God-baby

Oh hi, remember me? I finally have some cutie-patooty pictures to post! The last few weeks have been mostly just relaxing but I did get to see my god-baby at least. How cute is this guy?? And... not only is he cute, but stylin too! :)

I did knit that blanket it the background though...

I even knit him some cute little white booties for his blessing ceremony, but I didn't remember to take a picture of them. At least not one I could find on the mess that is my computer.

Hop on over to the Nizhoni blog to see what else I've been up to!

Baby knitting

I finally have a knitting project to show. I must say, I'm only moderately pleased with it. The pattern was quick and easy and I like the idea of the final product. My problem?? The yarn. I am officially a yarn snob, methinks.

Its a baby blanket/hoodie combo, and it is actually quite cute. I knit it for a friend who is not pregnant, but has another friend who is. This friend of a friend is actually have twins. So I also have a pale sage green to knit a second one, as well as enough to knit a hat and some booties for each baby.



In the quest for something affordable and baby-proof (ie washable) I went with acrylic. The original yarn in the pattern is a cotton, but all the reviews said it pilled terribly. And I was afraid anything superwash would stretch out all wonky after reading The Book of Yarn. So I went with an acrylic. Its Vanna's Choice from Lion Brand (I feel dirty just typing that). But it had the colors we liked and it was washable... and it got fairly good reviews.

In all honesty, it was fine to knit with. I didn't have any problem with the yarn splitting really, and it did soften up a LOT after a trip through the washer and dryer. And odds are the recipient will never know the difference between that and any other yarn. But I know. It just didn't feel quite right to me, it wasn't the same as knitting with wool. Don't get me wrong, it turned out fine, nice even. But I don't know if I'll ever use the Vanna's Choice again. I'm just too spoiled.

One thing I did not count on with the acrylic. Or rather I did count on it and shouldn't have, had to do with weaving in the ends. With wool, the scales catch each other and you can weave in a few inches of tail and it will usually stay put. Not this stuff, they wiggled loose a bit in the wash/dry cycle, just enough to be noticeable and had to be woven back in. But there was one join, roughly in the middle of the blanket that wouldn't stay so I tied a knot and cut the tails. The shit won't even stay tied its so slippery, I'm afraid its going to come undone and unravel itself!! I'm going to send it back through the wash once I finish the second one to see if it will stay put or if I'm going to have to reknit the second half of it...

at last

the booties are done. knitted, seamed, and buttons on. Pretty cute hey?


Someone from the knitting nature knit-along sent me a message today asking about my cropped cardigan. So I went back to look through the knit-along to find my post and man... there are some beautiful FO's on there. I forgot how much I wanted to knit some of the patterns in that book. I did knit the droplet hat, and there are a few hexagons worth of turtle skirt floating around somewhere. I think I'm re-adding the bubble sweater to my "to-knit" list though. As though my to-knit list weren't long enough already. Someday I'll be done with the wedding wraps and will be able to knit freely again...

i did convo the flower maker on etsy, because i saw in her profile that she does large orders for weddings at a discount. still probably going to end up going with the silk flowers, but i thought i may as well find out how much it would be. i'll just file it away in my mental "ideas folder"

beetlejuice, beetlejuice, beetlejuice

I have good intentions, I really do. But I actually think that I am at my most scatterbrained ever right now. We're in the midst of the quarter's first round of midterms, which as usual I am wholly unprepared for, though I did surprisingly well on last week's pharmacogenomics test. I don't expect a repeat performance on either of this week's. Plus I have a presentation on Wednesday, a case to write up before tonight AND to top it all off, I have like a week to pick out preceptors for all my fourth year rotations. Not to mention the small task of planning a wedding, which is always there to distract me, whether I want to think about it or not...

The second bootie is soooooo close to being done. I knit an extra row on the strap though so i had to tear it out and redo it, so its not seamed up yet. So without further ado, here is one tiny, adorable baby bootie. I call they the beetlejuice booties because the green/purple/brown thing makes me think of beetlejuice. Mr. Z finds it amusing that I never saw the movie because it scares me... he says its a comedy. I don't want to find out. The buttons also scream beetlejuice to me. why?? well look...

too cute for words!

I swear the other one will get finished... honest. This is why I must never knit socks. It seriously only took like ten minutes to knit one and maybe ten more to seam it up. And I can't spare twenty minutes to finish the other. tsk tsk.