I love these mittens so much I can't even stand it

Is one mitten bigger than the other? Yes.

Is there a difference in gauge between the two yarns used? Yes.

Is the cuff just a little too tight on both mittens (but more so on one than the other)? Yes.

Do I care? No.

Pattern: Anemoi Mittens.

Yarn: Koigu Kpppm 816 and Henry's Attic Kona Superwash.

Comments: I am absolutely 100% smitten with these mittens. I truly think that they are two of the most beautiful things that I have ever knitted. I love the variegation of the Koigu against the creamy Henry's Attic.

Plus, besides loving the finished outcome, I also completely loved the process too! Reading the chart for the front panels really took me back to my counted cross stitch days. I love the complexity of the colorwork because it's the kind of complexity that allows for knitting while caring for a baby (which is what I was doing).

I was definitely totally addicted to these as I was knitting them as evidenced by the facts that:

1. I had a dream that Baby Girl had also learned to knit stranded work.
2. I now have all our Baby Einstein videos memorized.
3. I saw past the stand-up portion of "The Late Show," on more than one night (okay, I didn't make it to the guest portion, but still that's way late for me these days).

Unfortunately, the pictures don't even do them justice. I probably should have waited until a sunnier day to do the photos, but my excitement wouldn't allow for that.

Mitten #1

Anemoi Mitten #1 - still blocking. Couldn't wait to take photo.

Eunny, I love you

Well, my very first stranded project is done. It was definitely a learning experience. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the result. The section that shows my lack of stranding skills the most is on the cuff of the first glove, so since I'll be wearing these with jackets and such, that section won't even show. I know that I probably should have ripped it, but since they're far from perfect I have even more of an excuse to keep them for myself.

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts

Yarn: Opal Sock Yarn Uni in 1267 (from my tea pal, Meg) and Cherry Tree Hill in Bark (leftover from the Brother Socks).

Adjustments: Well, nothing intentional. I didn't get the Italian tubular cast on. Also, I didn't have the pattern with me when I was finishing up the second mitt, so I forgot to do the set up rows before casting off. This could easily be fixed, but I'm not going to fix it.

Comments: I am in love with these mitts and absolutely in love with stranded knitting.

Usually when I'm bad at something I pretend like I don't like to do it so that I have a reason for not being good at it. For example, I'm not a very good cook. I really do enjoy cooking, but I'm always setting the timer wrong or mis-measuring ingredients or something. So, I tell people that I'm a bad cook. You know, so they don't get their expectations up. I'm also completely uncoordinated. I absolutely stink at all sports. I was always the last kid picked for any activity in gym class. I would always say that I disliked sports, but the truth is that I really do enjoy them.

BUT, I can't even pretend that I don't like stranded knitting. I love it that much. Even though I know that I'm not so good at it right now, I can't hide my adoration for this new type of knitting. So, even though there are some gifty-things that I'm supposed to be knitting, I immediately cast on for my next project, the Anemoi Mittens. I'm using Koigu Kpppm and Henry's Attic Kona Superwash. Unfortunately, I think that these two yarns might not be close enough as far as weight. I'm going to go a little further, though, before I make any decisions.

Don't have your gift knitting done?

Are you sick and tired of all your gift knitting? Is there a good chance that you won't even get all of it done? Well, don't worry! I'm here to help! I have the solution for you, plus it will also benefit someone else (plus the giftee). Really, can you beat a win, win, win situation?

"What's the solution?" you ask.

Women for Women International. This incredible charity provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies.

How does knitting come in? Well, Women for Women also offers a Bazaar where they sell items made by these women survivors. Scroll down a little and you'll notice there are a number of hand-knit items including my favorite, the wool slippers. I mean look at those... for $25, they look like a steal to me!

Please do check them out!

I Want to be Stranded

What are your projects for this knitalong?

Well, like so many others, first off, I'm going to attempt Eunny's Endpaper Mitts, then the plan is to do Eunny's Anemoi Mittens. The mitts will be for me and the mittens will be for my grandmother (assuming that my ability has improved such that they don't totally suck).

Is this your first colorwork project? If it isn't, what was your first, and has it survived the test of time?

I would absolutely consider this my first colorwork project. I actually started the Endpaper Mitts yesterday and it's a good thing that I'll keeping these for myself as my stitches are horribly uneven (I refuse to frog).

