Burning on Four

Last night I got about four hours' sleep. Sophie is teething to the tune of at least three or four new teeth coming in at once, and last night she woke up at ten and wouldn't go back to sleep till two. Of course, she was up again and bouncing around at six. Oy.

Anyway, I meant to post last night, but I got involved in a couple of frustrating projects involving balancing my checkbook and other similarly fascinating things that you really don't want to hear about. So here's my random chatter rewarmed.

Item #1 - Mac N Cheese. Believe it or not, until yesterday my kid had never eaten macaroni and cheese. The food allergies are the obvious reason, but I have to admit that I've been relieved more than once when I hear some parent discussing how their kid is addicted to the stuff in the blue box. It is addictive stuff, and I know I ate my share as a child, and okay even as a grownup. It's nasty, it's fake, but it's easy and it tastes kind of good.

Well, now she can eat dairy, and Annie's brand makes a wheat-free version, so when it was on sale at the co-op the other day I bought a couple boxes. Yesterday I cooked one up for lunch and threw in some steamed vegetables and some mixed beans from a can to round it out a bit. I figured it was best not to let her know that some people consider just the noodles and cheese to be a meal.



She liked it. Not over-the-top begging for more liked it, but she ate it and said it was good. Here she is, showing me how old she is.



The mail came, and I was pleasantly surprised with a package from Erika in Providence, RI. Look! Sock yarn scraps! Yay! It's been a while since I've received any more yarn for the blankie, and it felt very exciting. The best part is that I was just getting ready to pick up stitches for one of the bigger squares, so I got to use that big skein on the bottom with the jewel-colored stripes. Woot! Thanks, Erika!



Here's one of the other projects that I worked on last night - this one much more fun than the checkbook. Remember that little contest about the photo-hanging gizmoe? Joe installed the curtain wire I bought at Ikea a few weeks ago along the wall in my office room. I do plan to install at least one or two more and use for photos, but I couldn't resist doing a little yarn display. I may add some photos interspersed in there, or I may just add a little more yarn. This is all sock yarn, and it's not even the whole stash. It's just the stuff that's currently in twist-skeins.



Here's the rest of the sock yarn. At least, the sock yarn destined to one day become socks. The blankie yarn is stored separately in bins.



This is the current status of that sweater I'm trying to machine knit. That's enough yarn for two sweater backs - about four balls apiece - ripped out and awaiting another try. I think I've figured it out and am going to give it another shot at the earliest opportunity. I was busy tonight with laundry and finally figuring out what the hell I did wrong with the checking account. It was pretty embarrassing, and the most embarrassing part is that the errors started more than a month ago!



I thought I'd give a little update on that lace scarf I started a while back. I just finished the second repeat on the main lace pattern, and I'm pretty happy with how it's looking. It's pinned out here just for photographic purposes. This is not how I block things normally. You can see there's a pink post-it note on the left for scale. It's about 15 inches wide.



I had been pretty worried about the error I made in transcribing the chart to modern symbols, and how I left out a row on each side in the edging repeats. It turns out, I think I may have actually improved the pattern. I'm still getting nice points on the edges, and now the repeats work out so that the edging repeats coincide with the main pattern repeats, which they didn't before. Go figure.



Finally, some friends of ours welcomed their second child to the world last Thursday morning. She's a beautiful little girl named Anneka. I was perusing their pictures online, and came across this one. As I looked at it, I had the following train of thought: "Oh, look how cute Max is with his little sister. Hm, she's got that glow blanket on in this picture too. I hope her jaundice isn't too bad. She sure is cute. Oh - that blanket looks like it was hand knit. I wonder if Elizabeth (the mom) knit it, or if someone knit it for them. I should have knit them a blanket this time. Hey, that pattern looks kind of familiar. Oh! That's the blanket I knit for Max four years ago!"



It took me completely by surprise to see my blanket in action so long after the fact, and it's nice to see it being used in a random picture that wasn't explicitly intended for me to see. Elizabeth says they used the heck out of it for Max, and that when they pulled it out for Anneka it looked like it was brand new still. I knit it with Plymouth Encore, and although I'm not a big fan of acrylic, you can't go wrong with this stuff for a baby. It's totally washable, it doesn't pill, and it doesn't have that creepy-weird feel that so many man-made fibers come with.

Thanks for letting me share the picture, Elizabeth, and congratulations on your beautiful family. We can't wait to meet Anneka in person!

And that, my friends, is all I got. I'm going to bed. I can handle one night on no sleep, but I sure hope I get a few more hours tonight or I. am. screwed.