Santa loves knitters

Santa was good to the knitter in me *:

Ahhh… Vintage Knits. I have oooed and ahhhed over this book for quite some time. Now I can oooo and ahh over the patterns! Another piece of good news is that my LYS will soon be stocking Rowan yarns, just in time for me to cast on for one of these beauties.

I knit 2 pairs of socks this past year, and actually completed one pair during Socktoberfest. I had so much fun knitting them, once I got the hang of it, but once I wore them post baby…….. wow- there is nothing like handknit socks on your feet! I think there are over 1000 possible combos of styles in this book.

Can you tell how ecstatic I was to receive this? As you can see, sock knitting is on the agenda for 2008. A neat side note about this book is the history of handknit socks and how sock knitting developed. When these patterns were originally written, some called for steel 00000 DPNs. Yes, quintuple zeros. Thankfully Nancy bush reworked the patterns for DPNs 0-2, a much more realistic size needle.

Now I just need to find some sock yarn worthy of the patterns!

Has anyone knit a project from one of these books? What’s your favorite?

*yes, this is me Christmas morning in my pj’s and sans makeup.

A little baby, a little knitting

Even with a new baby, I have found a little time to knit. A little. Not a lot.

Which is why Kim’s Hats from Last Minute Knitted Gifts is perfect knitting for me right now. A small project, knit on size 9 DPNs, is bound to be finished quickly. I found enough left over Sierra yarn from Knitpicks (I think they are calling it Cadence yarn now) in my stash to make two hats- one for our baby and one for our friend’s baby who is 3 1/2 months.

I’m waiting to add the pom poms and tassels until the second hat is finished, so I don’t run out of yarn, and I am planning on lining the hats with some sort of fleece. I’m never lined something I have knitted before, so hopefully I’ll find a tutorial somewhere.

Did you notice the organza bag all my projects items are in? The baby received a few gifts that were inside bags like these and I LOVE using them to house my projects! They are infinitely more chic than my regular zip-lock bags.

When do I have time to knit? Mostly when my husband has been attempting to give the baby a bottle. I am breastfeeding exclusively (which turned out to be not as hard as I had anticipated) so feeding our little one a bottle of expressed milk has been Keith’s nightly project. I hide in the basement so the baby doesn’t hear, see or smell me, and try to concentrate on knitting instead of her loud protests. I also try to catch up on my blog reading too.

We’ve been encouraged by our pediatrician to persevere with the bottle despite the tears. She eventually will get the hang of it and enjoy being fed by someone other than mama. We’ve been using the Medela bottles with the orthodontic slow flow nipple thus far, but we put the Dr. Brown’s bottle on our Amazon Wishlist. The Dr’s recommended them. I’m currently waiting for Keith to wake up to see if the bottles could be wrapped up under our Christmas tree.

But these two are the best presents!

Merry Christmas everyone!

One month already?

It is hard to believe that a month has already gone by since our daughter was born! It seems to have gone by so fast, and yet we feel as though we’ve had her forever.

Here she is in the world’s cutest handknit kimono from Anna:

And here she is sleeping in her basinette while her furry sister keeps watch over her. (and no, our bed is not made- a detail neglected due to the infant in the house!)

We’re all doing well and sleeping well considering the circumstances. The baby eats about every 2-3 hours during the day and does a 4-5 hour stretch at night, then a 3 hour stretch after that…. so I think we’re doing ok. I tried the “3 hour schedule” and it worked for a week, but then she was doing the 3 hours routine at night over the weekend. And when you go from 4 or 5 hours at night to 3- that is no fun. i think she might be going through that 5-6 wk growth spurt, as she has been wanting to eat more frequently in the past few days.

When she nods off to sleep during the day, I’ll finally get to eat lunch or do a load of laundry… but as soon as I try to lay down her eyes pop open! And I never thought that washing & drying my hair would show up on my to-do list, or that a few simple errands, if timed incorrectly, would leave me in the car with a screaming baby trying to figure out a place to breastfeed her (thankfully I stopped at a relative’s house that was nearby).

All in all, things are going well! Thanks for all the wonderful comments and support!