Drake's sweater

I've been working diligently on Drake's sweater in an attempt to get it finished before we find out the sex of the baby on TODAY! The appeal of knitting baby things is just too strong as they are both adorable and quick to knit. From a knitting perspective I wish that I'd married a shorter man, or at least one with shorter arms as Drake has very long monkey arms and is over 6 feet tall, thereby making his sweaters take the REST OF MY LIFE to knit. I think it'll be worth it though with this one-- Smokin by Jared Flood (who has a fancy new layout for his website, Brooklyn Tweed)

I woke up early this morning (so excited to go to the Doctor!) and am going to see if I can knock out most of the shawl collar on this sweater before we go in. I'm aiming for this being finished in time for my knitting birthday party on Saturday. :)

Something to do while we're waiting

I fully intended to do a post on the fabric choices for my living room set months ago, and here we are in November. November! leaves! pies! my birthday! I've been horribly distracted by many things:

1. My coat doesn't snap. I am rapidly expanding and my coat will not contain me. This is both distressing and exciting.

2. Due to a scheduling snafu we did not get an ultrasound last week and I was horribly

distressed to the point of making myself sick. I can no longer predict my reaction to things except to say that it will probably be more dramatic than anticipated.

3. This means that we get the ultrasound this Thursday, and that we will find out the sex of the baby just in time for my birthday knitting extravaganza. This is a very good thing. I have been earmarking some lovely patterns which are all dependent on this information-- not so much in terms of color choices but in terms of trim/notions etc... here's what I'm thinking about:

These are all patterns from Special Knits: 22 Gorgeous Handknits for Babies and Toddlers by Debbie Bliss there are INFINITELY more patterns in here that I want to knit, such as the Eyelet Vest, the Organza-edged cardigan, the Hooded Kaftan (yes, a kaftan. it's lovely.) Right now it remains my favorite baby knit book.

Velvet edged jacket via Anny Purls flickr

Ribbon-edged cardigan via Anny Purls flickr

Ribbed jacket via lotusutol on flickr

Sundara yarn will finally be mine (in May...)

This woman has it figured out. She has the most beautiful yarn I've ever seen depicted in hanks and finished projects on the internet. I have been desperately trying to obtain some of this yarn for my very own, but she usually offers only three colorways per month and since December I've been waiting for the perfect colors. In February she launched "The Crusade Against Winter Gloom" and every other day she put up limited edition colorways at different times. After 3 failed attempts at acquiring yarn in February, I literally set an alarm for 1 am in a last-ditch attempt to get there in time to actually purchase the yarn. Still failed. you had to have been the the speediest typer with the speediest internet connection in the world to even have a shot at this stuff. Drake will testify that I spent most of February in the depths of despair. My only ray of hope was when Katie got some of the silk lace yarn... I actually knew someone who bought this yarn! All was not lost!

So today she started the new March sales: "Flowers from my mother's garden" and it's mine! all mine! 2 Skeins of Poppy (the middle one, though truthfully, I love all three.) Unfortunately I have to wait till May for it to be shipped, but I don't mind. I know it will arrive sooner than I think and that one fine day when this arrives on my doorstep, I will be happy indeed....

Kavi's Baby Surprise Jacket

One of my very dear friends just had a baby, which is of course a wonderful occasion to knit something, don't you think?
Here's a sneak peak at what will soon become a Baby Surprise Jacket. I cannot WAIT to cast on for this one....

Christmas fun-times.

My Red Ryder
Originally uploaded by Alta Marie

As I predicted, Drake was indeed tricking me and got me this needle set for Christmas! Hooray! In honor of this, I have tipped the current knitting projects list in his favor, and after finishing a very quick baby project I will knit him a tie because he asked me to.

Drake asks me to knit things for him. And then he wears them. It is bliss for both parties involved. He wears his slipper socks every night. It has made me desirous of my own pair, but I'm going to make mine a grown-up version of a pair of Pompon slippers from the Debbie Bliss Baby Knits Book.

Current WIP (works in progress for non-knitterly types):
1. Baby Pompon slippers
2. My First Pair of Socks (toe up)
3. Drake's tie

To-Knit list:
1. Lace socks with birthday yarn from Maureen :)
2. Socks for Drake (with noro self-striping sock yarn purchased in November)
3. Grown-up Pompon slippers
4. Sweater for Drake
5. Scarves for Danny and Susan
6. Sweater for me

I have already completed very many Christmas scarves and elves which I will post shortly here and on Ravelry--

We had such a lovely Christmas week with Drake's parents and did a lot of fun things in NYC that we hadn't done before (like go to the Greenwich Tavern, and the Oak Room and Nougatine and the Rockettes and the Statue of Liberty!) Again, I'll expound after I have access to those pictures. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday/week!

In rehearsal...

This is the first time in a while that I haven't had to leave home to be in a show! what fun this is!
We're at Chelsea Studios rehearsing from now until the show goes up on the 13th. so from 10-6 I'm here rehearsing, knitting and browsing the internet. What a lovely lovely job!
I have knit many cork elves and also some slipper socks for Drake. I'll post pictures soon. One of my colleagues here calls them my "gun cozies." (you know, since we're from Texas...)

I am so thankful to be at a rehearsal space rehearsing instead of auditioning. Such a great feeling! I can only hope that it happens more often...

We decorated the tree a couple days ago, and there were only a few ornament casualties. Yesterday I came home and when I opened the front door I could hear Christmas Carols coming from our apartment upstairs-- Drake baked a delicious ham! how lucky am I this week? toyland, christmas and ham.

For the ones that got away

Two years ago I bought cashmere yarn and I started to knit "Fetching" from Knitty. I bought two pairs of circular knitting needles that were sooo smooth and wonderful and I was so glad when I finally finished the pair on a flight to visit Drake somewhere or other. Then, tragedy struck.

It wasn't until I packed up after the visit that I realized I had left my freshly finished project AND my new needles in my seat back pocket. TRAGEDY!!! all you knitters know what I'm talking about. I (naturally) called the airline, but to no avail. Someone somewhere has a pair of cashmere fingerless gloves and 2 sets of super smooth circular knitting needles, and I have nought but a wistful memory....

It took me two years to re-knit the pair, but I finally did it. They're not cashmere. I couldn't suffer that kind of loss in this economy...

The Four Year Blanket is nearly complete.....

I've been working on this blanket since I learned to knit. This was back in June of 2003. Those of you who have ever done a show with me since then may remember the squares that I was knitting whenever we were backstage. I was always reticent to say that I was knitting anything other than squares in case I lost patience and gave up. Well I didn't! look at that!

Some changes to the pattern--I've decided that it needs to be square, so I'm adding three more rows, then I have to knit the border and line the back, so it's not finished yet, but it's close. I've also decided that I am going to embroider something on the "khaki" squares. I find them bland and generally unpleasant, so I've got to sass them up a bit. Not sure what I'll do yet. I'd love suggestions. Maybe a skull and crossbones--that or flowers. Yeah, flowers..... or maybe a longhorn....

Actually maybe I'll sew funny patches on there! The possibilities are endless.