Blankie Friday - the Wrap-Up

I can't believe this is it - the final Blankie Friday. The culmination of what seems like forever, but really in the long run has been a simple blink in the eye. The blankie has been a huge part of my life these last 20 months. It has led me to many new friends, most far, far away in the computer, but a few real, in-person friends. It has been a constant companion, growing in my lap. It has been something to photograph and write about, to dream with. And here it is all grown up.

Let's start with a few fun facts:

The finished dimensions are 53" X 72.5", or 134 X 184 cm (diamond point to diamond point.)

The finished weight is 2 lbs, 13 oz or 1.282 kg.

That's about 5960 yards/5450 meters - or 3.3 miles/5.4 kilometers of yarn.

512 sts per square times 736 squares (counting each of the large squares as four) adds up to 376,832 stitches in the squares alone.

Each square took about 25 minutes to knit, and if you add five minutes to that for picking out the next color and weaving in two ends, half an hour per square adds up to 368 hours of my life just knitting the squares for the blankie. That over 20 months, start to finish, comes out to an average of well over one square per day, which was my original goal for progress on the project.

The Timeline...

Blankie was started at the beginning of July, 2006 - it first appears on the blog here, leading me to believe that I started it right around the first of July, 2006.



Just a few days later, I wrote a post that sparked a flood of gifts, sparked on by the Yarn Harlot's post here. It is hard for me to believe, in retrospect, that so many people so generously sent me their yarn on faith based on the tiny little start I had going in this picture.



Note the tiny basket of original yarn scraps. That was the sum total of my own scraps that I started with.

Lots of people were interested in knitting a similar blanket right away, and I felt like the least I could do to repay the huge response of yarn-scrap gifts was to write up a little tutorial. I do seem to be unable to write a blog post without embedding my family in it, so it's a long, rambly tutorial, but it gets the job done. Start Here, Then Read This, Then This, and Finally This.

Before I knew it, I was inundated with packages, and it was like Christmas every day for a while there. I spent hours and hours opening packages, photographing them, and thanking the senders in the blog. That was probably the most fun part of the entire project, except perhaps the last five minutes of applied i-cord knitting.

Before long, I was pretty darn well buried in yarn. The cats loved it...





Some of that yarn went to other blankie knitters, more of it went to charity knitters - my favorite was Jo-Ann in Ontario, who knits bears for various children's charities.



The blankie (and I) have gotten to meet the Yarn Harlot once in Eau Claire.



And again in St. Paul...



And hopefully we will get a third picture with Stephanie when she comes to St. Paul again in April. She has been so gracious in the past, I'm really looking forward to thanking her one more time with a final product in hand.

And before we get to the pictures you've really been waiting for, I'll announce the
Contest Winners...

Part the first was sock yarn identification.

Sock yarn C



was the most contentious, and at least a couple of people guessed that it was Fortissima Socka color Mexico 9072 Sundown. And it's funny because I actually knit a sweater for Julie when she was little (and which Sophie still wears sometimes) and a pair of socks for myself out of that color, or one in the series.



Sorry, but that ain't it. Fortunately, ikkinlala came up with what I believe to be the right answer, which is Opal Brasil #5001. She even found it available here, which is great, but I chose to order a skein of it through an e-bay seller because I found the whole "every fifth stitch is for g*d" thing a little creepy, and also her ordering system was kind of confusing.

Sock yarn A



turns out to be Trekking #131, correctly identified by Razor Knit Girl. Thanks for the help, RKG, and I left a comment on your blog asking you to e-mail me. On further reflection, I'm not sure that I'm going to order that one after all. As much as I enjoy looking at those colors playing together on the blanket, they are totally not colors that I would wear. So I will at least hold off on them for a while.

I'm a little disappointed that nobody even guessed on squares B



or D



because those are probably my two favorite and I would totally buy them if I could get my hands on them. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I'll extend the offer of a set of notecards and a little surprise to the first person to comment with good information on what these yarns are.

The second part of the contest was giving away the remains of the blankie scraps. I did get a few responses on this one, including an offer to buy some of the yarn. Sorry, but there is no way my conscience is going to allow me to *sell* yarn that was gifted to me! But there is enough to pass along at least a little something to everyone who responded with a link to a picture.

Sandra is churchlady on Ravelry, and is blogless, but has a teeny little beginning to a blankie.
Sopranospinner linked to her latest picture on Flickr.
Jesse has pictures of her newly-started blankie up on Ravelry
Knit & Purl Mama showed me her little chunk of blankie
Alice debuted her blankie on her blog just for the contest.

All of you are winners! E-mail me with your mailing addresses and color preferences (I'll do my best - there is an awful lot of blue, brown, black and white in the mix). I'll get some packages in the mail soon-ish. Just remember - you're taking on responsibility for the care and wellbeing of this yarn - don't neglect it!

Okay, and finally the "show me the blankie!" portion of the contest...there were 116 entries, and the random number generator chose 53, which turns out to be StaceyK, aka moonlightknitter, aka moonlightknitter on Ravelry. Stacey, e-mail me your mailing address and I will get a fabulous package out to you soon!

Thanks to everyone who spewed happy comments on last week's post - it was so much fun reading them all this week, feeling your excitement along with my own.

Now for the real goods...















The photos speak for themselves, no? Happy Friday, everyone! Blankie Fridays are over for now, although I'm sure Blankie will be showing up again from time to time. I will enter it in the Minnesota State Fair this year, and I will bring it with me when I go see the Yarn Harlot in April. Oh, and I'll probably have it with me at Yarnover this year as well. If you see me with it, come say hello and give it a squish.

Blankie Friday - the Penultimate Edition

I had a really tough decision to make this afternoon.

The i-cord edging on my blanket has been going incredibly quickly. I had been dreading it a bit as I approached the end of the blanket, because I was afraid it would take longer to work than I had remembered from the first chunk I worked lo these many moons ago. But it turns out I was able to get up the right side, across the top, and down a good chunk of the left side in the last few days, leaving only a handful of diamonds' worth of edge unfinished by this afternoon. Only an hour, two at most, worth of work left to do.

I went ahead and took pictures during daylight hours, still hoping that maybe just maybe I would have it finished this evening. But then we decided to make cookies instead of watch a video, so I had no couch time before the kids went to bed...and Julie had a melt down at the end of dinner, so there was no time to knit while they were in the bath...and yet I still held out in my mind - I could hold of writing up this post until later tonight when the blankie is - dare I say it - done. I can really hardly believe it now that I am to this point. The blanket will, one way or another, be complete later this evening. But I made the decision to post early, finish later.

A few weeks ago, Wannietta asked me if I would feel sad or a little let-down when the project is finished, after being attached to it for so long. At the time I didn't answer her, but I laughed to myself and thought "yeah, right." But I knew what she meant at the time, and the question has stuck with me. The answer is yes, I will - a little.

So I will assuage that feeling by holding on to the Blankie Fridays for one more week, and next Blankie Friday we will go out with a big bang. There will be contests! Rules in a moment. The blankie will be blocked and spiffy, not rumply and covered in cat hair as it is right now. We will come up with some creative ideas for pictures. I will take you on a little trip down memory lane and we will give the blankie a little blog-party. I'll outline the contest in a minute, but first let's look at some pictures.