Necessity

The other day when I was taking Baby Girl out on one of our many mini-outings, I realized that there are things that I actually need that I can knit. It was a really bizarre revelation as I spend so much time knitting things that I want, but I don't really need. And yet, I don't have any gloves or mittens. Baby Girl only had one pair of mittens. This was clearly a situation that I had to remedy as quickly as possible.

So, yesterday I knit up a quick pair of gloves for Baby Girl using the pattern (second post on the page) detailed by Lisa. Unfortunately, though, I don't have a nifty i-icord maker thingy. I had to make mine the old fashioned way. I used stash yarn. I think it's Henry's Attic Superwash Sport. It was hand-dyed by someone else. I think Theresa at LTK, but it's been around for a while, so I'm not really sure.

Anyway, at first I wasn't too crazy about the color. Definitely not girly. And since I'm that mom who doesn't always dress her girl in girly colors (does she really have to wear pink 100% of the time?), I'm afraid that this little touch will only add to the number of times that people ask if she's a girl. BUT, then when I took her out for some in-use photos, she promptly took the mittens off (it was over 60 degrees out) and started swinging them around. Then, she took off her coat and threw it along with the mittens into the dirt. That top photo was taken after all this happened. Can't tell, can you? Maybe not such a bad color choice after all.

Is it a pattern or an excuse to email cool designers?

The Winter Knitty is up and so is my pattern, the book of Knitty!

This pattern was so much fun. Mostly because between the knitting and the writing I got to email the designers of all the patterns featured in "The Book of Knitty." AND they wrote me back. Woo hoo. Seriously, it was too much fun. Every time I'd get an email back that whole day I'd be like "Hey Husband, can you believe I just got an email from ____?!"

And he was like, "Who's _____?"

It was great.

Anyway, it really is a fun pattern and I hope all you Knitty fans with little ones in your life enjoy it!

Under the Sea Jumper

I love the amount of cuteness that you can get away with when you're knitting for little girls. The flowers, the prints, the animals... you know, the super-cute. This jumper definitely falls in that category. It can be worn easily on its own or over a t-shirt or even a turtleneck, making it season-less (a big plus when knitting for someone who grows inches overnight).

Sizes

6-12 months (12-18 months, 18-24 months, 2T, 3T, 4T, 5T)

Finished Chest Across

20”(21”,22”,23”,24”,25”,26”)

Materials

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (55% wool, 33% microfiber, 12% cashmere; 137 yards [125 meters] per 50g):

• MC: 3(3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4) skeins color #203 Teal
• CC1: 1(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1) skein color #104 Orange
• CC2: 1(1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2)skeins color #03 Mint
• CC3: 1(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1) skein color #204 Light Blue

Needles:

• 1 set US 4 straight needles, or size needed to obtain gauge
• 1 US 3 circular needle

Gauge

24 sts and 32 rows = 4" (10cm) in stockinette on US 4 needles, or size needed to obtain gauge.

Possible Yarn Substitution:

Debbie Bliss Cathay and Knitpicks Shine come to mind.... let me know if you know of any others!


2.75MB PDF file to be sent via email upon receiving payment.

$5.50

The Memories We Stitch

One of the strangest things, in my opinion, about being a knitter is the way we incorporate so many memories into whatever we're working on. I know that this has been discussed by many other knitbloggers, but my two most recent projects really brought this to the forefront of my mind.

First, Saffy. Over the past couple of weeks I've been breaking Baby Girl of all her co-sleeping ways. This probably should have been done a long time ago, but as with so many other things, although the long-term good was obvious, it was impossible to overlook the short-term difficulty. So, I put it off for way too long. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I decided that I'd had enough. She wasn't sleeping well and neither were we. One day I just ended it. From that day forward, she has slept exclusively in her crib. The first few days were torture. She screamed at least an hour before she would go to sleep and tried as hard as she could to get out of the crib. She was so persistent that she would actually fall asleep standing up. Of course, I needed something that I could work on to keep myself sane during these long crying spells. Saffy was the perfect company. Complicated enough to keep my attention and keep me from crying as well, but also simple enough that I didn't have to think too hard. I know I'll always think of poor Baby Girl asleep standing up whenever I wear Saffy (not that I'm even close to done with it, but you know, in the future).

Second, writing up the pattern for the Fishy Jumper, now named "Under the Sea Jumper" (thanks to everyone for the help choosing a name and special thanks to Elinor, who was the first to suggest the one I chose). This past week Baby Girl has been sick for the first time with a stomach bug. It's been so hard on her and by extension, me. I had no idea that it took such a toll on parents whenever their children were sick. I actually called my own mother to thank her for taking care of me all those times when I was sick. So, between the million dirty diapers a day, the forced consumption of Pedialyte, the sleepless nights, and the general anxiety, I was able to take advantage of the one semi-benefit of a sick baby - longer naps.

