i know it happens to everyone...

i love the yarn (colors 38 - navy and 40 - a variegated lime, gray and smoke). i love the pattern. i hate the yarn worked up in the pattern. i have now frogged this thing twice... the first time because i was having trouble with the seed stitch. the second time because, well, it just wasn't showing me the love...
so, it hit the frog pond... rip it, rip it, rip it... the part that didn't work for me was the seed stitch and yoke all being navy and then not integrating the variegated until the body of the sweater... initially i had 4 skeins of navy and 2 variegated, but I picked up 2 more variegated and now have equal of each...

and will follow the pattern in terms of shaping, but will be doing it all in stockinette and will stripe it. It looks great so far... and I am excited about it, which is very important.

lots of pictures of finished objects...

This is Erin's sweater under construction, with one sleeve done. It's my first attempt at a cable and it's just a simple twist. I am not sure I really like how the two colors are coming together. The pattern had a much more complicated cable, but since this is my first sweater not out of completely bulky yarn, and with shaping, I decided to forgo that element.
It took me a really long time to do the one sleeve, and since I don't love it, I am not putting the cable in the second sleeve. This sweater must be done. I really wanted her to be able to wear it for the kiddush we sponsored for her birthday. By not doing the second sleeve cable, that was a reality.

Here it is all completed. The edge was flat after blocking, but I forgot to take pictures then. I took them after she wore it, so the blocking is gone... now I will wash it and we'll see how it looks. I hope she will wear it more than once. I learned a lot making this. Including why you knit 2 rows of one skein then 2 rows from another skein when you are using hand dyed or kettle dyed yarn... you can totally see where the color shifts. Oh well. Lesson learned. Glad I learned it on a baby sweater! I love the way it came out overall. Now I need to learn how to cable for real so I can make the myriads of projects I see with cables... and I already have a teacher lined up to teach me! Orthofunky from ravelry lives nearby and she is going to teach me!

this was a little cap done with extra yarn... it was an exercise in using DPNs. I really enjoyed it, although I should have cast on a few more stitches as it just barely fit the baby it was made for. NEXT TIME! I am learning a lot about knitting!
Lastly, here we have the blanket I made for my cousin Lisa's son Noah. I had hoped to have it done before he was born, but didn't happen. I will be sending it off in the mail this week. It is made of 100% cotton as they live in Savannah and I wanted something not too hot. Also, it has a little tab that goes over the buckle of either a car seat or stroller so it won't fall on the ground. I hope they like it.

Now, back to finishing up a few other UFO's and trying not to start too many new things until I am caught up!

i know... i know...

it's been awhile... but, really, i've been busy! First off... Erin is now 1 Year old!!!!!! I can't even begin to believe it. CAN NOT. WILL NOT... okay, it's true. she's one. and, as a birthday present to her parents, she slept from 9pm until 7am. CRAZY! but, I digress. Really, it's been a bit crazed here... okay, more than a bit. The time between Purim and Passover almost always tends to be. First there is the cleaning, then there is the shopping, and then there is the cooking... and in between all that there is the regular everyday.

In addition, I did a hat sale for a friend of mine up in CT. I stayed at my mom's house. It's a good thing I did. We were going to spend the day after the sale doing fun things, then the next day I was going to drive home. BUT... I spent the night after the sale up and puking... I spent the next day lying on the kitchen floor with Erin playing nearby and my mom taking care of the two of us. It was awful. Luckily I felt okay enough to drive back the following day, but, sadly, I infected my mom's boyfriend with my icky germs and so he was sick. My mom escaped the germs, which is good seeing as she has had enough sickness for forever.

Passover was really nice in the end, although I have to say I don't even remember it all, it's almost like I sleepwalked through it. My mother-in-law did a ton of cooking which cut back on what I had to cook, but I still had to clean my kitchen and kasher everything, and then we did the sederim at our house so that Erin could go to sleep at her regular time... except she decided she wanted to be at part of the seder and so each night she woke up and ended up being present for some of it.

Then, this past week I did a project for a client. Let's just say that time management and Erin's sleep skills (or lack thereof) made it difficult. It seems, though, that the client is happy in the end and that is really important as well.

I have knitting content here... will edit later to add photos... I completed Erin's sweater.... YEP... all that is left is sewing on three little decorative flowers and it's done. As a matter of fact, I am going right now to do that. Then it will be totally done.. Which is good as I really wanted her to be able to wear it next weekend at her birthday party with the family. Now it seems as if that is a reality. HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!

oh - and one last thing... if you need a last minute mother's day present... let me know... we got in all sorts of photographic jewelry and while our business website isn't up and running, I can send you an image and we can talk details...