Keeping on Track

Just thought I'd stop by here quickly to update you on the progress over here at Casa de Nennie. (I'll be quick this week!)

The July hat is done- and I am still on track for my hat-a-month pact with my knitting group.

I'm also making progress on both blankets- although I'm giving much more devoted time to the Welsh Blanket.

I will admit that I am just starting to feel the strains of "blah" with the Welsh blanket. My brain is starting to feel like it's kind of over the whole "look how cool the pattern looks" and is more like "are we there yet?" for the border add on. Blanket measures approximately 23" so far, so I figure about 10 more inches and I will indulge myself to begin the borders. I'm trying to get at least 16 rows done a day. That doesn't always happen, but I find little short term goals like this help to break down the monotony once a project hits that "I'm over it stage."

I had been thinking this blanket would be for my little one... but husband and I have been discussing nursery themes and I'm already indulging delusions of grandeur of another magnum opus. The bigger factor at this point is time. IS THERE TIME to do anything else?

The Moving Mountains blanket is also proving to be a worthy and very quick distraction. (Yay!) It's great to just pull it out when I need to take something along and quickly move along on making progress. I think that once I'm able to devote myself to it completely it will probably finish quite quickly. (Personal rule: can't even work on Mountains until Welsh Blanket has seen at LEAST 16 rows... 32 rows a day on a weekend.)

I keep telling myself to focus on the tasks at hand... FOCUS, because I'm just itching... DYING to cast on the socks all of a sudden. The good news is that there are a few airplane trips in my future and I will allow myself a sock indulgence for those, but not until those come up. I know that focusing on the two tasks at hand here will ultimately result in 2 finished blankets, which is what I need more than a pair of socks at the moment.

So that's what's happening. Progress continues... but there's nothing I can really show off yet. Hang in there- I feel like August is certainly going to be a month for finished stuff!

Back in the Saddle

As Stampede draws to a close tomorrow, I thought the best way to break the good news to you was using a western themed blog title.

I. AM. BACK.

After nearly two months of "meh" progress- this July I feel like the old knitting me has returned! Baby is growing and healthy, but thankfully not sapping my energy anymore and I am squeezing in the time to knit again! The Welsh blanket is coming along at a lovely (although admittedly, a little boring) pace!

Not only that, pressed both to have a project that's a little more portable (Welsh blanket is pretty but not easily portable) and having a little stash guilt, I cast on another blanket that I decided to take around with me when I go out.

Meet "Moving Mountains"- a blanket that will probably be a little bit smaller than my regular sized blankets, but is using up some cotton yarn that I got on a mega sale this Christmas. The pattern is simple enough to move quickly but interesting enough not to be entirely boring. This blanket is my "portable" project until I wrap my head around a pair of socks to throw in my purse!

With my mojo back- I'm feeling antsy to get things done and move on to more knitting projects. I've been dialed into Ravelry all week, scouring cute project ideas and trying to think of the perfect "coming home" sweater for our little one. I've seen some good possibilities but I'm having trouble selecting just the right one. My favorites folder are getting a heck of a lot fuller- that's for sure!

I need to also congratulate my Mother in Law, for her Stampede success this year. While I am still feeling a little sad that I wasn't able to participate this year, I was heartily cheered up when I found out how well MiL did with her entries. She placed 3rd in the lace shawl category, (sorry I don't have a photo) and 1st in the cable category. Not only did she get her first red ribbon- but she did it with a BANG- placing second over all in the entire knitting section!

I'm so proud of her! Clearly my family is a knitting force to be reckoned with. Look out next year Phyllis... I'm coming for ya! ;-)

Oops

So, it turns out that if you actually spend time knitting, you make progress! (Who knew?!) Progress on the Welsh Blanket is actually moving along at a (gasp!) NORMAL PACE. (Is there someone who can throw confetti in the air to celebrate?)

It's actually quite satisfying to see that I'm getting somewhere on this project. This picture is 10 inches in. You'll notice I did not begin with knitting a border this time, but there's a lovely pink acrylic bordering this blanket. I opted to provisionally cast on for this project because I worried (correctly) that the garter stitch border would be taller than the actual pattern. Since it's shaping up to look that way, I can fudge the borders on this blanket at the end, to try and get a better "lie flat" look to the whole thing. I will say that the Berroco Comfort yarn is proving to be an excellent choice for this project and in general I'm quite proud of myself to getting back in the saddle with this.

The one problem I have with this blanket is that it doesn't exactly lend itself to "social knitting". I can listen to a book, or watch TV while I knit, but I'm it's harder to participate in a conversation and follow the pattern. I'm heavily debating casting on another, very simple blanket (I have so many babies other than my own due this fall!), to drag around with me to other people's houses.

This last comment about needing to make an easier blanket helps me open the door to my little confession. I had a falling down recently at a yarn store.