Do you have any knitted items that will always bring back specific memories?

What's in a name?

Okay, I've posted about this jumper a million times and I keep recycling the same old photo. I apologize for that. Now, I need help coming up with a name for its pattern. I've been calling it the "fishy jumper," but I don't think that's a great title. The Husband came up with: "Something's Fishy" and "Nuclear fission." I don't think those will work. Any ideas?

It's like having deja vu all over again.

Do you ever find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again? I don't know if I'm a slow learner, lazy, suffering from mommy brain, or all of the above. In any case, lately I have most definitely not been learning from my mistakes.


Case in Point #1: The Too Big Sweater

A big part of the reason that I bought Tricotez Calin was for the cover sweater. In particular, I love the large garter section on the sleeves. It just has that simple, cute, je ne sais quoi, thing going for it.

Actually, this sweater almost wasn't made at all because when I looked at the directions, I only saw the top part, la brassiere, which is sized up to 6 months. Then, after complimenting Aimee on hers and bemoaning the sizes being too small, she politely informed me that the second option (visible right under la brassiere), le pull, was sized 12/18 months (aka the perfect Winter size for Baby Girl).

This habit of not looking carefully enough at the directions would come back to haunt me later when I realized (way too late) that proportionally speaking, the garter section on the 12/18 month size is much smaller than on the other sizes.

Oh, and also, I ignored gauge.

So, the mistakes in this sweater were: not looking at the pattern closely enough, ignoring gauge, and not looking at the pattern closely enough.

Case in Point #2: The Baby Toys

I don't put away the baby toys at night. Or at least, I don't put them all away all of the time. It's usually more like I put some of them away sometimes.

This one, though, is the one I know I have to watch out for. That's because this puzzle has a light-detecting sensor. Every time your little one gets the right animal in the right place, you get to hear said animal's noise. Or, if you don't put all the pieces away, leaving the board uncovered, once you turn out the lights at night, you will hear a cacophony of farm animals. Worse, if you did that and then forgot, went to bed, and woke up thirsty in the middle of the night, you will turn the lights on and think you were in the middle of a barn instead of the living room.

Case in Point #3: The Sweater with the Million Stitch Cast On

Right after I finished the Too Big Sweater, I cast on for a sweater for myself. I'd been going back and forth for a long time about which sweater I wanted to knit from Rowan Denim People. I love Bestitched's Saffy, but I also love Jen's Bomber. I was conflicted for a long time.

So, since they have the same gauge, I went ahead and swatched a while back and determined my needle size for the pattern (US 5). Since I was a little disappointed with the Too Big Sweater and I had already determined that I was on gauge, I went ahead and starting casting on for Saffy w/out looking at the pattern. I cast on about 75 sts on my US 5 straight needles, then looked at the pattern. It said to "Cast on 337 sts". I had my doubts about fitting that many stitches onto straight needles, but I kept right on casting and smashing those stitches together until I had the right number. Then, I looked at the pattern again. "Cast on 337 sts using US 3 needles." Woops.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson about not reading the pattern from the Too Big Sweater. I mean, there wasn't even anything on my needles between this two. Oh well. I decided to leave it as is.

Oh, and making a late entry... Case in Point #4: Trusting blogger.

Why do batteries play such an important role in my life?

Believe it or not, despite the lack of posting, there has not been a lack of activity on this side of the computer. There has been, however, a lack of batteries. The digital camera has been out of commission for over a week (it died shortly after uploading the Baby Girl: Year One photos). Of course, as soon as it died, I had a million things that I wanted to take pictures of.

The first option I entertained was taking out the batteries of something else. The obvious targets were Baby Girl's toys. This was a failed effort. First because, like the Peek-a-Blocks: Sort & Roll School Bus, many of her toys run on D batteries. Second, the rest, like the Discovery Steering Wheel apparently are currently running on these "green" AA batteries that aren't compatible with my camera.

Then, I ordered a ton of cheapo batteries from Amazon. Got them in the mail and they're not compatible w/ my camera either!

So, today I finally decided to walk to the nearest Best Buy and buy some. Great decision, right? Battery shopping with Baby Girl on Black Friday. We nearly got run over in the parking lot about five times and then it took forever to get anywhere in the store w/ the stroller (most of the time I find that walking with a stroller gives you a certain amount of respect from other people... they are more likely to slow down when you're crossing the road... they move to the side when you're in a cramped aisle... apparently, though, all that civility goes out the door when you're competing with door-buster prices). BUT, we got it done... and now I have pictures again!