There is no big-picture picture tonight. I did take some big-picture pictures, but I'm going to hold back for a couple of reasons. First, the blanket looks so much different now with a nice straight edge across the top. It looks almost like a finished project, and I don't want to steal next week's thunder. Because it really is beautiful, if I do say so myself. Second, the blanket really needs to be blocked. As you may be able to tell in some of the close-up pictures in a moment, the corners aren't very sharp right now, and the i-cord is wanting to roll a bit. The edges need to be told who's boss. Sorry about that, but if you really need a big-picture fix, go look at last week's Blanket Friday. It's pretty close.

I will show you the one remaining edge awaiting it's i-cord application.



At the top is the ball of yarn, attached and waiting its fate. At the bottom is the start of the i-cord, and one of the last two tails remaining to be woven in (yay!) It has been so gratifying as I work my way around the blanket to get rid of all the nasty little dangling ends and bits of scrap yarn holding my provisional cast ons in place.

Here are the close-ups of the final week's worth of square knitting (for those of you who love spotting the yarns you sent in).







This little shot I took after the main photo session. I've got all the remaining provisional cast-on stitches loaded onto a 000 Addi Turbo and am cranking away on the last bit of I-cord. Can I confess that I've been watching old episodes of 30 Rock on Netflix Live in the evenings, and they go together perfectly. It's very entertaining, but doesn't require much eye contact. You can see in this picture that I'm working my way up the side that doesn't have live stitches. At the end of each i-cord row, I pick up the next stitch along the blanket edge that gets knit together with the third i-cord stitch each time around. The live-stitch edges are about twice as fast to knit as the pick-up stitch edges.



Okay, now to the contest. There will be several parts, but for all parts I must emphasize - I *must* have a way of contacting you via e-mail, or don't even bother entering. The last contest I had, I was incredibly frustrated by the number of people who, despite my request, didn't leave their e-mail in the comment and had their Blogger profile set to private. I need to be able to e-mail you to confirm that you want the prize so that if you don't I can offer it to someone else. It's that simple. Also, it's really frustrating on a regular basis when someone leaves a comment asking a question and leaves no contact information. Would it be so bad to set your blogger profile to public and list an e-mail address there? I'm even okay with sending a message on Ravelry if you just give me your Ravelry id, if you're worried about spam.

Part the first: I've been wanting to ask this question for a long time - there are several yarns that people sent me that I really love. Ones that I'd like to make pairs of socks out of some day. So following are pictures of the squares I made out of them. The first reader who identifies each yarn and sends me to an online store that carries it in the colorway shown gets a set of my notecards with closeup pictures of my projects on them, and maybe an additional surprise in the mail.

A:


B:


C:


D:


Part the second - in Ravelry alone, there are 90 projects listed for my blankie pattern/tutorial. I know there are more out there. For those of you already knitting blankies who could benefit from additional chunks of leftovers, please comment with a link to a picture of the current state of your blankie, and let me know if there are any specific requests for colors. I will give away my remaining stash of superwash wool/nylon fingering weight just like what went into my blankie.

I want everyone who considers taking any of this yarn to understand something, though. When I started this project, before I was flooded with gifts after the Yarn Harlot linked to me, I thought it was going to be a 20-year project. I wasn't planning to make it my main knitting obsession for a year and a half. But then I received all these gifts and I realized that I now had a responsibility to show all the people who had generously sent them to me that I appreciated them and that they were being well-used. So I knit them up. I did not hoard them in my stash for an indefinite period like so many other yarns I own. If you take some of this yarn, I expect you to take on some of that responsibility as well. Depending on the number of entries, I will split up what I have into reasonable packages and draw names randomly.

Part the third - this one is for everyone. Simply leave a comment (separate from any other comment entries) saying "Show me the blankie!" (those exact words, please - I'm going to use an automatic sorting feature in Outlook) and you'll be entered for a prize package including a skein of my hand dyed yarn, some note cards, a set of my favorite Pony Pearl knitting needles, a sock project bag by Messie Craftie (no affiliation - I just love her bags and want an excuse to order another for myself as well ;-), and a copy of one of my favorite sock knitting books - your choice of Nancy Bush's Folk Socks, Interweave Knit's Favorite Socks, or Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks - Warm Feet. It'll be kind of like the Secret Pal package I would send to myself if I were my own Secret Pal, only the winner will get it instead. I guess I'd better throw in some chocolate as well.

Alright, that's it. Um, if you're out there and you're reading and you have a blog - send your friends here for the party next Friday. There'll be lots of pictures and fun facts about the blankie. A huge thanks to all of you who have hung with me on this and seen me through this far. I'm off to fire up the 30 Rock and have one last knitting session with the blankie.

Editing to add - comments closed because the contest is over. Check out the wrap-up post for final blankie pictures.

Blankie Friday and Valentines Wrap-Up

I know you're just here for the blanket pictures, but I'm too lazy to do two seperate posts tonight, so I'm going to make you sit through my Valentine's Day pictures first.

I've been waiting months for this. I saw this totally amazingly yummy-looking chocolate sauce at the co-op a few months ago and thought how perfect it would be with some strawberries as a special Valentine's Day dessert.



And oh, my. It was a terrific Valentine's Day dessert.



The girls loved it. I loved it. Even Joe, who normally does not get into desserts, seemed to love it.

And then Joe surprised me with not one but three awesome VD gifts...

A Takashi Murukami mouse pad to protect my new desk from the laser in my mouse, which left a big old faded spot on the surface of my old desk. Hee hee. I love it.



This funny little guy, which is so totally something Joe would buy. It's a wind-up toy, and the little plastic heart beats in and out as it swings the clear plastic circle around like a hula-hoop, making the ball bearing inside go in circles, producing a rythmic clacking against the ridges inside. It's hilarious, and the girls wanted it for themselves. I said no. But I did let them watch it several times.



And finally, a t-shirt, which is also so totally Joe's sense of humor - it's an ugly doll, Jeero, wearing a surgical mask. Funny.



And I know you're all totally "C'mon, give me the blankie pics!" But I can't resist showing you a couple more chocolate-mouth pictures from today, when we had some friends over for lunch and shared the leftovers with them.



You have to admit that happy chocolate-covered kids can be pretty cute.



The blankie is looking pretty good this week. See those top squares over on the right? That's the freakin' top of the blanket. Oh yeah, baby! I knit 33 squares this week, and there are only 24 more to go. I really think I have a chance of finishing the whole damn thing, i-cord edging and all, by the end of the month.

Blankie Friday - the Unhappy Birthday Edition

Lots going on at House of Kang today. Mostly involving more barfing, another fruitless visit to the doctor's office, and a very sad toddler, exhausted mama, and bored pre-schooler. All on Someone's second birthday. It sucked. Royally.

But. Let's forget about that for a moment. I've had a glass of wine and a long, hot bath. We've agreed to have a re-do of Sophie's birthday when she's feeling better. Hopefully on Sunday I'll make a cake and buy some balloons. Joe's set up her birthday present in the basement, and we'll show that to her in the morning assuming that she's up to it.

