Baby Love

I'm knitting again! It's so exciting, a bit like being back up on the horse after years in the city or Ralph Nader every time the presidential election rolls around- whoo-hoo I'm on the job!

My knits are hardly surprising. Not at all. You expected it right? Baby knits of course!

Blankets in the obligatory UT orange. (Funny story, I mentioned to The Hubba I was going to knit a blanket and I was going to the yarn store to pick out the yarn. To which he brightly responded "Hey, I'll come, I want to help pick it out." I was surprised and delighted. Though not as surprised by his next words: "We can find UT orange!")



My first soaker. We intend to cloth diaper and I admit, a big part of the motivation was finding out I could knit covers for cloth diapers. Better for baby's skin? Yes, definitely. Better for the environment? Absolutely. More cost efficient? You betcha. I can knit soakers and pants for it? SIGN ME UP!


These have both been a lot of fun. The blanket is great to pick up for a constant, fairly easy knit. The soakers are simple, quick, and I'm already on my second one (intention pre-baby- at least six). But that's not really where the baby knitting is. That's not my real passion.

No, I've fallen and I've fallen hard and it's not for soakers and it's not blankets. Can you guess? If you've ever read this blog before it went on the months-off fritz, can you possibly guess what's won my heart?

Yep.

Baby socks.

Oooo.


Awwww.


They are the perfect baby knit. First: socks. We all know how I feel about socks. Second: quick. Now you've rarely heard me complain about the time of a sock because I don't think they are time consuming, or at least the delight factor to time ratio is always well balanced in my opinion. Which is why baby socks are like crack to me. Or, as I've never been a big dope fiend (witness phrase "dope fiend" which was popular once- in the twenties), baby socks are the wine/English hot tea/sleeping on my back I'm not allowed during pregnancy- they are soooo goooood.

Baby socks also hit that baby goo-spot for me that baby clothes don't. Most people- women particularly- see baby clothes and dissolve into a puddle of "awwww, that is SO CUTE!" When spoken by a female those last two words tend to hit glass-shattering levels. I see them and think "hey, tiny clothes. That cost as much as people clothes and a baby wears for about a minute. Practical."

I am not, though, the hard-hearted baby wench I once thought. Because I finished that first UT orange baby sock and I broke my own record of "awwwwww." I'm on a tear now, already finding my next gender-neutral scrap sock yarn to whip out a second pair. And even as I knit these socks, I'm thinking about the next pair, about checking my LYS (I have two great ones in Knoxville and several others in the nearby areas- HOORAY!), maybe some yellow, maybe green, ooo, I could mix and match, toe and heel in one color, sock body in the other, than swap them out- whoa.

Just got a bit light headed. Might want to sit down. And, hey, while I'm sitting here, might as well pick up those double pointed needles. I mean, look, I'm practically at the zigzag bind-off. Just a few quick stitches, just to take the edge off. I won't finish just a round or tw-

Whoa. That is good.

Happiness Is a Cold Floor

While I'm hustling around, trying to finish my unfinished projects, the dogs did this, pretty much all day yesterday:







Inspiring, huh? Probably what we all should have been doing yesterday afternoon. Maybe not on the floor, but the basic restive pose doesn't look too bad.

But I wasn't. I was finishing a teeny-tiny baby hat.



Really teeny tiny. Made for a baby who should be born sometime late October. I didn't want to make this Umbilical Cord hat as big as the last one, because this baby will need the hat sooner and the last hat was already a pretty decent size. However. I may have gone to the other extreme.


First big hat, that fit a four-month-old baby with room to spare, compared to new teeny-tiny hat.

Either this hat will be taking a trip to the frog pond, or else I'll find a teeny-tiny baby to fit it.

Project One- Finished!

Haha. My scarf for my grandmother is done. Lalala.



When I finished last night, I questioned to fringe or not to fringe. The yarn is Lion Brand Homespun and while a) beautiful colors and b) surprisingly soft, it did not recommend itself to fringing. The ends-to-be-sewn-in had that raggedy fraying look. Fringing would be a bad decision, I insisted. There was no way to do it. Even when Miz Knotty suggested adding knots at the end of each fringe to keep it from fraying. But... I hate fringing. So I did not fringe. It looks nice anyway, yes?

Part of my no-love-lost-for-fringe leads me to finish the baby hat (to go with the gawjus baby blanket, if I do say so myself and I do, 'cause I just did) tonight, instead of leaping into the still-to-be-seamed-and-fringed Harry Potter scarf. Tho' I know it must be done. Really. It must be. By my hands. Unless there is some lovely knitter out there with a hankerin' to fringe... yes? No. Huh.

I realize I am technically a day behind as I didn't finish my first project until last night. Still, I am no longer taking pictures of toilet paper rolls, so I regard that as improvement.

Finishing School

I've decided to call this my Week of Finishing. Yes, it's starting on a Tuesday but it has to start somewhere, right? In honor of last week, when I finished my book-cue wild, slightly hysterical laughter- I thought it would be the perfect time to apply the same idea to my knitting. Not quite as extreme though. Last week, I barricaded myself in our house and did not: chat on the phone, email, blog (you might have noticed), grocery shop, or clean. It was, as I was telling Knitty Yoda and Miz Knotty, a bit desperate towards the end of the week (think Ramen noodles lunches and a single roll of toilet paper split between three bathrooms). But it worked and I finished. We went home to Knoxville for Mother's Day, which was great, exhausting, and a good time for all involved. So today is my first opportunity to right the severe imbalance set in our lives last week- more toilet paper being a good start, I think.
Taking stock of my UFOs, I've come up with:

1) my Harry Potter scarf (seven and a half feet long sans fringe- it's alright if you've got scarf-envy) that needs to be seamed together and have fringe added,



2) a baby hat from the leftover baby blanket (did I show you the baby blanket?)





3) a lace stole which really ends when I decide or I run out of yarn




4) a sweater for The Hubba, with its rather shapeless, "feed me, Seymour" quality, which I will either a) make great inroads into or b) frog entirely and find a new, simple sweater pattern that requires less of my personal "adjustments" and uses a worsted weight yarn



5) a garter-stitch scarf I started this weekend for my grandmother (who turns 87 on May 20th).



The plan? I will finish one item each day and, in the case of the pile of sweater, make a decision one way or the other. And it turns out, starting Tuesday, with five days left in the week (I rest on Sundays), is perfect timing as I have five projects. Perfectly planned, eh? Much like the Charmin. We never ran out.



Perhaps posting that last picture is a sign I've been out of society a little too long, huh?

Something Happened!

We had dog action today. After a mysterious visit, when the dogs were banished to the bedroom, this was their response:

Something happened! Someone's been here.

The culprit started here...


moved over here...


and then, oddly, returned to the starting point.



Dumdumduuuuummm.

But who was it? Who was this mysterious creature sending the whole house into an uproar?

I give you, the culprit:


That's right, Baby Yoda (modeling the adorable Umbilical Cord hat from Stitch n' Bitch that I had recently finished for The Hubba's secretary- the baby-to-be is a boy, but isn't that color charming on her too?). Baby Yoda had our dogs in an UPROAR. Sherlock Holmes had never been more on the case. They also picked up distinct traces of Son Yoda and Knitty Yoda, but I'm betting all those baby smells had to be the strongest, as the ottoman, where Baby Yoda started, in her car seat, and then left from, having been returned to said car seat, was the main point of focus.

Smells! Ahhhh! Unknown smells! It was an exciting afternoon for everyone.