Before I get back in to my regular posting, though, I have to thank my Secret Pal for an incredibly lovely package. I love all of it. The Austermann yarn I fell in love with as soon as I saw it. Of course, I love everything else too. I've been wanting the Knitter's Almanac for a while, so that I can knit the Baby's Sweater for Baby Girl (is it a bad idea to knit a baby sweater in white?). The Toblerone was eaten almost immediately (and then the empty boxes sat on the counter for a few days because I had to get a picture... the Husband kept asking, "is there a reason these are still on the counter?") The keychain is so cute! And look at the card! She either made it or adapted it to include the sheep - either way, she's clearly very clever. Thank you so much Secret Pal!

Baby Girl: Year One

One of the first things that I made for you after you were born was Anouk. I knew that I had to get something done for you in time for the December holidays because that was when we were taking you to meet most of your relatives for the first time (even a baby has to make a good first impression). Of course, all involved were excited to see that not only were you an adorable 2-month old, but that you also had an incredible sense of style. Thanks to the versatility of Anouk, you will be wearing it this Winter season as well (although, we'll have to come up with something else for visiting the relatives).

Next, I had to come up with something that you could wear to add some warmth, but not too much. You made a little bit of a late delivery and were always a little on the small side. So, we ended up having a ton of short-sleeves tops that fit you perfectly... in the middle of winter. It was clear that what you needed was a Baby Bolero. When I first saw this pattern in Debbie Bliss' Special Knits I thought it was kind of silly for a baby, but you probably ended up wearing it more than anything else that I've made you so far.

Another dress from Debbie Bliss... this one with a note on the bottom... you know just to make it clear to any doubters that Mommy loves Baby Girl.









Two sweet tops because you wouldn't stop pulling on the ribbon on the first one.











Finally, the Fishy Jumper. Okay, it's a little silly, but you look so cute in it. It's so funny to think about how much time I spent figuring out just how I wanted those bubbles... especially since I made it for a girl who seems to love nothing more than pulling her dress up.

There have been a few more odds and ends (hats and soakers and such) along the way, but these are the things I'll remember you in the most. I can't wait to get some things done for your second year of life!

Love,
Mama

A Year in Handknits

Dear Baby Girl,

I can't believe how quickly the first year of your life went by. Is it really possible that you are already a year old? I know your birthday was last month, but as I am slow about sorting through all your clothes, it did not occur to me until recently that I need to keep at least a partial record of what I made for you.

It was when I was pregnant with you that I rediscovered knitting. So, in the years to come when you wonder why there's yarn and needles all over the house, I'll remind you that you're the reason. I knew how to knit before you were on the way, but I wasn't a "knitter."

It all started because I wanted to use cloth diapers. After much research, I decided that I should knit some wool soakers for you. I bought some wool yarn from eBay and a pattern from Little Turtle Knits. I started with the Ribby Wrap. I think I must have knit about half a dozen of those. Unfortunately, I don't have them all anymore, so you'll just have to trust me. All I have left is this one. Having finished those with relative ease, I set out to make your more soakers, but in a different style. Next up were the Picky Pants (also from LTK). I made you three pairs of these (two shown). This left me feeling fairly confident, so I decided to try something a little more challenging. Next up was the Flirty Skirt from LTK. It may not look so complicated in the photo, but under that skirt is a built-in soaker. Plus, I had to kitchner for the first time.

At this point, I realized that I had about a ton of wool soakers. Plus, I wasn't really confident that I would actually be able to pull off the whole cloth diapering thing. So, I decided sweaters would be the next logical thing to knit. The Easy Peasy Cardigan was the obvious choice since I was a little hooked on the Little Turtle Knits. All three that I made for you are pictured here. I also made a couple pairs of Oh'Alls, but they are currently missing.

So, all of these items were completed well before you were born. It turned out that I didn't actually use the wool soakers. I did cloth diaper you, but Proraps plastic covers were much more convenient. The pants and skirt got a fair amount of use (particularly the pants). The cardigans were definitely used the most.

Okay, I'm not going to finish this before naptime is over, so very quickly, the following are the last things that I made before you were born. After I finished up the cardigans, I decided it was time to branch away from LTK. I went to a local bookstore and found a Debbie Bliss Book. I ended up ordering a few of her baby books online that night. The sweater, shoes, and dress were done in my last month of pregnancy when I was on bedrest. You never wore the sweater because I was too scared of you when you were a newborn.

