I told you there were a lot of people having babies around me lately. One of them was the Matron of Honor at my wedding last year.

Baby number three for her arrived in September. Nevermind that I just finished her sweater recently.

I dyed and spun up some superwash merino as I had done for the previous two. Only this time I underestimated the amount of fiber I’d need for the thickness of yarn I spun because I ran out with only a few more rows to go! But all was not lost. I’ve made two of these sweaters so far and they have all been for children of the same Mom. I found leftovers from the first one

And used them to complete number 3! That’s right. Yarn from this child’s older sisters sweater completed hers. I’m not sure if that’s weird, but since they were complementary and I didn’t have any more fiber on hand it seemed like the best option. I figured I’d find buttons that would bring it all together.

And then I remembered that I don’t have easy access to NYC and my usual button places any more! I haven’t looked at big box stores for buttons in awhile but the selection? Pathetic!! I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, Joanne’s seems to still have at least a wider selection than Michael’s or the like and I found something cute to make it all work.

And just for fun, here’s a mosaic of all three sweaters I’ve made for these siblings starting with the youngest and going to the oldest from left to right.

I’d like to say this is the last of the baby knits you’ll see here for awhile but there are at least 3 more on the way that I know of at this moment so this is not the end by a long shot!

Hello gentle readers! I know I’ve been quite absent from the blog lately. There really aren’t any good excuses. But there are excuses.

Excuse the first: I’ve been doing a lot of work and planning to get my booth ready for the Garden State Sheep and Wool Festival next month. This past weekend Sairy and Sharon came and stayed at my house and I worked them to the bone dyeing a ton of wool.

We made a serious dent, but there is still much to be done.

Excuse the second: I’ve been trying to prepare for my yoga teacher training which also starts the same weekend as the festival next month. That’s meant trying very hard to keep up with yoga classes in the evening and doing a good amount of reading. Unfortunately, reading on the train has meant that I haven’t been knitting on the train. This means far less blog fodder for y’all. Until…

Excuse the third: I got obsessed with the idea of finishing a certain gift for a certain someone so I could hang it in the booth next month as an example of how my colorways might spin up and what can be made with handspun.

BSJ in my new “Little Dude” colorway in superwash merino. I made a serious effort to make this one smaller than the last and it worked! I think this actually might be appropriately sized for a tiny person now. Finding appropriate buttons for a little boy was difficult.

But I think these work.

Excuse the forth: Some new shit has hit the fan around these parts. We’ll know in a couple of weeks if it’s big time shit or wow-I’m-really-glad-that-wasn’t-big-time-shit shit. If you are inclined to send good vibes, they would be greatly appreciated.

Excuse the fifth: This is HWJF’s busiest time of year at work. When he’s had some time at home, I’ve been inclined to spend it with him because I know those moments will be few and far between starting right about now.

Finally, excuse the sixth: I’ve been very low on energy lately. I’m not sure how much longer I can blame that on my surgery since I’m 15 weeks out now, but let’s just blame it on that one more time, shall we?!

So enough excuses! How about some knitting!

The beginning of what I hope to be my Rhinebeck sweater for the year. I figure I better get going on it now or I doubt I’ll finish on time.

It’s Sirdal from Dale of Norway. Little did I know when I started it that it was knit on size 2 and size 4 needles! It may still take some divine intervention to finish this on time…

P.S. There’s a short time remaining to vote in the Socks on Vacation contest for SOS’09! Get your vote in now!

Remember me? I’m still here. Still dealing with stuff. Just thought I’d give y’all a brief update.

I had my second test last week and the results were pretty much the same. I’m getting a second opinion on the surgery tomorrow. After that, we’ll hopefully be quickly on our way to getting a surgery date and getting this thing taken care of. I just want it to be over already. I really appreciate all the well wishes and good thoughts that have been sent to me over the last couple of weeks. Your continued good thoughts and wishes are much appreciated.

There has been some good stuff too. I’ve been using wedding planning to distract me from the scary stuff. After some medical stuff we spent the rest of my birthday looking at places to have the wedding and we are thisclose to having a place and a date. More on that when it’s more set in stone. I don’t want to jinx anything! We’ve also managed to get our wedding party confirmed (more on that in a bit) and we may have our officiant in place soon too. I feel like we’ve gotten a lot accomplished in just over a month since we got engaged. I think the next big thing I’ll tackle, whenever I can, will be the dress.

