Knittin’ It Old School!

January 22, 2009 By

The other night I found myself on the couch, next to my (big) baby, watching TV. There was no (little) baby to be found – she was tucked asleep for the night – and the show on TV hadn’t been on for two years at least.

I turned to G and said, do you mind if I knit. He got all excited and said, “You HAVE to knit! You always knit when we watch 24!”

People, it was surreal. Me. On the couch. Knitting. Watching 24 with G. I haven’t had a night that good in a long time.

I wish I could tell you how many projects I’ve started and stopped and started since the baby was born. There were a couple of stuffed toys. At least three cardigans for Meli. I still haven’t sewn the sleeves on this one. (OMG! Look how little she was!) How pathetic am I? I’ve got half finished blankets. A million socks. I actually started a gorgeous Aran cardigan this summer – and made it pretty much through the back and cast on for the fronts before I got crazy busy with work. It’s kind of pathetic to tell you the truth and when I think about all these cast-aside projects I get really sad.

So what’s a knitty girl to do? I cast on for something new. Natch.

When the lastest issue of the Twist Collective came out, I fell in love IMMEDIATELY with a featured yarn. The yarn is used in the pattern Garbo, which isn’t really for me, but that gorgeous purple tweed jumped off the screen and BEGGED me to buy it. Of course, I obliged. It’s Fiddlesticks Knitting Luscious Tweed in the Amethyst and it’s 90% wool and 10% silk. I swatched immediately upon receiving the yarn from The Needle Arts Book Shop, which has great customer service. They send you my absolute FAVORITE rubber stitch markers when you make a purchase over $30, which, let’s be honest, you blink your eyes and thirty bucks flies out of your pocket.

I saw the sweater I wanted to knit in my head right away – a nice comfy shawl collar sweater. The yarn reminds me a lot of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed, which I used for this vest, and the tweed and the yarn lend themselves to stockinette. It’s kind of slubby, if you know what I mean. I started scouring the internets for patterns, and finally realized that the sweater I really love is my Central Park Hoodie. It fits great and I wear it more than any other hand knit sweater I have. And it was an easy knit. So I decided that a new CPH it will be – only without cables and without hood. I’m doing the body all in one piece, the way I did my CPH and I’m going to leave off the hood and add a shawl collar.

The best parts of this project are that I hit gauge after I washed my swatch and that it’s a stockinette sweater that I should be able to knit fairly quickly. The picture I’ve posted is a bit deceiving – I’ve already cast on three times (third times the charm!) and knit the 4″ of ribbing and a bunch of rows of the body. My goal is to knit at least two rows a day – one knit row, one purl row. Should be doable right? Stayed tuned for more on this project! (And others, I hope!)

There! I blogged about knitting. With a picture and everything and I even got it in before the day was out. Now I have to go try and knit those two rows. Wish me luck!

Filed Under: PSCC

Dance Dance Revolution!

January 21, 2009 By

I swear to you, come hell or high water, tomorrow’s post will be about knitting. For today, though, I have some super cute video of my girl.

For the longest time now, whenever she hears music, Meli shakes her head back and forth. She’s kind of got a Stevie Wonder thing going on to be honest. But today, when we were watching the sing-a-long episode of Sesame Street, she started dancing with her whole body! Check out how she works that tush!


Dance! Dance! Dance! from January One on Vimeo.

Meli has also found her tongue – and man – she’s not afraid to use it!


KISS! Gene Simmons Wanna Be from January One on Vimeo.

Yes sirree folks, we’ve got another member of the KISS Army!

Thanks for indulging me – KNITTING TOMORROW!

Filed Under: Baby? OH BABY!

Change Over

January 20, 2009 By

Today is a brand new day and I’m going to do my best to be positive. So far, I’ve had a little trouble, but I’m hoping to be struck by inspiration in a couple of hours.

Today is also the perfect day for the Shehecheyanu:

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-noy Elo-heinu Me-lech Ha-olom She-he-che-yanu Ve-kee-ya-manu Ve-hi-gee-ya-nu Liz-man Ha-zeh

Blessed are You, our God, Creator of time and space,
who has supported us, protected us, and brought us to this moment.

May today bring inspiration and hope and a more positive outlook for all of us.

Filed Under: Life

Blue Monday

January 19, 2009 By

I read this and was like, huh. It all makes sense now.

Meli and I arrived home yesterday and apparently brought the plague with us, as G took ill last night. So none of the fun things we were going to do today got done. We did go to music class, and that was good, but Daddy couldn’t come with us. And my errands were pretty much a bust. Not to mention there was a fender bender literally every two miles.

I’m in a rotten mood, but I’m home. And I’m not leaving. I might even knit a little bit.

Hope your day is better.

Filed Under: Life

Ugh 3.0

January 16, 2009 By

Spoke to soon. The day got worse – much worse. A couple of hours after I posted my head was in the bowl and I puked for the greater part of the night. Really I jinxed myself because my sister and I were talking about my having another baby and I told her that I almost wished I would be sick like the last time because I barely gained any weight and it all came right off. She told me to be careful what I wish for.

I don’t know how I got through nine months of that. So gross.

The worst is that my littlest nephew woke up with the same thing this morning. It’s been ginger ale, cartoons and the sofa all day for us. Thankfully my sister and my mom are helping out with the baby.

Be back when I feel human again.