Knits actually made during your first year of life next time.

Love,
Mama

This past weekend was spent largely on the road for our little family. We got news on Sat. that one of my husband's aunts passed away. So, we packed up ourselves and Baby Girl early Sunday morning to head to our hometown. His aunt is the second relative to pass away this season. She was taken away by cancer, so her death did not come as a total surprise. The part that's the hardest... that we knew that she was sick. She was sick for years, but we rarely visited or called or even emailed. The same is true for the other family member who died recently (my great aunt). She was in the nursing home in poor condition for years. I didn't call. I didn't write. I pray that I can take this as a wake-up call. Don't forget family. Don't wait until it's too late. It takes so little effort to make a phone call... to write a letter, but it can mean so much.

Unfortunately, I have no knitting news to report. I wanted to knit in the car and even packed up something to work on, but I didn't even pick it up.

Fall = the season of Phildar

This season looks like it's going to be full of a lot of Phildar knitting for me. First up, I just finished a baby sweater for my sister-in-law's new nephew. He was due to arrive around the time of Thanksgiving, but he decided to show up early... six weeks early! She had asked me to knit a sweater and hat for him a while back, but I kept thinking that I had until Thanksgiving to get anything done. Surprise! I didn't even have a pattern picked out when he made his arrival. Fortunately, though, I did have my newest knitting magazine, Tricotez Calin. This is my first time knitting from a French knitting pattern, so I think it was probably smart to start with something small. I'm not entirely convinced that I even followed the pattern exactly. I think it must say somewhere in there something about slipping the first stitch on the button side of each front. Anyway, it doesn't really matter because I'm happy with the finished product.

Pattern: No 4 La Veste from Tricotez Calin (Phildar Automne-Hiver 2006/07)

Yarn: Knitpicks Swish Superwash 4 balls of Dark Navy and 1 ball of Dublin for the smallest, 3 month size.

Adjustments: Well, the pattern calls for 7mm needles and has you hold the yarn double throughout. Okay, so I used US10.5 needles, but I really think there's a typo in the gauge they give you. I mean, is it possible to be using such huge needles and have a gauge of 23 sts x 17 rows = 10 cm square?! I really don't think so. I'm thinking they meant 13 sts x 17 rows. So, I pretty much ignored the gauge. Also, I completely left off the fake pockets.

Besides that, I also made two other major adjustments. First, the pattern has you knit the collar separately, then sew it on. I didn't do that. I picked up stitches, which I think worked fine, but when you look at the photo of their sweater compared to mine, the collar is definitely different. I'm not sure if my mistake was in the picking up stitches or not. Second, I added a crochet border to the whole thing and added a monogram. I felt a little weird added the crochet border since I've been reading EZ's thoughts on such things, but in this case it definitely needed it, plus I didn't have enough yarn to do a hat in navy.


So, I guess overall my first Phildar knit was not a total success, but definitely not a failure either. I'm extremely pleased with the finished product and that's most important. Next up, the cover sweater from Tricotez Calin for Baby Girl. Then, hopefully, I'll have enough Phildar practice under my belt to do this.

Yay for Super-Quick Baby FOs!

Besides all the obvious great reasons to have children, one definite plus is that you have at your disposal the perfect person to knit things for. Of course, I say this as a relatively new mom. I just have the one baby, Baby Girl. BUT, I must attest that so far, I've found that she is absolutely my favorite knittee. She looks great in everything I make her. No matter how hideous it turns out. She is still relatively small, so nothing takes terribly long to make. She's growing, so I always have a reason to knit another everything for her. I could go on and on.

Here's the latest quick Baby Girl FO. It's a beret of my own design, although the Husband says that it doesn't poof out enough to be a beret, so he calls it a berette. Either way, I'm really pleased with it. I added the eyelet row with the intention of adding a bow later, but I think I like it as is.

The specs:

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (one ball - not sure exactly what color)

Pattern: My own, rough pattern as follows (this is sized for a 14" baby head):

Gauge: 24 sts and 32 rows = 4" (10cm) in stockinette

Materials: US4 16" circular needle, set of 4 US4 dpns

Using circular needle, CO 84 sts. Join for knitting in the round, being careful not to twist stitches and place a marker to mark the beginning of your rounds.