Here's the birthday girl at lunchtime, still in her PJs, eating applesauce and Cheerios. She wanted nothing to do with the Pedialyte that I dragged the girls through SuperTarget, to fetch.



Moments later, I was trying to take a picture of Julie to prove that she's still alive and happy. Um, yeah.



So for now, let's get on with Blankie Friday and some other fun stuff.

This week marks a milestone - I knit the last big square in the blanket just yesterday. My friends, there is a growing light at the end of the tunnel, and it's increasingly clear that the light is not an oncoming train. Shown here are the candidates for that last square. I'd used most of my more-favorite samples in big squares already, and I needed something that fit colorwise with the spot. So I cheated a bit and pulled out a few of the intact skeins on my shelf. I did end up using one of the intact skeins, the Opal one third from the right, so I'll make sure to add it to my plain-sock queue right after the Vesper pair that's on the needles and next in line.



Here is the big-picture shot for the week. 33 new squares total (yay!) I think the guilt of having played around with another new project really worked to motivate me this week.



And the up-close shots...







Once again, the girls were hanging around watching as I took my pictures, and Julie wanted a chance to play in the blanket. There is a series of Beatrix Potter videos that we sometimes borrow from the library, and one of them includes the story of Samuel Whiskers or the Roly-Poly Pudding. It involves a kitten who gets caught by some rats and rolled up in dough while they plan to eat him for dinner. He is saved just in time, thankfully, but Julie is really interested in the whole scenario. She loves being made into a roly-poly pudding.



Remember how I said I wasn't going to count how many squares are left to knit? Well, I gave in. I drew myself a little diagram, and counted up the empty squares - 58! Barring some unforeseen obstacle, I should be finishing my last square in a couple of weeks. Happy Dance time!



And finally, something completely unrelated but hilariously funny and cheers me up to no end...There's this show on the Cartoon Network called Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It's shown as part of their Adult Swim schedule late at night and is totally not meant for kids. Joe and I used to watch it back when we had cable TV, and he just bought the latest season that came out on DVD. He's been watching it all week, and last night he called me in to see this.

Two of the main characters, Shake and Meatwad (the show is silly and twisted and distusting and makes no sense, but it is still highly entertaining) are playing a video game.



A knitting video game!



Look at the little old lady face. Notice how purl is misspelled. And they're saying something like "Knit! Knit!" "Purl, dammit!"

Blankie Friday only Ten Hours Late

These pictures are from Friday afternoon, and I had every intention of posting last night when I came home from knitting with some friends at a coffee shop. It didn't quite happen - will get to the why of that in a moment - but at least the square count is from Friday - 29! I really felt throughout the week that I was struggling to keep up with my quota. It seemed like I never got to sit down to knit till at least 10 at night, but in the end I came darn near 30 squares, and I'm still on track to finish knitting at least the squares by the end of the month.

My secret wishful goal would be to finish the whole thing, i-cord and all, by the end of the month, but I will be happy with getting the squares done by then if that's how it works out. I'm forcing myself not to do the math on exactly how many squares are left, but I think about it constantly. See that topmost large square right in the middle beneath Sophie's toes? If there were two more squares on top of it, that would be the top of the blanket. We're getting close.



I sort of forgot to take the up-close shots of the top of the blanket this week - the girls were there just dying to roll around on the blanket, and I gave in and let them as soon as the big-picture pictures were taken. I did put up the full-res image above, though, which should suffice if you click right through to it.

And I did get this fun little picture, which makes me happy to look at. The standard overhead shot is getting a little boring, and I think this on-the-ground perspective give a little bit better idea of what the blankie looks like in person.



Now about the why-I-didn't-post last night. All this last week, Sophie and I had been affected with a low-grade stomach bug. Sophie actually threw up a couple times over the weekend, and just didn't eat much during the rest of the week. I never actually you-know, but I had that ooky feeling in my tummy for several days myself. I thought Julie was getting away free and clear, but it turns out it just took a few extra days to hit her.

And really, you don't want to know any additional details. I will just say that I really should not have gone to knitting at all, and poor Joe was stuck changing the bed several times while I was gone and doing a ton of laundry in the space of about three hours. I ended up going to bed with Julie and snuggling her for a few hours - partly to comfort her and partly to be right there with the bucket if necessary. And I'll admit - it's not often that my four-year-old lets me just hold her and cuddle, so even though she was sick and miserable, I kind of enjoyed being there with her. It's twisted, I know.

Today she's still not eating much, but she's keeping the juice down and will be just fine. I had Sophie in the doctor earlier this week to check for an ear infection because *she* has been waking up screaming every night this week, even after the stomach thing cleared. It turns out it's just her new molars coming in, but the awesome nurse practitioner did mention that this low-grade stomach bug has been all around the community. Julie's going to be just fine.

Now if we could all just get a solid night's sleep...

Thanks, Andrea!

It's been quite some time since I've received a package of yarn bits for the blankie, but yesterday in the mail I got what may just be the last one to make it in time to be included in the current project.

Andrea in Canada had meant to send hers off to me back when the Yarn Harlot tried to bury me in yarn, but was in the middle of a giant move and only recently unearthed these.



I love how she stuck them in an old oatmeal box to ship them off (and then it was wrapped in brown paper with the addresses) but really - it's so fun to see the French labels on such a familiar product. We USA-Americans don't always remember that many of our neighbors to the north speak French.

Anyway, look for at least two squares made from your yarn in this week's Blankie Friday post, Andrea - probably more because I really like the reddish one and haven't worked it in yet. I will be skipping tonight's Democratic caucus here and hopefully cranking out some more squares instead. Thanks very much for thinking of me and passing along a little bit of your knitting history to go in the blankie.

Editing to add: uh, yep. I'm a big dork. The caucus is *next* Tuesday. I'm gonna be honest and tell ya that I still won't plan on going. I could be happy with either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama as President, and I don't have strong enough opinions either way to take me out to spend an evening with the political elite versus putting my kids to bed and sitting my butt on the couch with my knitting. Maybe in four years when the kids are a little older.

Blankie Friday - the Happy Birthday Edition

Yeah, it's my birthday. Hey all you lurkers, come out and say hello, mmmkay? There's like thousands of you out there according to the blog stats, and yet I only ever hear from the same twenty or so people. It's depressing. Not that I don't love you, you twenty or so who DO comment!

Alright, today as my birthday present to you, I'm including the full-sized blankie pictures - just click on through if you want the big ones. Oh, and there were 27 squares this week. Not too shabby.

Let's start off with something a little different - blankie with its hair down. I accidentally laid it out with the backside up the first time, and I thought "hey, maybe they'd like to see the backside and all the ends this time." So there you go. You can also see where I normally lay blankie out, and the toys and crappe that I had to shove aside to get a piece of clear floor space.



Here's a close-up of the tangled ends. That's only about a week's worth of ends - the rest are all woven in.



And the standard overhead shot. I usually stand on one of our dining room chairs to get this shot, and it's getting harder and harder to fit the whole thing in the frame.



And this week's close-ups. I don't know what it is with Photoshop the last couple weeks, but it keeps wanting to rotate these for me. This time I'm going to straighten them back out for you. It gave me a headache all last week thinking of the one sideways one.