Filed Under: Life

Ugh 2.0

January 15, 2009 By

Thank you all for your comments, commiserations and counsel. I really appreciate it.

Yesterday was a classically shitty day (no pun intended.) I was the most anxious I’ve been since I got pregnant, probably because of a nice little trifecta called going off the meds (because I was feeling so freaking good!), exhaustion and PMS. Yeah. PMS. My little friend returned at the 5 month post-partum mark. WHOOHOO for breast feeding on demand!

Anyway, yesterday was crap for me and Miss Meli because it seems she had a bellyache and the accompanying poop problems to go with it. I told you it was a shitty day.

We’re also at my sister’s through the weekend, and while I brought my laptop, I can’t get it to talk to her wireless network. So not a lot of blogging for me.

Today, thankfully, was a much better day. Meli’s stomach’s been fine all day. Mommy’s head seems to be on straight. And we had a lovely day with my sister and her baby at the Philadelphia Please Touch Museum. If you live around Philly and you have young kids – RUN – don’t walk. They’ve moved and completely renovated the museum. It’s really spectacular. I recommend it highly. (Even for the young kids – they have areas set apart for kids 3 and under. Meli had a good time!)

The best news I can give you, besides that we’re feeling a bit better, is that I’m knitting. I”m really and truly knitting. I’m saving the deets for my fun post, which I hope to have up soon!

Thanks again for all the mom-love!

Filed Under: Life

Ugh

January 13, 2009 By

I was really excited about the post I had planned for today, but then I was putting stuff away in the bedroom and turned my back on the baby for a second. Of course, that was the moment she decided to crawl right off the bed. Alas I wasn’t able to really catch her. (In the horror movie I have playing in my mind over and over again, I caught a little bit of arm.)

She is fine. Absolutely fine. Just as cranky as she was before she fell.

I, though, feel like the most horrible mother in the universe. You can rest assured that I cried almost as hard as she did – and about ten minutes longer.

My happy fun post will wait for tomorrow.

Filed Under: Baby? OH BABY!

Let’s Try This Again!

January 12, 2009 By

I’ve only heard from one winner, so here’s another way to go. Please look for your name and your blog or the first part of your email address (the one you left in your comment.) If you see yourself, please check your spam filter or leave a comment and let me know who you are! THANK YOU!

Kate (tntkate)
Rebekkah (bowerbirdknits)
Melissa (melliska)
Roby (crobyb)

For those of you that didn’t win, January One, G-Rocks and Never On Sunday are all available for sale now on the Blue Moon website. Also, I recently bought some new camera equipment, so here are some new shots of my girl. Notice the two bottom teeth, nice and sharp.








Thanks for reading. I hope to be back with a knitting post soon. Like maybe even tomorrow.

Filed Under: Baby? OH BABY!, Contest

You win some, you lose some

January 9, 2009 By

And some of you have definitely WON! Please check your email – don’t forget your SPAM filters!

The winning numbers were:

Grand Prize Winners
908
340

Single Skein Winners
441
82
422

Thank you all for playing! I will announce the names of the winners as soon as I hear back from all of them. And I will try to do my limited skills analysis – it might take me awhile – but I think there’s some interesting stuff in those comments!

In other news, the baby has decided that she likes to take a quick nap anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30. Which is fine – I get some time to myself – always appreciated – but she doesn’t sleep long and then I can’t get her to go to sleep for the night until somewhere between 11 and 12. The evening nap isn’t really long enough for me to get anything done and then she goes to bed so late I don’t get anything done at night either. It’s frustrating. Yesterday I was trying to keep her awake but she was so cranky and practically just fell asleep anyway that I couldn’t keep her up. She did manage to go to sleep for the night at around 10:30 – but then I did too. (Of course then I was up at 6:30 unable to go back to sleep!)

We’re doing a trial of a new (to us) class today at The Little Gym. My sister’s kids have all taken classes there forever and I’ve been to a bunch of them. When they opened one close to us I jokingly told myself that now I could have a kid. And here we are. Monday we start up our music classes again. I think Meli’s really going to love it and it gets us out of the house. Winter is hard.

I still haven’t measured those swatches. Maybe I can do it now – the baby’s still asleep….

Filed Under: Contest, Life

915

January 7, 2009 By

After going through all the emails, deleting the dupes and the Russians, there are 915 entries for the contest. 915. That’s a new record, folks! WOW! Thank you all for participating!

As I was going through the entries, I thought wouldn’t it be cool to analyze the results? 915 is a pretty good sample, no? (I don’t really know anything about statistics, so this could be way off.) Kind of like the State of the Knit, as based on what we’d all like to do for the next year.

Alas, my laptop temporarily died on me this afternoon. (It’s be subsequently resurrected.) I got stuck getting out of the city for FOREVER today. Due to some more technical glitches G and I can’t be on online on our laptops at the same time. Just to write this post I had to drag myself out of bed and get on the desktop. So, anyway, I used my alone time today to get through the emails but Miss Meli started calling before I could pick the winners. Hopefully tomorrow – pray for naps. Meanwhile, I have some swatches that I washed DAYS ago that I haven’t had a chance to count and I was going to cast on for a new sweater today. Sorry to be a bummer.

Oh and here’s one piece of analysis paralysis I can share with you: No one, not one of the 915 people who entered the contest, said their goal for 2009 was to knit less.

Chew on that one awhile, why don’t ya.

Filed Under: Contest
« Previous Page
Next Page »