believe it or not...

i've been knitting!

yesterday at lunchtime, i sat outside in the lovely weather and wove in the ends on the blanket i knitted at warp speed for my friend kylie, whose baby boy is due in just over a month. this is a tried and true pattern for me, and one many babies love above all other blankets. plus it's affordable, machine washable and dryable (driable?), soft as clouds, and quick to knit. it's a simple 4x5 basketweave with garter edges. this one's 5 skeins of paton's melody in le grande bleu, knitted on size 15 addi turbos. knitted in less than 2 weeks, which for me, is nothing short of a miracle.

i also finished (and mailed!) the butterfly hat (free pattern on ravelry) for my friend amy in oregon, where she promises me it is still cold enough to wear it. i confessed to her that i actually wore it myself last weekend for emily and my walk on the beach in the freezing wind. it was a tad harder to mail after that--i may make one of thse for myself. this is knitted in malabrigo (the BEST hat yarn) in the velvet grapes colorway on size 8 something or others... anyway, totally fun to knit, and i love the result.

i've also been having a bit of a delusional cast-on problem lately. i keep starting projects with this kind of field of dreams mentality of "if i cast it on, somehow it will get knitted." this is the mable dress from erika knight's book, simple knits for cherished babies, that i have wanted to make for years. however, i have never before known anyone having a baby girl at the right time of year for it. now i do, but odds of me being able to get it finished in time? well, we'll just see. if i don't make it in time for boo, then some baby sometime in the future is going to get a lovely little classic dress knitted from jaeger sienna in the creatively named colorway, 404. i will refer to it as lilac. so far, it's slow going, but lovely.

and since mable isn't knitting itself up at warp speed, i needed a faster back-up project. thus this hooded tunic i am making for kieran. this is a pattern from knitting pure and simple that i have made before from noro silk garden--that one is one of my favorite finished objects of all time. this one is a dark grey (darker than the picture looks) wool, silk, and viscose blend called mas acero from brooks farm, which i bought at SAFF in 2007 specifically to make into a hoodie for my then-unborn baby. i was going great guns on this until i realized i might be having a weird gauge issue. i need to address that--there may have to be frogging and redoing on different needles--we'll see... so far, i am happy with the fabric, but i dislike how the yarn gives me corpse-colored fingers when i knit with it. this will get a vinegar soak before i wash it when it's done.

and as if that's not enough (and it's definitely not--who are we kidding?) i've started buying a new yarn here and there in spite of the fact i have enough yarn to last me a good 3 years of constant knitting. at the beach this past weekend, i picked up this lovely skein of be sweet magic ball in the lemonade colorway. nevermind that my pasty white face has no business anywhere near these colors--i want to knit a ruffle out of this. i almost HAVE to. my friend kerstin's fabulous suggestion was to make a skirt and put this around the bottom as a thin ruffle--i REALLY want to do that! now i just need to learn to sew...

i also bought yarn to make some chickens, but we'll get to that later. :)