And finally, what Julie was doing while I started this post...she had dressed up in all her play clothes, and I let her watch a video while I put Sophie down for her nap and that gave me a few minutes of free time. Now she is busy chopping up paper, pretending to make Valentines and driving me crazy because I'm not going to get the glue out right now.

Blankie Friday - Post-It Fun

30! Woot! I'm keeping up the pace, and that's a good thing, because I've been working hard again this week. Thirty squares, plus I wove in all the ends a couple days ago. Let's look at the standard shots.

Daisy was present and accounted for again.



Ooh, look - the camera software thought this one was sideways and automatically rotated it for me. I'm too lazy tonight to fix it.






And now we get to the crazy-fun part. All week long, I've been thinking about how many more squares there are going to be, how long it might take, and just how big is this freakin' thing going to be exactly when it's done. And then tonight as I was laying it out, tucking in ends and snapping pictures, it occurred to me that the squares are almost exactly the same size as small post-it notes. The kind that I keep in my kitchen drawer for labeling leftover food containers.



Ahem. Yes, in case my persistence in this project hadn't already suggested it to you, this probably demonstrates a bit more fully that indeed I am a little crazy in a certain kind of way.

If I continue and complete the layout suggested by the post-it outline, then 146 squares remain to be knitted. At thirty squares a week, that would take about another five weeks of knitting, and then I would have to add on the border after that. It's also a pretty huge blanket. I'm thinking about maybe leaving off the last two rows, which would mean only 113 squares and only four weeks of knitting them. Lucky me, I have many hours in which to meditate this.

Blankie Friday, and It's About Time.

I know, I've been remiss on the blankie Fridays. It's because not a whole lot has been going on in Blankie-land. There may be a new square or two since the last update, but I've been busy catching up on the other projects that I ignored for so long while I was doing the crazy-major-blankie push. Once I realized that Blankie wasn't going to make it to the State Fair this year, I gave myself permission to take a little break. I'm getting right back to it here soon - I do want to get it finished just so that it can be done and over with.



That said, there is some fresh blankie-related news. I got an e-mail while I was on vacation from a knitting magazine in Australia. They want to include my blankie in an article about using up scrap yarn to be published in October. Yay!

Also, I'll be teaching a class on the blankie - or really, mitered square projects - you could just make a scarf, or you could turn the idea into a sweater - at the Yarnery starting in November. That sample I've been working up is a little teeny koigu blankie. It's not done yet, but it will be soon.



In other news, Season Two of Weeds so far is hilarious. If you haven't Netflixed this series yet, I recommend it.

Also, I spent a couple of hours tonight dyeing up some more yarn. It's still cooling off in the steamer. Photos tomorrow, maybe. I am planning to sell this stuff eventually, and there will be an announcement here before I put it up so that people can have a fair chance at buying some.

Today was a much better day. Thanks for all your kind thoughts today, they helped.

Blankie Friday Update

So some of you had some very valid questions and requests on the Blankie Friday post. I meant to answer them last night, but I was busy dyeing yarn. So here we go.

Non-gratuitous kid pic on the couch with the blankie:



Blankie all by herself on the couch - well, with the blankie my grandmother crocheted for me when I was a kid. Grandma's blankie is a bit longer, and I have to admit there have been times when I wished *that* blanket to be longer than it is. hm.



About the border in question - all along the plan has been to add a very small, subtle I-cord border all along the edges. This is non-negotiable, and it is in fact already implemented along the bottom and most of the right edge. It made me laugh hilariously that y'all got all hot and bothered (kinda) about what kind of border I was talking about when it's all right there in the tutorial! heh.

Additional thoughts and comments on whether to stop or keep going are welcome and encouraged!

Also, this week in the blog - a new project on the needles, and some crazy new hand dye to show off. My house smells like vinegar and wet sheep. I can't believe my family isn't complaining!

Oh! and Really, my husband loves me. This morning, I was headed upstairs to take a shower, a luxurious weekend shower in which I take my time and he watches the kids so that I can shave my legs in relative peace and have a tiny little break. I saw a look in Joe's eyes that was a bit - resigned. It said to me that he was putting up with my silly ritual of time to myself, but he wasn't enjoying it. So while I was showering, I was feeling kind of guilty (moms out there all know that we feel guilty at the drop of a hat, so it was nothing new).

Then, I stepped out of the shower and as I was drying off, I heard Joe talking to Julie. Julie wanted to come upstairs and see what I was doing. Joe was explaining to her that "Mommy works hard all week. She gives us almost all of her time. She needs a few minutes to herself once in a while, so let's stay down here." Ahh. So sweet, so unprompted, so perfectly what I needed to hear. Reason 5,971 why I love my husband.

Blankie Friday

I think I'm coming in just over the wire on Blankie Friday, but at least I'm here. First, let's have a gratuitous kid pic. Yesterday we were at Target, and Julie wanted a new big ball. I agreed because they were only $2.50, and because it brought us up to one ball per child. Of course, they were still fighting over the new one, but it'll all be good once the new wears off.



Now it's down to business. As we all know, I didn't make much progress on the blankie this week because I was busy working on that hat. I did spend the last couple of evenings weaving in ends, and I thought I'd share with you the results of one session of end-weaving.



Someone asked a while back why I don't just weave in ends as I go. One of the many reasons is the tiny sense of satisfaction I get out of looking at the pretty pile of ends that develops as I trim them off.

I think I did get a couple squares knit up this week, but I'm too tired to count at the moment.









I did take a bit of time to rework the remaining-squares math once more. Remember, my original plan was to make the thing 1.5 times as long as it is wide. That's a freakin' big couch throw. I've been rethinking it a bit as it gets bigger and bigger. At its current size, it seems fairly cozy. Still, I was holding on to my original plan out of fear that I was just getting lazy and wanting to finish.

Then, I did a little counting and math again tonight. Do you realize that I've now knit 527 squares? Holy freaking miters! Uh, and do you realize that if I stick to my original plan, I still have something like 240 squares left to knit? That's a lot more than I thought. I'm not sure where I made my mistake the last time I did the math, but that'd be 80 more nights at three squares a night.

Well, that's not going to happen if I want to make it to the State Fair. This recalculation has changed my feelings on the end game plan a bit. I'm not sure exactly how far I want to go, but I'm open to your thoughts. Should I wrap it up now with an almost perfectly square blanket? Should I keep going and just see how far I get with enough time remaining to do the border, but end up with a less proportionally-appealing end product? Ack! I can't think any more. I'm going to bed.

Blankie, and Yummy Hat, Friday

It's that time again - time to face the music on the blankie progress. I swear, I'm in the black hole for this project. It is obvious that new squares are being completed, but I've also been right around the 2/3 complete mark for what feels like forever. At least I can tell there is more than there was because there is a desperate need for the weaving in of ends. I'm sorry, but I refuse to count the squares this week. I don't know exactly how it averaged out, and I don't want to know. I know that I put all the time into it that I had.

