Cosmic Knitting

I have completed absolutely nothing in the last week.  It's this blasted baby sweater-- it's like a black hole.  I knit and knit and knit and all the stitches just seem to disappear into an abyss where I never see them again.  

This thing was supposed to be size 6 months, turns out it's size 2T.  (This is my own fault, I never cease to cause myself problems over gauge.  I always think it will all work out.  It never does.  At least not how I think.)  This means that in order to make the thing long enough to fit 2T I had to add over 2 inches to the body and 2 inches to each of the sleeves.  This adds up to at least 5000 extra stitches than the 6M size would have required.  I'm telling myself it's ok because this way my son can wear it now and the baby can wear it in 2 years, so really it's kind of like Knit One--Get One Half Off.

I almost gave up and made this thing into a vest, but a minor miracle convinced me it was meant to be finished properly, sleeves and all.  See that 4 inch piece of yarn?

Yeah, that little tiny scrap.  That is the amount of yarn I had left in my skein when I finished knitting the entire body of the sweater.  Four inches.  It has to be some sort of cosmic sign-- maybe sent by the aforementioned black hole of knitting as a peace offering.  So I'm knitting on.

Still to be finished:

This thing, that still needs two buttons. And:

This sleep sack that needs two small buttons and a zipper for the bottom.  It's also supposed to get some i-cord around the armholes but I don't think that's happening.

For the road:

Line for the bank in San Lorenzo, Honduras.  We take a lot for granted here in the good old US of A, don't we?

Forget It

I still haven't gotten the buttons put on the purple cardigan.  Well, I got 4 on there, but I still don't even have the other two in my possession.  And I'm feeling less and less motivated to do it because, by the way, if you try on four separate occasions to put a hand knit item on the recipient and said recipient, on four separate occasions, starts screaming, tears it off and throws it across the room, well you kind of want to hide the thing in a deep dark corner and let your great great grandchildren find it one day and let THEM treat it as a cherished heirloom.

So, onto brighter happier things.  I've gotten the baby quilt all laid out and managed to get two rows sewn up and then sewn to each other:

I'm very pleased about my progress so far-- and when I swaddle baby in this, he or she will be much too tiny and opinion-less to scream and throw this across the room, so I have high hopes that side of things will all work out.

I'm also going to move onto a new unfinished project-- the hippo doll for the baby.  I think I can get the whole thing done Sunday morning.  I'll need Jefferson free time because when I tried to sew this thing together before, distracted, I ended up sewing on a head that was clearly, obviously, without-a-doubt, way too small in proportion to the body.  (Turns out I forgot an entire round of increases).  Not only that but I sewed it on at 45 degrees to the other limbs, one of which limbs had been attached upside-down.  Here he is, currently headless:

Just got to finish fixing the size of the head, remove and flip the right leg, and attach the arm.  And then attach the ears and the tail.  I'm pretty sure I can do all that in two hours.  If I don't screw anything else up along the way.

For the road:

My sweet baby wearing a baby of his own--if we want the world to have wonderful fathers we have to start teaching them young : ) 

One Down

It seems I haven't had a spare second the last three days and I've been wanting to post finished pictures of my Kanoko baby pants.  I did get them finished Friday night.  (A bit behind schedule since I used Jefferson's nap time to take a nap of my own.)  I ended up using the sewing machine to hem down the waistband and it turned out perfectly.  You can hardly even see the stitches.

And here they are modeled on Monster.

He does his best.  But he has no legs, so........

Next item I'm tackling from my unfinished projects list will be the purple Andalusia cardigan for Jefferson. 

All that's left are the buttons.  I bought four buttons, but of course with my brain as mushy as it is right now I didn't actually have the cardigan WITH me when I bought them.  So I didn't realize I actually need SIX buttons.  The goal now is to get two more buttons....and then get all six sewn on by Monday night.  I am also making bits of progress on the baby quilt when I get a few minutes here and there.  This is the very charming Little Apples collection by Aneela Hoey, purchased as a jelly roll.

I finished pressing all the squares yesterday.  After posting this I will arrange the layout since I only have about 30 minutes left before "Namma" and "Dampa" bring Jefferson home from church.

For the road:

Proof that ice cream is the ultimate dessert, no matter the temperature.

Tosh Love

DSC06015, a photo by justmakeitshort on Flickr.

tosh sock yarn in calligraphy colorway on a glorious leaf-pressed ceramic dish my best friend made me

Picture Some Pants

I FINALLY got a new charger for my camera battery.  It's been 4 months since ours disappeared; the real bummer being that 3 of those months were in Honduras so essentially everything that happened while I was there is stored only in my mind, most of which (my mind, that is) has been erased and muddled and written over by 3rd trimester baby-growing hormones.

But the joy of it is that I have updated my Ravelry projects page with lots of pleasant photos.  And I also have photos here, today, on this computer, that I can share with you.

So for blogging pleasure I have a picture of my almost completed Kanoko pants.  

DSC05974, a photo by justmakeitshort on Flickr.

I wove in all the ends yesterday and then promptly realized that I left this particular skein-mainder in Honduras.  So I don't know what I'm gonna do to hem down the waistband for the elastic cause I have nothing here that even remotely matches this yarn.......  I guess I have until tomorrow night to figure it out.


For the road:

One great memory that did manage to make it back from Honduras in one piece.

Let's Begin At The Quitting Point

I think this blog should start off with a list of my unfinished projects as I'm currently feeling very motivated to get them all finished up. I really am not the type to leave things to languish, it just irks me to no end knowing that all that time and money and effort is sitting in a dark corner of a closet or at the bottom of a blue Tupperware bin.

 I'm also very ready to start expanding into a wider variety of crafts and I'd like to clear out at least some of my old stuff before I start taking on new genres of creation. 

So here goes (percentages are for work remaining):

Bamboo quilt (50%)
Purple zigzag quilt (35%)
Baby quilt (75%)
Ottobre fitteds (50%) Abandoned

Interweave silk tank (no idea, it's been so long)
Jefferson's purple cardigan (10%)
Baby's Christmas sweater (80%)
Purple lace gloves (85%) Abandoned
Cotton sleep sack (10%)
Kanoko pants (15%)
Ruffle scarf (60%)
Baby's hippo doll (25%)

Think I've gotta tackle the baby projects first. This ones due in just a few weeks and it sure would be dumb if I didn't have this stuff ready. So that settles it, the goal is to have the Kanoko pants finished by the end of Jeffersons nap time Friday.

Be back soon, hopefully with some pictures of all the stuff featured in the list.

P.S. I AM on an iPad so I'm missing a few apostrophes wherever they haven't been automatically inserted. I'm normally quite a stickler for proper punctuation, but nap time is precious time and Im refusing to be bothered. After you have a kid, every sleeping second counts.