You Might Be a Bad Parent If....

If the only time you take pictures of your child is when you're forcing her to model handknits for your blog.

Pattern: The Wonderful Wallaby (Flickr group here).

Yarn: Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool kool-aid dyed with one pack of Pink Lemonade. One skein was more than enough for the 2 year old size.

Adjustments: I did the pocket in reverse stockinette.

Comments: Love this pattern. It's so simple, so effective, so easily modified, and it has a hood. Hoods are fantastic in kidswear. When going out the door, it's really nice to have one less thing to put on Baby Girl (no hat to worry about). Thankfully, I got the wallaby done while there's still some Winter left. I think I'll do another one in cotton for the summer. With short sleeves. And maybe cables like Brooke's.

<---- Shameless attempt to duplicate Julie's pretty photos.

















My incredibly uneven kool-aid dying. ---->

Phildar et Moi

Pattern: The Phildar Swing Jacket, aka Veste Pattern #16 from Automne 06/07 Tendances (by the way, is this really accurate - autumn ends before 2007 begins, right?).

Yarn: Peruvian Highland Wool from elann in Oatmeal Heather (13 skeins for the smallest size).

Adjustments: After I finished knitting and sewing everything together minus the pockets, I let this sweater sit around for a good week or two. Then, I finally realized that I was never going to want to knit pockets, but I did want to wear this sweater. So, I hit JoAnn again (which is, fortunately, close to my home) and picked up some cheapo remnants of a soft brown fabric whose composition is unknown (this may have been a gamble, but I figure I'll be hand washing the sweater anyway, so it should be okay).

Comments: First, I would like to thank the Academy... I mean... Vanessa for the KAL that pushed me to get moving on this super lovely sweater. Also, I would like to thank all the other ladies over at the KAL who provided invaluable information on such exciting issues as yarn subbing and bias binding and such.

It was just too much fun knitting this sweater. In part because of the sweater itself and in part because of all the weird memories that it brought back for me. I lived in France at two different points in my life. At neither time was I knitting, but somehow just the feel of the magazine took me back. The use of English reminded me of all the ads that would come in the mail for Carrefour (kinda like a French Wal-Mart). It's weird how just seeing the French language in print unlocked a ton of memories that I didn't realize I still had. As I was knitting I could almost hear the accordian player who lived next door to us in Dijon. He would play on the street for money, so he was practicing a lot at home.

Anyway, I would definitely highly recommend this pattern. Even with shipping the prices for Phildar magazines are really reasonable.

Cooking

Right now I've got two things cooking.

<-- A crockpot full of potato soup.

And a sweater. -->

I don't know about you, but I love the smell of yarn cooking. I think I spent more time this morning sniffing the sweater pot than the soup one.

The sweater is a Wonderful Wallaby for Baby Girl. I knit it using Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, which by the way, is an incredible deal. I got mine at A.C. Moore using one of those 50% off coupons I get every week in the mail. One skein was more than enough to finish this incredibly cute sweater (it's even cute lumped up there in the pot, don't ya think?). She wore it a couple days and now it's being dyed with one pack of Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid.

They Just Don't Understand

The non-knitters, that is. They live in our homes. They've seen the stash. They've been to the LYS. Many of them have even been to a wool festival or two, and yet somehow it's like we don't even speak the same language sometimes.

Case in Point #1: The other night, I picked up Saffy for the first time in forever. I'm working on the first sleeve. The Husband asks, "When are you going to be done with that?"

I reply, "Oh my gosh, I don't know. I'm done with the back and the two fronts, but I still have to do both sleeves. Plus, the neck and button bands. The sleeves are always the slowest part. You've lost the momentum that you had when you were knitting the other parts. Plus, I think there's some sort of mental trick going on where you think that sleeves should be quick to knit, but they really aren't... " long pause as I realize his eyes have completely glazed over.

Him, "No, I meant how much longer will you be knitting... I want you to turn the light off so that I can go to sleep."




Case in Point #2:

Normally, the Husband is the one to bring in the mail. The other day he was home for a good hour when I asked him if there was anything interesting in the mail. "Uh, well, there was something from Phildar."

Me, "And you're telling me this now?!"

I think it should be obvious that when mail comes that is in any way related to knitting, the knitter should be notified immediately upon arrival. Especially if it's coming all the way from another country. Right?

I got buttons

Well, I decided to give Joann one last go. On Saturday, I made what I had decided would be my final trip for buttons. It was all or nothing. If they didn't have what I was looking for, I was going to order online. So, I went, fulling expecting to be let down again. I turned the display thing (which, by the way, was way hard to turn... it seems like all their turny display things are that way) and there they were. The weird thing was that there weren't just two, but like five or six available... which was weird because before the lady who worked there had told me that they only have stocks of up to three button cards at a time. I'd like to think that my constant complaining about this policy is what prompted the change.

She's still missing pockets, but here she is... the Phildar Swing Jacket:


Unfortunately, it's now too cold to wear outside. So, for now, I'm just wearing it inside at home all the time and then carefully taking it off when I have to change a diaper or serve a toddler meal (we've now entered the stage when Baby Girl only wants to feed herself even with the utensils... let's just say that it's a messy process). Anyway, I plan to do a full post on this project once I actually put in the pockets.

On the home front, sometime a couple weeks ago, the Husband and I decided that it would be fun to expose Baby Girl to "Bye Bye Bye" by N Sync since that is one of her favorite vocabulary words. And it was fun the first 10 or so times that we all watched the video together on Youtube. Baby Girl quickly picked up on the most obvious lyrics. She danced. She laughed. She did the marionette thing like the hands in the background. Now, though, I think we're approaching ~ the 100th viewing. What's weird is that even though I never went out of my way to listen to the boy bands back in the day, I've somehow unlocked a section of my brain where they all exist. I've now got boy band songs stuck in my head all the time. "Tearin' up my heart", "It's gonna be me", and a million others whose titles I don't even know. Anyway, here's her fav version of "Bye bye bye." It's from the AMAs goodness only knows how long ago.