Knit 5 rounds in 2x2 ribbing (aka - *K2, P2* around).
(Optional Eyelet Round) Next Round: *K2, Yrn, P2tog* around.
Knit 5 more rounds in 2x2 ribbing.
Next Round: *K2, M1* around. (126 sts)
Knit 11 rounds.
Next round: *K9, M1* around. (140 sts)
Knit 6 rounds.
Next round: *K3, K2tog* around. (112 sts)
Knit 5 rounds.
Next round: *K2, K2tog* around. (84 sts)
Knit 5 rounds.
Next round: *K1, K2tog* around. (56 sts)
Knit 5 rounds.
Next round: *k2tog* around. (28 sts)
Knit 5 rounds.
Next round: *K2tog* around. (14 sts)
Break off yarn and thread through remaining sts.

Is it the man or is it the sweater?

The first-ever husband sweater is done! I actually finished knitting it up last week, but didn't get around to buying the buttons for it until today. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anywhere better to buy buttons than Jo-Ann, and the pickings were a little on the slim side (or maybe I just was being picky).

I don't even remember the last time I last went shopping for buttons. This is because I inherited a huge button stash from my grandmother. So, I usually like to put all those buttons into (and sometimes back into) good use. I had planned on at least looking through the old button stash for Morris' finishing touches, but it turns out that the drawer on my nightstand where said buttons reside is jammed. Crazy jammed... it seems that something in there has lodged itself in such a way that it is no longer humanly possible to open the drawer. My husband, brother, and I have tried everything to get it open, but it's stuck. We even tried to take off the back portion entirely, but apparently the nails were just reinforcement for the glue. Ugh!

Anyway, eventually, I gave up and went to Jo-Ann and took what I think to be the best they had to offer.

Here are the specs:

Pattern: Morris from Rowan 34.

Yarn: KnitPicks Sierra in Coal. 11 skeins with none leftover for Mens' size medium.

Adjustments: Obviously, subbed in a different yarn. Also had to go down two needle sizes.

Comments: There were several times when I was knitting this that I thought that I hated it. I'm thinking heavy wool sweater + summer knitting was not a good combo. Toward the end though, I could see that it was going to work out, so I got a little excited and sped up. Then, of course, I slowed a bit on the finishing. Does anyone like doing button-bands and collars? Not me! Why does such a small amount of knitting take so long? I'm really bad at picking up and knitting stitches... I guess that's a big part of it.

So far, I'm happy with the yarn subbing, but when I originally bought the yarn, I thought that it would be dark grey. I'm happy that it turned out to be black, but uh, it really looks grey in that Knitpicks photo. I guess that means I'm going to have to be a little more diligent about buying color cards!

Anyway, the Husband loves it almost as much as I do. He had the day off today and wore it and plans on wearing it to work tomorrow too. That's love. Or laziness. I'll assume it's love.

Oh, and it turns out that the male-cardigan is in fashion. See this NY Times article.


Bonus closeups of the cabledy goodness:

I've got mail.

I'm absolutely obsessed with getting mail. I always have been. When I was a kid, I had several pen pals (mostly just cousins) to whom I would write on almost a daily basis. I love opening packages and letters. I love stamps. I love the walk out to the mailbox (especially on a brisk autumn day). I love all of it. SO, yesterday was a great day for two mail-related reasons. First, my package from my tea swap pal, Meg, arrived. Second, my magazine order from Phildar came as well.

As it turns out, Meg is the sweetest swap pal ever. She really knew how to build the anticipation too... first, she sent me a postcard. Then, she left me comments on my blog. Then, yesterday the package came along with the most thoughtful note. Anway, what do we have? First of all, Opal yarn (which I've never tried before). Teas: Assorted Tazo and Stash Chamomile. Treats: Animal Cookies (which my daughter tried for the first time and loved!), Pepperidge Farm Chessmen, and Anna's Ginger Thins (love those!). PLUS, a scone cutter w/ recipe, recipe cards, and a pattern for a hooded sweater. Meg, thank you so much for making my first swap such a great experience! Also I have some dietary restrictions that Meg was so nice to watch out for!

And the magazines! I actually have spent a year of my life in France (one four month period in Strasbourg and eight months a couple years later in Dijon). Unfortunately, at neither time was I an active knitter. I'm really regretting that now that I see what beautiful patterns Phildar has to offer. I probably won't get around to knitting of them for a while because I already have yarn for other projects and it'll take me a while to figure out what kind of yarn subbing to do for these (I was looking online last night and it took me forever to remember that the needle sizes were different... I kept thinking, "that gauge is really weird for that needle size"... ha!) For now, I'll just be content to look at the pretty patterns and plan.