I know that the thing is beautiful and that I can't take my eyes off of it when it is in the room. I know that it is constantly tumbling out of its basket because it it too big, and I know that I am still in love with this project, as neverending as it seems. I know that it's impossible to see all this from the simple picture of it laid flat on the floor. I also know that it makes me laugh when I go back and look at the pictures in the tutorial. They are like blankie baby pictures. Now it's just an unruly teenager.









Okay, and now here is the source of my underlying guilty pleasure:



It's the cuff for my new sample hat. The ribbing is simple enough, pretty much mindless knitting. There are some subtle bits of beauty here, above and beyond that of the gorgeous wool. I love tubular cast-ons, and every time I work one, especially over 2X2 ribbing, it feels like a bit of magic. Also, there is a round of plain knit halfway down the cuff meant to provide a clean line for turning it. I love inserting tiny details like this in my work, and I love including their explanations in my patterns for added value. It is nice to be doing something more than my zillionth mitered square.



I've moved on past the cuff and into the main body of the hat. It is gorgeous, the color combination. It looks almost edible, like spicy chocolate. You will have to wait at least till tomorrow to catch a glimpse.

I'll leave you with two cute-kid pictures. Sophie fell asleep in the stroller on the way to the park. There really is nothing more beautiful than a resting baby.



Julie was wide awake, and walking balance beam on the railroad tie borders, among many other things.

Blankie Friday

Okay, before we get to Blankie Friday, I have to say I really hope you all are still out there. I think the blog is mostly back to normal now. I think the RSS feed should be working again - it's at http://www.shellykang.com/atom.xml now, so yes you will have to change your bloglines or other reader subscription. The easiest way to do that is usually to just delete the old copy out of your reader, then add the subscription back on. I know, I'm testing your blog-love. It's all for the sake of faster loads and fewer whiney husband moments (when the server got bogged down, it wasn't pleasant.) Let me know if you continue to notice other problems. I know I need to fix my profile picture and there are probably some pictures in older posts that have gone missing.

Enough with that business, though! I know you want the low-down on the blankie. It's a little pitiful, but remember I was away from home for a week and the luggage was huge enough as it was - there was no way I could take it with me. I have only one of the bigger squares to report:



Remember this sock yarn? I think every sock knitter in the universe has knit a sock with this yarn at some point in their career. It's one of the early Regia self-striping colorways, and I think I received chunks of it from at least 10 different people. Some of the larger chunks went to my friend Connie, who knit them into socks for CIC. There have also been one or two smaller squares out of this yarn in the blankie already, but I couldn't complete the thing without including a larger square out of this yarn. This coming week will be a Week of the Blankie. At least three squares per day. Really.

In the mean time, when I came home from vacation the Creative Activities Rules and Premiums booklet for the Minnesota State Fair was in my mailbox (well, actually in the giant pile in my foyer, where our house sitter had left it.) I love poring over the knitting categories and considering what I've knit so far in the year or may yet knit that will fit in the various sections. The blankie is my only big hope this year, although I may yet make a pair or two of leggings for the girls that might be fun to enter. Looking at the three afghan-type categories, it looks like mine will have to go into either "318 Afghan, made in strips or modules" or "319 Bedspread, min size 3801 sq. in." The categories can be a bit confusing sometimes. My blankie can't go in the other two categories because it is going to be around 4400 square inches blocked, and while it certainly is modular, I wonder whether lot 318 is meant for modules that are sewn together rather than knit one off the others. When I think of the bedspread category, I think of those giant lace things that win the Sweepstakes prizes, and I certainly don't want to go up against those. Luckily, I have months and months to consider.

Let's look at some cute kid pictures:



I took the girls to Eden Prairie Center to get their hair cut the other day, and for once we had a decent experience in the play area there. Sophie has really decided that she's into this whole walking thing, and she toddled and climbed all over the place. Here she is looking down from the top of the play structure through one of the slides.

Today we took a trip to the Mall of America with Joe's cousin and her kids. They all had fun playing in Legoland - that's Julie and Katelyn in the foreground, and Sarah and Joe's other cousin Natalie on the yellow bench in the background. Natalie just graduated from college and is a real-life ballerina, a fact that impresses Julie to no end as she claims she's going to be a ballerina when she grows up.



Sophie got in on the Lego action a bit, and I was watching her like a hawk as she grabbed all those tiny pieces. Only a couple got slobbered on.



She was more interested in toddling off towards the amusement park. She kept walking over towards the ride with the swings hanging down from the tree, and pointing like crazing as she gasped with excitement. This is such a fun age. She is really exploring her personality, learning to communicate and express her own desires and interests. She is such a happy kid most of the time and is constantly making me smile and laugh.



Bad picture, but this is Julie holding hands with Auntie Natalie as we walked through the food court to get some lunch. I just loved the way Julie glommed right on to Natalie and grabbed her hand even though we haven't gotten to see much of her while she was away at college.



And that's the end! I still have a little knitting time left tonight, I think I have another square or two left in me before bed.

Blankie Friday and Picture Catchup

Twelve and a half. Considering that we're only talking about six days since last week's blankie post was a day late...that calculates out to about two squares a day. That's not so bad, I guess.











I don't have much other blankie news. It's been pretty much a week of cranking away at it when I can. So let's switch gears and catch up on the other pictures I pulled off my camera tonight.

Sophie has become quite the stair-climber. It's so cute to watch her climbing up determinedly, giggling as I catch up behind her.



This is another of Julie's creations. She likes to rearrange the chairs and pretend it's a train. Chugga chugga choo choo.



The first of Julie's new socks...the cuff is awfully short, but it's all I could get out of half the available yarn. She didn't seem to mind.



Here are the girls at knitting on Wednesday. They're playing with stickers. I usually let them play with a sheet or two of stickers to help keep them occupied while I chat with my friends and maybe knit a round or two. By the time we leave, they're usually covered in them.



Here's Sophie taking a little nap yesterday while Julie was in pre-school. So sweet, so serene.



This morning we had a playdate with our Canadian friends. It turns out that each of us chanced to buy the same pair of matching dresses for each of our girls, and when we discovered this, we hatched a plan to dress them all the same and get together for a photo shoot.

Sophie and H. look almost like twins from the back. Sophie's on the right. Actually, when J. and I are out with the girls in public, we often get people asking how they're all related.



Getting four little girls to sit still and pose for a photo is like herding cats.





We are a little sad, as today was the last time we will see our Canadian friends till after mid-summer. It's not my story to tell, but they are traveling to see family for a couple of months. Totally understandable, and I am happy for them. Very sad for us, as we will desperately miss our time together.

J. had planned a sweet little art project for our big girls to do today - a photo frame collage for us to look at till they come back.



We will use this separation as a good opportunity to let the girls try out the postal system, and I will be counting down the days till our friends come back to what we call home, and hopefully they will grow to believe in as well.

And finally, I couldn't resist. I had to wind up these two skeins of yarn. I really want to start a sock from each of them just to see how the colors pattern up. And, you know, there's no such thing as too many socks on the needles.

It's Blaannkieeee Fridaay!

