Weekend WIP, Belated New Year's style

How we manage to function at all right now. Jeremy and I have God, each other, and coffee. Friends and family too. And more coffee.


While most of the world was ringing in the New Year in their various ways; noisy, quiet, with crowds or just a few, I was sitting on my old IKEA couch watching "Hangover" with Jeremy and alternating complaining about my sore boobs and how tired I was as though these things were a surprise after having my 5th baby. There was knitting sitting next to me but that was a week ago, I forgot which project it was. Sometimes I even picked it up and knit a stitch or two but only if I had both hands free which isn't that often with a newborn around. I was also browsing craft blogs (I can do that one handed), particularly knitting blogs and making smart mouthed comments about the lists of FO that ran on and on. Don't they know nobody likes a show off? So you knit 13 shawls all of lace weight and on size 2 needles? And 24 sweaters, all adult size and nothing more than fingering weight with the exception of that one Noro on worsted? Then there's the spinning and dying you picked up leading to numerous cowls, mittens, scarves, and hats out of hand spun, hand dyed OOAK yarns. Not to mention that 10 new patterns they cranked out, the baby layette set a week for friends of friends having babies, the two pairs of socks per month and all manner of quirky toys, hot pat holders and cozies. What the...? Let me be frank here: You. Have. No. Life. These aren't people, they are knitting zombies. Knitting zombies that make me feel totally inferior and jealous. Blankety-blank zombies. They totally got to me! Those b*tches. (I know, I just said a bad word but I mean it all in the nicest way you can imagine.) All postpartum-y hormonal I decided I'm not going to make a FO list for 2009 because it would make my yarn buying habit look REALLY bad. Besides, I rationalize, I can't remember what I knit in the past year! Seriously, who can remember that? I can't remember what I was knitting last week. Ok, maybe I will this year because now I do strange things like TAKE PICTURES of not just my FO but my WIPs. And blog about them once a week. Holy crap, those knitting zombies HAVE gotten to me! Oooooh! Maybe I'm on my way to being a real knitting zombie too! They annoy me mostly because I'm insanely jealous. My brother reads this blog, I can totally see him shaking his head and laughing his ass off at me. Yes big brother, I know, I'm a total dork, NERD is screaming from every one of my knitting callouses. This is not news, anyone that knows me, really knows me is aware that I am a complete nerd. The point here is that I'm not making a FO list but I am making some New Year's Knitting Goals. I don't want to call them resolutions, to easy to let myself off the hook with "resolution" and it seems like I'd just be following a trend, you know, the trend of making resolutions every New Year? Check the title of the blog. Rebel here, don't do trends. Except maybe a little if I really like the trend and if I can somewhat claim to have started it. Like those people that say "I was drinking espresso before Starbucks was popular." I say "I was knitting before Ravelry was around," and "We cooked with couscous all the time before there was Food Network" and now "I make goals for the New Year, not resolutions." Just call me trendsetter. Or nerd.

I'm still working on my NYKG (New Year Knitting Goals- I'm starting that now so I can claim that I was doing it before it got popular) and ponder these weighty matters often between 3 and 6am every morning when C can't stand the silence of the house in the middle of the night and refuses to sleep. From this place of sleep deprivation I've come up with a few goals so far. I will share them so next year I can come back triumphantly with a FO list worthy of blog gloating. Oh yes, can you smell the faint hint of failure to come already?

NYKG 2010 (this is a WIP)

1. Knit every day.
2. Knit socks.
3. Knit lace.
4. Knit a shawl/kerchief for myself.
5. Knit something for everyone in our family.
6. Keep knitting fun.

That last one is the most important and if any of the other goals make that one difficult then I'll ditch them because knitting isn't my job and doesn't have to be something I suffer through. That defeats the purpose. So there you have it, my NYKG 2010. Sound impressive doesn't it? A bit like Y2K. Because that was so much fun.