In the meantime I also got some fantastic news the other day. My best friend, whom I asked to be my Maid of Honor and who current lives in Poland has finally resolved her immigration issues and will, in fact, be able to come back to the states!! I nearly lept out of my chair at work when I read her e-mail, the first line of which read: I AM GOING TO BE YOUR MAID OF HONOR!!!!!! It was so nice to have some good news considering all that’s been happening lately. We had talked about a week ago and I thought things were going to take another year or more, but I’m so happy they didn’t. And when I told her about my current situation, look what she sent:

I definitely cried when I found these on my doorstep last week.

Also, some of you who have been around for a while may remember the sweater I made for her daughter last year. Guess what I finally have pictures of?!?

This was taken last November. She had a little extra space!

Much more recent photos. She’s still got growing room. Maybe one more winter perhaps?

That’s all from me for now. I’ll post again when I have time. You would think that since I can’t knit or spin much right now I would have all sorts of time on my hands but it just doesn’t seem to work that way…

It’s a baby sweater!

Baby Surprise Jacket

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Superwash merino handyed by me and spun into a two ply yarn by me
Needles: size 7 harmony circs
Knit: March 16-24, 2008

There was plenty of yarn! I love it when that happens. I was quite afraid at several times throughout knitting this little sweater that I was going to be looking for a complementary millspun yarn or trying to figure out how to get back to the place I got the fiber from, but the universe must have liked me this month because I didn’t run out of yarn.

Not only that, but on my way home from work on Monday I made a stop at M&J Trimming on 6th ave. and they had THE cutest damn buttons!

When I showed them to HWJF I asked for a momentary lapse of estrogen induced squeeing. This is highly out of character for me when it comes to things that are made for people who are small enough to fit items such as this. Ask anyone who knows me. But, seriously, look at them! They are pretty freekin’ cute!!

Teddy Bear Parade!

Despite my lack of knowledge of all things involving just born types, I’ve actually wanted to knit this sweater for the sheer “knitted origami”-ness of it for quite a while. I’m glad my best friend presented me with the chance. I would urge you to give it a try if you have an occasion to knit it. There seems to be a lot of mystery and angst surrounding the pattern from what I’ve read and heard on various podcasts, but really… you just have to follow directions. And have coil-less safety pin type stitch markers. They are essential to success. This website with the stitch counts was very helpful as well.

I’m quite happy with the finished product. I am still amazed that they make people small enough to fit this though! Although it isn’t *really* small, which I’m actually hoping might be a good thing. The impending bambino is not due until early May and even in Warsaw, it might be a touch on the warm side for this then. Hopefully there will be enough room in it for it to work for the coming fall. Now I just have to get it in the mail. I kind of wish I could go along for the ride…

Have a great weekend everyone!

P.S. Anyone going to see the Yarn Harlot in NYC next week?

Whew!

Originally uploaded by summerofsocks2006

ETA: Apparently none of the text that I sent along with this picture posted, so let’s try this again!

You can see the tails of the first ball of yarn hanging out there. I think it made it about halfway through the pattern, so I may just make it!

Thanks for the suggestions about contrasting yarn though. It could come into play yet. We’ll just have to see.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It seems I have more to blog these days than time to actually do it. For instance, I’ve finally started the baby surprise jacket I want to make for my best friend’s baby:

I’m using my hand dyed handspun yarn intended all along for this project. This is also finally giving me a chance to work with my other birthday present, a set of Knitpicks harmony needles. I may be the last kid on the block to have them, but I was happy to receive them when I did. They aren’t quite what I expected. Since the wood is laminated it doesn’t have the same give that other wood needles have. To me, it’s nearly like working with metal needles, they just aren’t cold when you pick them up. But they sure are pretty and so far they work very well. The join between the cable and the needle is quite good and the yarn slides along them smoothly which is always something I value in a needle. One of the cable ends did come unscrewed on me on the train the other day despite my using the little tool to tighten them. That could have been disastrous on public transit, but at least I know now that I’d better throw that tool into my travel kit so I have it in cases like that.

The sweater itself is knitting up nicely so far. The yarn is soft and has that lovely sproiginess of handspun that I love. The colors are working together well so far as well and I’m not getting any weird striping effects as I had feared. The only problem? I might not have enough yarn! I have three balls, two about the same size and one smaller. I’m nearly through the first ball and I’m not nearly halfway through the sweater. I could go down a needle size or two but I think the fabric would be stiff and unbecoming a baby sweater. And of course I don’t have any more of the fiber or the dye that I mixed and used to dye it.

Why oh why didn’t I spin this stuff a little thinner?

Any suggestions for small yardage baby sweaters out there?