I gave myself quite the silly little chuckle as I was daydreaming my way through dinner tonight. I was thinking about writing up tonight's blog post, and into my mind popped this image of myself in a top hat and carrying a cane, shimmying out onto a shiny black stage to up-tempo circus music to unveil this week's blankie pictures from behind a velvet curtain. Don't ask me where this image came from, but there it was. The results this week really aren't all that stellar, but compared to my blankie-knitting performance of late, they're not that shabby either. There are 21 new squares this week, and I have to say that I really did knit on the thing just about every single chance I got. At least I ended up right on target to finish in plenty of time. Must. Keep. Knitting!









I think I've finally assembled everything I need to get started with the yarn dyeing project again...



I'm not sure exactly when this is going to happen. I need to wind off some yarn, and I still have to decide exactly how I'm going to go about the first step, which is to sample a bit of each color. There are nearly 40 colors here. I'd like to do it in such a way that I end up with both a sample card and a skein of useable yarn. The cogs in my brain are cranking away, so never fear! Possibly I will even be re skeining a hank before bedtime tonight.

I have to share this piece of artwork that Julie brought home from school last week. I think it is hilarious. Do you know what it is?



It's a mud puddle! I got a very good laugh out of that one. Maybe I will take a picture of Julie's wall of art while I'm down in the basement winding yarn up later. I love the little projects her teachers think up.

It was a bit like a three-ring circus this morning at our house. We babysat our little friend H. while her Mama went and had some one-on-one time with big sister M. H. is a month younger than Sophie, and she has been walking for a few weeks now. She gave Sophie a little lesson in how to climb the stairs. Everybody made it up safely.



Finally, I want to respond to a little reader mail.

First, thanks to everyone who suggested various undyed yarns. I've been trolling around looking and I've come to the conclusion that I need to finish experimenting with what I've got before I bite the bullet and buy a bunch more. I think I may end up trying this one next. All of this stuff is kind of expensive when you're buying it giant cones at a time, and I don't have all that much room to be adding to my stash willy-nilly.

Second, I want to thank Shannon Okey for linking to me, and especially for using one of my photos the *right* way. Shannon e-mailed me and asked permission, then posted the picture along with a statement that she had permission, and a link to my site. Really, if you're going to post a picture from any site on the internet, even if you have copied it to your own web space, that is the proper way to do it. Also, thanks to whomever was reading Shannon's site and informed her that I'm picky about copyrights.

Hey, Loopy-Ewe Sheri - I wanted to respond to your comment via e-mail, but you didn't leave an e-mail address! Can you e-mail me at shellyk at shellykang dot com?

Someone wanted to know how long it takes me to knit up a square. I've never timed one exactly, but I think on a good day it takes me about 20 minutes to half an hour. I think I'm a moderately fast knitter. I knit a lot, and am very comfortable with the motions. I know I am not the fastest knitter around by any means, though. It's rare that I get through more than one or two in an uninterrupted sitting, though. Someone always needs something.

Alright, inspiration is striking. Must go fiddle with striping plans!

Blankie Friday - The Reckoning

The last time we had a real Blankie Friday, the last time I posted an updated number of squares with a nice clear picture of the blankie was on March 2. Sheesh. That's over a month! And there are only 17 new squares in that time. See, there were things. Things that got in the way. Things like that blue stripey sweater and the lace socks. But the lace socks are done for now - at least the two that need to be for samples - and the blue sweater is at a point where it can go on hold for a bit now that the pieces are all knitted. Especially considering that the weather is going to be warm before the sucker is finished.

I really do love the blankie, though, and I am ready to get down to work feeding it the sock yarn. Let's do a little reckoning and see just how far behind schedule I've gotten. Let's start with a little background on the plan. I want it to be about 1.5 times long as it is wide. It's 23 squares wide, so that would mean that it needs to be about 35 squares tall . Right now I'm at 27. So I need about eight more rows, or somewhere around 132 more squares. Ulp.

The goal was to try and finish before the State Fair entry deadline on August 14. That's about 125 more days to get this blanket done, and I need to allow time for knitting on the edging and blocking the thing out. Not to mention that I've got two out-of-town trips planned between now and then that will take a bit of time out of the equation. Still, at three squares a day, I could have the 132 squares knit up in 44 more days. That sounds like it's still within reason. My plan for the coming week or two at least, maybe more, is to crank away as many squares as I can each evening. Blankie wants to go to the fair, and I want to help it.

Without further ado, here it is in its current glory:







Oh, and because I know *someone* is going to ask. The blanket is my own design. I wrote a tutorial for the benefit of anyone who wants to knit it or something like it. Scroll down and look on the right hand column, you'll see the links.

Now for a little follow-up on yesterday's post.

Suze, the term "salad" is used quite loosely at Cafe Latte. The ones I ate included way too much rich dressing, noodles, cheese and meat. They were quite decadent and I ate them pretty much only to assuage my guilt at wanting to eat only dessert for dinner in the first place.

Wannietta, the sock yarn is intentionally self-striping. Shoot. I thought I had blogged about the process involved in this, but darned if I can find it. No worries - I'm going to be doing some experimenting again in the near future. It's been a while since I dyed this and set it aside, and I was a little disappointed in the results originally, but since I started knitting it up I have new hope of getting acceptable results the next time. I'll blog it, I promise.

Joe, your beer bottle is gone forever. So is your pint glass. We discussed this before I gave it away and you agreed to it. And I love you for sharing.

Dan! Thanks for commenting. Hey, everyone! Dan is the guy I was telling you about yesterday. He's the one who makes those super-cute bags I wanted to buy. Here's his Etsy shop, but sorry - I already bought the monkey bag. You'll have to wait till it comes in the mail to see it. Trust me, it was the cutest one.

Okay, must go knit blankie squares!

Blankie...Sunday

Dear Loyal Readers, sorry for the delay in posts. You've heard the excuses a million times already. Let's get to the good stuff.

I'm not going to bother posting laid-flat pictures or numbers this week. I've been pre-occupied with other projects including that damned blue stripe sweater and raising kids. Instead, I took some fun pictures this morning with the girls.





I hope that will please both the blankie fans and the cute kid fans at least till Friday.

Here are some other photos that have been accumulating on the camera for the last few days:

Sophie love using a marker, and Post-It notes are nice because they don't slide around on the tray.


Julie doodling and cutting with safety scissors.



The two of them were keeping busy while I baked these:

Speaking of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, thanks everyone for their advice on recipes. These turned out really well - they are the recipe from Bob's Red Mill. A casual taster wouldn't know the difference between these and the Tollhouse version. I am a bit of a chocolate chip cookie snob, though, and although I can taste a slight difference, these are good enough to satisfy the craving, and that's pretty darn good. The only problem is that they seem to make everyone who eats them a bit gassy. I still may try one or two more recipes, including the one that loyal reader Andrea suggested (Thanks!)

The other day we were playing upstairs and someone pulled out this sheep puppet from the toy bin. For some reason, it reminded me of Franklin's Dolores, and although mine doesn't have the cat's-eye glasses or the constant cigarette hanging from her mouth, I decided to go ahead and pose it with some balls of sock yarn as a little tribute. Only people who read The Panopticon will get the joke. If you don't read Franklin's blog, you should. He's great. And, by the way, yes I do realize that I have a sickness with the sock yarn. This is only the stuff that is already wound in balls.


