She's here!

Mary Cecilia was born on November 14, a whopping 6lbs 11oz. and 19.75 inches long.

So far she hasn't shown any signs of wanting to learn to knit (I think her hands are still too small for the needles), but she is doing a good job of wearing the things that I've knit her. Hopefully I will be able to take some pictures soon of her little baby fashion show.

As many of you know, taking care of a newborn is somewhat time consuming, so crafting time will be non-existant/minimal for a while. But that's what Pinterest is for, right?, to keep track of all the projects I'll do one day after she goes off to college.

More Baby Knits

For years I have been hoarding all of the leftover scraps from completed knitting projects, with no specific idea why. It turns out these leftovers are perfect for baby knits! All of the below were knitted with odds and ends, with the exception of the blue sweater.

Golden Pear hat, knit with Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage:

Saartje's Bootees, Wullenstudio sock yarn. I feel like everyone should knit these even if you don't have a baby to wear them because you will die of cuteness.

Sunnyside Cardigan in Knitpicks Stroll Handpainted:

These 2 items went off to outfit my impending niece or nephew (my sister is due 2 months after I am and doesn't know if she's having a boy or girl.) The hat is Welcome to the World Newborn Hat, and the socks are Cozy Little Toes. I was working on them while sitting in a lab having tests run, and someone asked me what I was making. When I held up the sock, the entire room responded in a chorus of "Awwww!", including grown men. Knitting is that powerful.

This Summer

As I plan fall crafts and put the knitted socks back into rotation, I'm reminded that this summer was a pretty good one. The temperatures were generally reasonable, I picked lots of fruit, and the amount of stink bugs invading the house seemed less than usual. I got a new camera for my birthday back in May, and I love it! (It's a Sony Alpha NEX-5R.) Here are some highlights.

The hydrangeas are usually blue, but this year they changed to purple:

 

The container farm reached its largest size yet (it eventually grew to about three times the size in this picture). I grew cucumbers for the first time, and was able to pickle about 6 jars' worth.

 

The county fair was visited:

 

15 pints of peaches were canned:

 

Baseball games were attended:

 

This giant spider tried to booby-trap our back door by spending all night creating a giant web and then sitting on it for 2 days. I felt bad for it because it never managed to catch anything, and then Jason had to destroy its web in order to take out the trash.

The mantel has now been decorated for fall, only one tomato plant remains on the deck, and I've resorted to wearing Jason's sweatshirts in the house because I'm too cheap practical to buy warmer maternity clothes for only 6 more weeks. I look ridiculous but at this point you can probably guess how much I care.

 

2013 Spinning, So Far

After taking the below pictures, I had a shocking revelation: this is the only spinning I've done all year! I usually spin more during the summer than winter because I tend to spend winters huddled under a blanket on the couch. I also hear that taking care of a newborn is not conducive to spending several hours sitting in front of a wheel, so I must spin all of the things in the next 2 months.

This yarn was finished most recently: 2-ply Polwarth from Into the Whirled, in the "Captain Tightpants" colorway, which is apparently a reference to Nathan Fillon in the show Firefly. I'm old now and out of touch with popular culture, so maybe one of you young-ins will know what that is.

My other finished yarn is a Merino/Silk gradient from Fiber Optic. I spun the single super thin, and chain-plied to keep the gradient intact. It took for.ev.er. which might explain my 2-skein total for the year. It paid off, though! Not only am I super happy with the yarn, it won Best in Show at both the Montgomery County and Maryland State Fairs this year! I'm feeling a lot of pressure about what to knit with it.

My awards paid off monetarily as well, and per my annual fair tradition, those winnings are directed straight back into the yarn/fiber fund. As the anti-enabler (I can talk you out of buying anything!) I'm sort of at a loss when intentionally wanting to stash yarn. Any suggestions? I'm interested mostly in independent dyers; I've already bought a skein of Vesper Sock. My mom thinks that I have a big yarn stash, but I can count on the knitters reading to confirm that one small and one large plastic bin is a small stash!

Halloween Wreath

This weekend I hosted my crafty co-workers for a Pinterest Party, which we hold every few months. One of the benefits/perils of an office job is that we spend too much time on Pinterest at work are too busy to pin at work, so all of that inspiration is pent up and eventually explodes in a cloud of glitter and felt.

For my Halloween wreath, I used this Etsy wreath as a jumping off point. Instead of wrapping the wreath form (I used a straw form instead of foam because it was cheaper) in fabric, I used yarn (acrylic yarn, THE HORROR). It probably took about 2 hours just to wrap the wreath, and I'm pretty sure I gave myself the crafting equivalent of tennis elbow in the process.

I bought the felt bat from Michaels, and for the flowers, I used several different tutorials (mostly this and this). Several glue-gun burns later, I had a wreath that I totally love! Fall is my favorite crafting season (and favorite season), so I don't care if it's still 90 degrees out, I'm milking every minute.
 

Knitting Tiny Things

I guess you could say I've always been knitting small things, with my convenient-for-knitting size 5 feet, but these things are really tiny!

Striped baby boots:

 

Oh! Baby booties:

Puerperium Cardigan: (Knit with String Theory Merino DK)

As I've been knitting these tiny things, they have seemed so small; how could a human actually fit into them?? I guess we'll find out in November, when our baby GIRL arrives!

 

Elephant & Stranded Socks

Well, obviously that 365 project did not go well. I got tired of it, which I should have predicted based on the number of things I am knitting at any given point.

In other news, I knit some socks! I'm gearing up for fair season once again and am getting my spreadsheet updated (doesn't everyone have a fair spreadsheet?) and knits all blocked and clean. First up are my Water For Elephants socks, which were part of a serious yarn saga. My size 5 feet have always made running out of yarn a non-issue, but in this case, I didn't buy enough to begin with. Luckily a nice lady from Ravelry offered to send me her leftovers, and I ended up with the EXACT amount of yarn I needed. Whew! Things got a little tense there for a while.

I think these are my favorite socks that I've ever knit. Even though they are stranded, they only took me the normal amount of time it usually takes me to knit a pair of socks.

The second pair I finished this year are called Show-Off Stranded socks. This is a really great pattern for variegated yarn, as it breaks up the pooling. The yarn is Done Roving Frolicking Feet, which is a long name for yarn. It was a souvenir from our trip to Maine last year.

Project 365: Week 6

February 5: Coming back home on a dreary day

February 6: Kiska gets too warm in her heated bed, so she sticks her front legs out to cool off

February 7: A fan that looks like an eyeball

February 8: My mom sent popcorn for Valentine's day. The cheese flavor is the best!

February 9: The first sunny day in a while. Even though it seems like I'm being healthy by eating the unsalted Almond butter, I'm not. That's all that was left in the store, so I just dumped a bunch of salt into the jar.

February 10: Working on new curtains

February 11: I drink a lot of tea

Project 365: Week 5

January 29: Peanut noodles for dinner

January 30: Colorful dishes in the kitchen

January 31: Finally getting around to taking pictures of things I knit last year

February 1: Making lentil soup for dinner

February 2: I've been decluttering for a month - all of this stuff is going away!

February 3: Planning a vacation

February 4: Reading The Likeness by Tana French

Project 365: Week 4

January 22: Cold morning. I should have taken this picture the following day, when it was 9 degrees.

January 23: Dinner time

January 24: Woke up to snow (Not much, though. So much for the snowy winter we're supposed to be having.)

January 25: I bought a bag of 100 tea lights from IKEA and have yet to use up any.

January 26: Continuing on with my crossword kick

January 27: Sushi for dinner. Spicy crunchy tuna is my favorite.

January 28: Another cat picture. Isn't she cute?