swatches that I'll run through the washer and dryer soon. I'll let you know how they turn out.

In other news-

Projects Progress Report:

• I'm about 30 rows into my Loppem
• I've knit 6" of a Slipped Stitch Rib Sock (1st sock)
• Just need to add sleeves to a new dolly sweater (freebie pattern coming soon!)
• 2nd sample dolly sweater started (pics soon!)
• Still need to get back to the last few inches of my 2nd Cable Rib Sock, it's been languishing...

In other other news-

• I'm still spending much of my days working out lesson plans, goals for the year, etc... for our homeschool year, which I hope to start in August to get a good bit under way before baby comes, as I know that will throw a wrench into our schedule.
• There are many green beans in the garden, which shall be ready to be picked and eaten, or frozen in the next few days, peas too... tomatoes are setting, though not as many per plant as in the past, different varieties, I guess... they still smell good and I still walk back and rub my hands on the leaves just to smell that fresh tomato plant smell for a while...

To do tomorrow-

• refill oriole feeders (I love seeing orioles!!)
• refill hummingbird feeders (they're fun to see too!)
• refill finch feeders (my kids love to see them, and even the 3 yr old can tell males from females!)
• get strawberry patch staked out to till new rows
• finish dolly sweaters & check over pattern
• spend AT LEAST 15 minutes decluttering
• wind yarn for new designs
• get soccer sign up info for teenager
• get in the pool and have fun with kiddos!

Happy knitting-

ali