Here's Sophie drawing again. She loves the Magna-Doodle as well as the Aqua-Doodle, which we keep in the basement.


Finally, if you've made it all the way to the bottom, I'm going to share with you another reason why I haven't been posting. It's because I've been variously annoyed, freaked-out, shocked, and otherwise irritated by what feels like just about everyone with whom I've come into contact this week. To a great extent, it is my own attitude that is causing this phenomenon, but in some cases it is the other people involved. I have been so tempted to tell stories on them, but that would just not be nice. Stories of the variety that start "Oh, my gawd, you will not believe what so-and-so did today." I've been treating poor Joe to a few of them, which helps. But when you're thinking nasty gossipy thoughts, best to keep them close.

Okay, everyone! Carry on! I'm going to try to post some actual progress on the blue-striped monster tomorrow. I'm still trying to get an acceptable front finished, so that I can move on to sleeve island. Yurg!

Blankie Friday

Since yesterday morning, we have gotten another foot or more of snow on the ground here. That's good and bad news in several ways. Most notably bad is that Joe had a lot of work to do, and the poor guy is exhausted. And our crummy old snowblower finally gave up the ghost, which although bad for our bank account as we'll have to buy a new one, is good for poor Joe who has been fighting with it for something like five years now. Oh, and my class at the store was canceled last night, which was disappointing because I was all prepared and excited to go.

There is plenty of good to balance off those small negatives, though. Joe's office closed early yesterday and stayed closed today, so he gets an unexpected long weekend. Today felt a lot like Saturday, only we were all home together instead of me off teaching classes. I got to spend some time outside one-on-one with Julie making snow castles. We tried for snowmen, but the snow still wasn't sticky enough. It was perfect snow for filling up buckets and making bricks out of, though. It's hard to get a good picture of all the white-on-white, but as a girl who grew up in the relative south, it is amazing to me to have this much snow stacked up all over the place. We only have about two feet on the ground on average, but when you clear the streets and the driveways and the walks, it creates these giant piles that are like mountains for little kids to climb on.



I remain thoroughly impressed with the St. Louis Park snow removal crew. They had our streets clear before I even woke up this morning! Also, big snows like this make me really appreciate having a garage. It was so nice not to have to dig our cars out of the mess the way we used to when we lived in an apartment and parked on the street.

I had to share this random cute kid pic. Julie made this headband in school. I'm not sure what it's all about, but it made me laugh like crazy. I remember being a little kid not much bigger than her and making construction-paper headbands as art projects at school. I loved it.


I attempted to make wheat-free chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and ended up with this:


They tasted pretty good, but were butt ugly. I ended up throwing them out because although you can't see it here, they were leaving pools of butter where they sat, and that was just grossing me out. We'll be trying another recipe soon! Suggestions welcome. Remember, though, we can't do wheat or soy.

Finally, what you've all been waiting for, the blankie update. I do have one little administrative admonition first. I think it's awesome when people want to talk about my blanket on their blogs. In fact, I love to see that other people are excited about my little project or to hear that they enjoy reading my blog. So thanks to anyone and everyone who's done that. What I really don't want to see is people putting pictures of my blankie on their blogs. It's not okay to hotlink to my pictures (using an IMG HTML tag). There are two reasons for that. One is that you're then stealing my bandwidth because your readers are downloading pictures from my site. The other is that I'd rather you send your readers over here to take a look at the blankie in the context of my blog. Who knows - some of them might want to learn more about it or stick around and read about all the other blather that goes on here. My pictures are copyrighted. They are mine. I have given permission in the past for people to use them as desktop images on their computers, and I stand by that. I know that people make honest mistakes, and if you've done what I just described, I know that it was with only good intentions. No harm, no foul, just let's try not to let it happen again. Mwa!

This week's total is fourteen squares. It's still way behind my goal, but not all that bad considering how much time I've wasted on knitting and ripping sweater backs.



That's a cat butt at the bottom of the picture. I was trying to honor the requests for visual scale items in the pictures. I'm not putting up a full-res picture tonight because I'm tired and don't want to waste the brain power. You'll have to go back to last week and savor the old ones if you're that desperate. Hey, Erika! Look at the top row there - see the big square and the smaller squares on either side of it? That's all you, baby! Thanks again!

Here's the elusive Harry Cat taking a little stroll across the blankie.


Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I'm teaching two back-to-back classes at the store. I'm subbing in the morning for one of the other teachers and then teaching my own class in the afternoon. I'm looking forward to it, but I feel a little sorry for Joe, who will be home with the girls for hours and hours by himself. I'm sure they'll survive.

Oh! and one last thing! I just watched Little Miss Sunshine the other night. Hilarious! Whoever commented about the tiger hat and the scene with the grandfather - I thought of you when I watched it and laughed myself silly. Thanks. Creepy, but thanks.

Blankie Friday

By popular demand (okay, three people asked for it) I'm posting a ton of pictures tonight. All of the following pictures can be clicked on to see the full-resolution version. If this doesn't satisfy your blankie craving, I don't know what will, short of me packing it up and mailing it on a world tour. That ain't gonna happen! I will try to get a picture of the blankie with one or both of the girls in/on/around it for next week. Hopefully I'll have more squares to show off by then.



It's been two weeks since I posted an updated square count, and it's very sad. Only 16 new squares. I've been busy with other small projects. And stuff. Lots of stuff.

Blankie Friday

It's Blankie Friday! Wahoo...time for an update on the blankie, and I think I did well this week. I haven't done the math yet, but we'll get to it in a minute. First, let's look at some pictures.

How cute is this? Julie and Sophie playing kitchen together. Sophie has been following Julie around constantly the last week or so, and mostly Julie tolerates her. It so totally melts the icicle I call a heart. Notice that Julie is wearing her apron.


Yesterday afternoon, as we were approaching the witching hour when there is nothing left to do in the house because all of the toys have been played with and Joe is not yet home to take over so I can cook dinner and it is not yet time to put in a video and the girls are running out of steam. This combination of variables can lead to a nasty situation and has more than once. Instead, yesterday,
Julie said, "Let's have a birthday party."
I casually said "What do we need for a birthday party?"
"Party hats."
"We can do that."

I dug out some construction paper and some alphabet stickers, and we spent the next 20 minutes making hats for the three of us with our names on them. Julie had fun. Sophie had fun. I even had fun. Score! I was amazed that we managed to come up with something so simple and easy that we could all do together and get through that dreadful part of the day. Aren't they cute?


This is just a gratuitous cute kid picture.


Here's Julie next to a little project she did while I wasn't looking the other day. Those are the new blocks that Sophie got for Christmas, and inside each one is a vintage Fisher Price Little People figure, laying down. Notice how the top few figures are color-coordinated with the boxes they are in. Julie had a whole story to go along with the scene - it was about Madeline in London, and the twelve little girls and Miss Clavel were sleeping in their hotel rooms or something. This kind of thing is not that unusual around here. The kid is so creative. Yes, I'm bragging.


This is a bit of an eye-rolling whine. I made beef Stroganoff for dinner tonight. We love the beef Stroganoff around here,but I don't make it all that often. The version I make takes a little time to put together, and worse, it uses just about every pot and pan I have in my kitchen. I hate doing dishes. I hate cleaning the kitchen. How pitiful am I? Very.


