Yarn Along

{Yarning Along with Ginny, sharing a read and a current knit. Would you join us?}

After illness trickled back into our house early last week and took a swing at me this time, knitting went to the backburner. I think I got a few rows of the lace work in on the February Baby Sweater I'm knitting for a baby shower, but mostly I went to bed early. Actually, I'm still going to bed early-ish in an attempt to recover more fully. That unfortunately also means very little reading. I'm pretty sure I read about 2 pages of Julie of the Wolves in the whole week combined.


When I picked it up again, I got down to the bottom garter edge only to find I had to break into the second skein about 2 rows before the bind off. Disappointing. Or maybe that's just me and the tiny bit of OCD that most everyone has about something. I would have loved the neatness of binding off that edge with the first skein and then joining  the second skein at one of the arms, where I would have had to join anyway.


If I have enough yarn leftover from this project I'm hoping to do a little matching hat. I really love knitting for littles, especially the newborn variety.

What are you knitting this week?

Bounce Back

Did you hear that loud noise on Saturday afternoon? That was the sound of our entire city screaming NOOOOOO! as it started to snow.

Again.

In March.

It's not that it never snows here in March. It does on occasion. But if it does it's a whispy nothing of a puff of snowflakes that don't stick, not another EIGHT INCHES. We had 2 feet of snow punch us in the gut in late February and now another 8 inches of heavy wet snow sits on top of "wintry mix" sleet.


When they announced the possibility of this storm earlier in the week, I started making plans for the time we'd gain with us being stuck in the house for the weekend instead of heading off to soccer games and the like (yes, soccer started last weekend. They've only been able to have 3 practices out of the 10 scheduled, and one rather chilly 8 a.m. game so far. Everything else has been cancelled because of snow or freezing temperatures.)


But no, we're all sick again. Brian and Ellie hit worst, then me tagging behind. Fortunately the boys recovered quickly and have been playing way more Xbox than we typically allow while the baby and I try to get ourselves back to healthy also. Brian still had to work over the weekend- fortunately they allowed him to come home mid-shift Saturday night before the weather got crazy bad. He has been able to work from home the last few nights since he is sick, which has been a blessing for him.


So I haven't worked yet this week (maybe tomorrow?) and the last few days have been an unexpected holiday from schooling for the boys. Today I'm hoping we all just continue to heal and recover so that maybe tomorrow there will be a little bounce back.

This Week

I mentioned in posts earlier this week that the kids have been sick for the last two weeks and this eek we've been enjoying some good health. Unfortunately it's no longer true. Ellie and Ezra have been sick again for the last few days and I got dragged into it last night as well. Add to this another snow storm expected over  the weekend and the word on my mind is STOP. No more sickies, no more snow. It has all been enough!

On the Needles... 

I shared my most recent finished objects on Wednesday- Baby Vertebrae and Little Scapulae, both for Ellie. I'm still working on the February Baby Sweater for the little niece we are expecting in May/June. I also have my Yearly Socks still going as well as my Shapely Boyfriend Sweater still awaiting 2 sleeves. I'm starting to think the problem with those sleeves is that the project is too large to be portable now and that keeps me from working forward. I'm considering reverse engineering the sleeves and knitting them away from the body and then attaching with a 3 needle bind off.

I read...

I picked up several juvenile novels at the library last week to begin pre-reading for next school year's read alongs. Hatchet made it into my bag, which I haven't read since about 5th grade and now I remember why it's an older elementary read. I also have My side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves waiting for me.

Learning all the time… 

I'm prepping for next year already. We start our school year in July and school more or less year round. I like to have everything set and ready to go by May. A great tool for me in planning has been Half A Hundred Acre Wood, which has an excellent collection of supplemental materials to Classical Conversations.

Inspiration...

I've been adding tutorials to my Knitting and Spinning Pinterest board over the last few weeks.

I'm also thinking about the Kids Clothes Week at the end of April- a week earlier and I wouldn't be working... but maybe I can still participate?

Watching (Spoiler Free, of course...)

Doctor Who again, starting with the David Tennant episodes. 10 is my favorite Doctor. :)

This weekend...

We are staying home- between illness and snowstorm, no sense in attempting anything else.

And one more quick little thing... Google Reader is going away soon. I've moved all of my favorites over to Bloglovin. Join me there? Follow my blog with Bloglovin

A Very Baby Yarn Along

{Yarning Along with Ginny this week. Won't you join us?}

It's so nice to be back in this space talking about knitting! After the wasteland that has been the last 2 weeks with sick kids, I'm thankful to be able to get back to some creative work.

I finished up 2 projects last week, both for Ellie. I didn't realize it until I went to link the patterns, but these are both knit.so.quaint patterns. I have really enjoyed the patterns I've knit from this line. The patterns are well written and I love that the designer offers one size for free of each pattern and then spreads the love by offering a different size for free each time, so it's not always the newborn size. After knitting the free version of Vertebrae I bought the pattern for the 3 month-24 month version because I really love the way this wears for my daughter and I've now knit 4 or 5 in a variety of sizes, some for my daughter, some as gifts.

 

This first finished knit is a Baby Vertebrae in the 12-18 month size with a little added length in the body and arms. Ellie has longer arms than most baby patterns call for (I have a similar issue with sweaters for my own size) so I've taken to adding an extra inch or so for her cardigans.

As usual I just got around to weaving the ends in over this past weekend and it has yet to block. I'm hoping for a warmish day sometime soon for photos of her wearing it in decent light, but seeing as how it is snowing at the moment (crazy weird for this time of year here) it may be a little while.

This one is called Little Scapulae, also from knit.so.quaint. I knit this little shrug to go with Ellie's pink Easter dress. I'm hoping to go on a button hunt on Friday or Saturday for the 3 little buttons I need for this cardi. I also have a nice mess of ends to weave. I'm not sure why I always put off the ends weaving since they truly take a very short time and it really isn't very difficult, but I always do. This is a super easy super quick knit. About the time you think you're really getting going you start on the 1x1 ribbing and then you're binding off and then on to the ribbing for the sleeves, the collar and then button bands which are all so quick it's almost silly.

The current knit is a February Baby Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I've knit a few of these in the past as well and this one is going to the niece we will welcome in May/June. I'm about 2 inches from the end of the body and then it will be time to jump to the sleeves. The lace work on this particular pattern is really simple to memorize and knits up really fast. I'm using Cascade Superwash, one of my favorite yarns for a baby gift. After all, who wants to give a new mother more work to do?


I'm trying to stay ahead of Ellie's growth and get started on her next cardigan, but still trying to decide what to make for her next. I really like the idea of stripes or a bit of color work for a bit of a change from all the solids I've been working with lately. Any suggestions?

10 months

We finally had two very nice days last week and were able to get outside for much of that time. The boys were so very excited to get reacquainted with their bikes and they introduced Ellie to the toddler bike we've had hanging around ever since Ender first used it.

{What are these?}

{Mmmmmm...}

{What?}

{This is what Ellie does if you say "hat" - so cute!}