Maybe "falling down" isn't the right phrase? I had a "falling down into a black hole where I could not be stopped" is probably a little more accurate. It turns out that Mission Falls is going the way of the discontinued yarn. And my favorite little yarn shop, (Pudding Yarn) put it's stash of it on it's sale rack and included it in it's 75% off sale that is holds annually at Stampede. What if I told you I bought all of this yarn (21 balls) for LESS than $40. It's MERINO Superwash! It's a deal. I don't even feel the usual guilt about buying it!!

I'm thinking the Navy/Red would lend itself to a beautiful, simply striped stocking stitch blanket and the Beige would be a really cute blanket too. So I'll be on Ravelry all afternoon doing a little research on that.

Anyways, thought you'd like to see that I'm holding true to last post's promise that I would be back more regularly and that I'm knitting again. Thank you all so much for your kind comments on our exciting new. We're equal parts thrilled and absolutely terrified- but I will admit I can't wait to meet this little person and see how they're going to grow up. (And people... knitting upside, I figure I will have a cute little knitting model to show off all sorts of cute things!)

FO's and WIPs*

Woah. A month. That was a little bit longer absence than I was planning. But I have to tell you- June was absolutely CHAOS. With our house still being rennovated it was hard to do anything. Then, the day after the renno's were done we packed our bags and went to Italy for two weeks- and well, I didn't feel right announcing that on the blog so unfortunately regular posting here just kind of went sideways.

The good news is that I'm still a knitter- and now that my house is back in a state of where I can function, I anticipate this to be a very progress focused summer! So let's just dive right in and I will tell you what exactly is going on! (Brace yourselves, this is going to be long!)

First up- Some finished stuff to show you!

You may remember before I left I mentioned that I had finished the Pointelle socks but was unable to block them. My very sweet MiL stepped in and saved the day, and kindly finished them for me! (Now I need to figure out a way to get her to weave in my ends ;-0)

Pattern: Pointelle by Cookie A from her "Knit, Sock, Love" book.

Yarn: Madelintosh Tosh Sock in "Window Pane"

Needles: US 1.5 dpn's

Thoughts: This pattern was actually a pretty easy pattern to knit once you got into it. Don't let the charts scare you! The only thing I wish was that I went up to a US size 2 since the cuff is a little tight. I need to remember with Cookie socks, I tend to knit them fairly tightly and need to allow for that. I should also note that the Madelintosh was pretty swoon worthy to knit with- it just jumped around my needles so gracefully!

I also completed the easy peasy rainbow socks while on my trip to Italy!

Pattern: A Sock Recipe: A Good Plain Sock by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee from "Knitting Rules"

Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in "Rainbow"

Needles: US 1.5

Reading: (I've really lost track of what I have and haven't read in all this) "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin and "The Chosen One" by Carol Lynch Williams. The Chosen One was especially fantastic and a great audio read- I highly recommend!

Thoughts: I love self striping yarn, that's no secret. This Knit Picks stuff is AWESOME. I would absolutely knit with it again. I did take special care to ensure the stripes were all the same size, which means I actually added more ends to weave (I apparently like pain) by cutting in longer sections after the heel, where the stripes tend to get smaller with the added number of stitches to decrease, but it was well worth the effort. I am very pleased with these!

I hope my sister likes 'em as much as I do- they're for her!

I even managed to squeeze out a June hat when I got home so that I'd stay on track for my one hat a month commitment!

That's not all! I also have stuff that I'm working on again too! (It's amazing how quickly your desire to knit returns when your house isn't in a mass state of chaos!) Yesterday I picked up something I had begun back in May, but just couldn't seem to wrap my head around it with everything going on.

It's the Welsh Blanket by Debbie Bliss- and I had originally intended to knit this as my Stampede submission this year, but I just couldn't get on it and get it done. I'm actually pretty meloncholy that I don't I have any entries in Stampede this year, but I've really struggled getting projects done this year and I just couldn't get something I deemed worthy to enter.

That leads me into telling you about another work in progress I have going on right now. I apologize blog land but I haven't been entirely honest with you. Yes- my mojo died this spring- but for good reason. Instead of coming home and knitting like a demon after work and enjoying my time, I was coming home and sleeping. A LOT. That's because I was making this....

... and that made me tired and just sucked the motivation out of me. Yup! I'm pregnant! Now that the announcement is official and I am well into my 2nd trimester (21 weeks this week, over half way) and not needing long naps to function, I'm finding the mojo is BACK and the desire to knit this little bambino something is great! I'm due on November 9th, (MiL's birthday- look how well I planned that!?!) and aside from the all encompassing sleepiness, I've felt really good. (No morning sickness... feel free to send me hate mail!)

So yes- there's a LOT going on here these days. I will hopefully post some renno "after" photos here in a while, but for now- just know I'm back... I'm knitting and there shouldn't be any more long blog pauses like that for awhile!

I will be back... SOON!

*For those of your unfamiliar with the "knitting community vernacular a FO= Finished Object and WIP= Work in Progress*