So this weekend's WIPs:

I got this book put out by Sterling Publishing during this past year and determined I'd get a lot of use out of it. It hasn't exactly lived up to my expectations but that could be more on me than the book. I'm using it right now for a lace pattern I thought would look adorable on this sweater (heavily modified) for C. in Purewool in Coffee and Creama or is it Chocolate and Creama? Can't remember.

Honestly, I thought I'd have this set finished ages ago. This sweater *should* have taken me an evening, I thought. But in my stroke of postpartum brilliance I decided to use a different lace pattern.So I turned to my book and found this. Instant love. My new baby girl would look precious in this bellflower lace pattern. Never mind that I'm sleep deprived and a grand postpartum mess, a 17 stitch, 15 row lace pattern would be a perfectly reasonable goal with a newborn. K1, nurse, frog 2 rows, K3, YO, change diaper, P2, S1, K1, PSSO, bounce baby to sleep, frog back to start, etc. Oh yeah, lace should be a freakin' piece of cake at this rate.

I could have knit the sweater 3 times over with the number of times I've frogged this lace pattern. I still don't want to admit defeat but I am starting to think that the lacy scallops on the next page of the book would be a better option for this particular sweater. Having done them several times before successfully makes them even more attractive.

When lace is making you crazy because you are far too sleep deprived to keep track of where you are, what is one to do? I need to knit something, I'm comitted to really resting during my postpartum period for the best recovery possible and any of chance of that happening means sitting and laying around can't be boring. Feeling like I'm accomplishing something helps. What to do? Start an easy little gnome for a certain little girl that is turning 2 tomorrow. There will be more of these, they take all of 15 minutes to knit. I need to sew them up, stuff them and knit their hats. Bits and pieces of yarn from my stash, some Lamb's pride, Patons wool, and an unknown colorway I got in a grab-bag of wool scraps make up this one.

Requiring no pattern at all and thus a good knit while I'm nursing I started a simple wash cloth that will have a matching soap sack and a bar of handmade soap for a gift. Peaces and Cream dishcloth cotton in a flecked natural colorway. I liked it a lot and have no idea what I was thinking I would make with it but for $1.48/ball it made me happy to have it in my stash and now will be a perfect gift. Both are FOs now.


A WIP I started in November but has been hibernating since has finally come back out. A wrap/shawl/scarf for me, this is BFL dyed by one of my favorite indie dyers, Elliebelly (no longer stunning the world with her amazing dye work, sadly) in my favorite feel-good colorway ever, crayon. I picked the dummy clap because... it looked easy. People, sometimes you want something that is pretty but easy even if it is boring as all get out to knit.


Remember these? Yeah, so sad that they are still a WIP. They should have been done ages ago. I would feel guilty about it except the child these are intended for refuses to put any mittens on her hands, even to try them on. She also doesn't wear the hat and scarflet that match these mittens. It will be an adorable set that never, ever gets worn. Her hands were red and cold today so I pulled them back out to finish them so she can wear them during this cold snap even though I know she won't actually wear them. I'll just feel better having finished them so she could wear them if she would. Anyway, I'll get pics of the set when the second mitten is finally finished.

This last bit is yarn that I'm dying to have be a WIP. The problem is I don't have needles that deserve to work with it and I haven't found the perfect pattern. I'm going to try out another pattern or make my own but I want this luscious dusty rose silk (by Debbie Bliss) to become this for C. I know it looks kind of peachy in the pic, all my pics have long shadows and golden afternoon light thanks to holding a fussy newborn most of the morning. That fussy newborn would be much happier if I could get this yarn knit up for her, I just know it.

I feel hopeful that I'm already doing pretty well on some of my NYKG 2010, not that I've even thought about intentionally doing any of them at this point. Maybe I'll keep this up, maybe not. Not exactly a knitting zombie yet but I am a postpartum zombie for sure. KEEP KNITTING FUN! (KKF!)