Alright, finally - it's blankie time. I counted, and since my last post about the blankie last Thursday I managed to knit 31 squares. That's 3.875 squares a day. Yay! I'm ahead of schedule, and I'd like to keep it that way. I think I need to weave in a few ends now.




Oh, and Erin asked to see a higher-resolution photo of the blankie. That seems reasonable enough - it is hard to get a clear understanding of the detail of the blankie from either the low-res overall pictures or the individual closeups. You can click on that picture above for the big version. Erin said she thought the blankie would make a good desktop picture. Great idea, Erin! Guess what I have on my desktop now?



Oh, and Dianne joined the knitalong - she's got a very nice blankie picture of her own up on her blog. Thanks for joining, Dianne!

All right, then. I'm off to weave in some ends and maybe surf some of the many links you all have posted on the contest entry.

Supermom, SuperKnitting, SuperYarn, SuperMan

Sheesh. It is 11:52 and I just put Sophie down in the crib. Baby better not wake up is all I have to say. She's been staying up late lately, and it's getting on my last nerve. I want some peace! Okay, it's incredibly cute to watch her roll around on the floor and look up at me with a big goofy drool-dripping grin. I just wish she'd do it at 11 a.m. instead of 11 p.m. Mama needs some time to herself! She's been doing a couple of new things that are incredibly cute (which is why I keep her, of course). 1) She grabs and holds her toes. Doesn't sound all that impressive, but it's like all of a sudden she realizes there are feet there, and they are great for grabbing. Built-in toys. 2) She sticks out her tongue. A lot. Sometimes much further than I thought it could possibly go. For your entertainment value, here she is doing both at the same time.



It's even cuter when she's grabbing both feet and sticking the tongue out all the way, but I didn't quite catch that moment.

It's been a couple weeks, so it's time for a knitting update. I like doing these, because it is fun for me to compare where I was to where I am and see that I have made a bit of real progress in all my various projects. It feels like I rarely get more than 5 minutes at a time to knit, so it's nice to see that those 5 minutes are adding up to something after all.



The Fortissima Socks are almost finished. One just needs a sewn bind-off and the other is just a few rows behind. This pair really knit up quickly - it's fun yarn to work with because the colors are so bright, and it's leftovers from this sweater that I knit for Julie a couple years ago.



I'm not sure how this Mitred Sock Blankie got started, but it's incredibly fun to work on and I can't seem to stop. The idea popped into my head one night as I was laying in bed drifting off to sleep, and before I knew it I was sorting sock yarn from my stash of leftovers. I decided to use only wool/nylon blends in fingering weight, and I still had about 15 or so yarns to work with. I have no deadline or really intended recipient for this one, but it's calling me to knit it, and maybe if it turns out okay I could put it on my couch or maybe save it for one of my girls or something. I'm gearing up to beg some of my knitting friends for their sock leftovers too, otherwise I will be knitting it gradually over the next 20 years as I finish up pairs of socks and accumulate leftovers. My friend E asked me today how many pairs of socks I've knit, and I really don't know the answer to that question. I'd say on average at least 6 or 7 pairs per year for the last 5 years, so at least 30 or so, more if you count baby socks.



Julie's Bavarian Twist Sweater is going very slowly. I'm only almost finished with the first ball of yarn. I really need to pick up the pace on this one, but that blankie keeps distracting me, and there just hasn't been that much quality knitting time. I need good concentration, or at least a DVD and both kids in bed to work on this piece since it's got the charts and all. It's coming out pretty, though.



I cast on for this Lemon Hat on Thursday and finished it last night. I'm going to send it to a woman who works for the WIC program and it giving them away to promote breastfeeding, as per Stephanie's post over at Yarn Harlot last week. What an easy way to get behind a good cause!



Pants! Pants for Julie. Since I'm finishing up my last socks-in-progress, I needed another sock-like garment on the needles for on-the-go mindless knitting. I wanted to make some leggings for Julie, who loves comfortable pants and really loves stripes. These will be part of her birthday present. I just did enough so they're started and ready to grab and go. I made a picot edging and followed it up with a row of purl stitches to define the cuffs at the bottom.



The Most Expensive Socks I've Ever Knit are finally done. You can't see it very well in the photo, but I kept the ribbing going all the way down from the top of the cuff to the tippy-toes. The picture does not do the colors justice. They are subtle and beautiful - a discontinued Cherry Tree Hill Super Sport yarn.



Here's Daisy checking out a new addition to the stash. A friend of mine went to visit family in Canada for a couple of weeks, and she came back with a pile of Canadia yarn for me. The variegated looks like it could be self-striping and I think there is enough here to make a little sweater for Sophie next year (because it's not likely to happen this year - too many projects in the line-up, and yarn has to age properly you know). This picture doesn't do the colors justice, either, but they're really nice.

When I mentioned to Jen that I thought the yarn would stripe, she was surprised and I had to show her the self-striping socks on the needles to make her understand. She knits a bit, and her eyes lit up at the idea of fancy socks. Before she could object, I dug up some stripey yarn and a set of needles from the stash and got her started on her first pair. I was so excited to get someone started on socks, and I think she's enjoying it so far. She hasn't hit the heel yet, but I'll be there when she does. Let's all send some positive thoughts and/or whatever brand of prayer you do to Jen and her family this week. Jen's baby Hafsa is a month younger than Sophie and is having surgery tomorrow. They have lots of family support, and I know everything will be fine, but I can't begin to feel the stress she must be going through right now. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...



I couldn't leave Harry cat out since Daisy got in on the blogging action. Most people who visit our house never see Harry because he is very shy around anyone but me and Joe. I've been accused of having an imaginary cat more than once. He loves sitting in that spot, curling up in the afghan my grandmother crocheted for me or sitting on the blanket I knit for Julie. That's the basket of sock yarn for my blankie project next to him.



Here is the Magic Yarn Ball I received as part of the swap I participated in last month. Actually, what you see is the yarn re-wrapped into a center pull ball and all the stuff that was hiding inside. The idea is supposed to be that you knit something out of the ball as you unwrap it, savoring each little gift as it appears. Sorry, I didn't have the patience for that, especially since I have so many enticing things on the needles at the moment and so little time to knit. At least I used the nostepinne that Joe gave me for our anniversary instead of the much-quicker ball winder. Magni from Norway did a great job picking out prizes for me. My favorite is the tiny sample-sized ball of Opal sock yarn that was in the very middle, but she also included some beautiful glass beads, some buttons, a pair of folding scissors, some beaded stitch markers, some pretty striped ribbon, and a crochet hook and pattern for slippers to use with my yarn. Thanks, Magni! I think I've got the courage to try another fun exchange when one comes along.

Okay, I'm finishing this up at 11 PM on the 4th, almost 24 hours after I started typing, and I can hear Sophie screaming bloody murder in the living room with Joe. I guess I'd better wrap things up and go help out. Poor kid is having a bad week. I drank some milk yesterday for the first time in a month or two, and I think maybe that's what's bothering her. That, or the cold she, Julie and I all seem to be sharing.