Not Just Any Baby Gift

When your really awesome knitting friend -- the one who got you back into knitting in the first place -- the one who reminded you of everything about knitting that your mom taught you when you were eight and you had since forgotten -- the one who would teach you how to do new knitting techniques while you were both waiting backstage before the choir concert -- the one whose now-defunct knitting blog first inspired your own still-going knitting blog -- the one who still, 10+ years after it all started, insists that you take turns flying across the country just so you can knit together every four months or so -- when that knitting friend gets pregnant, what the heck do you knit her?

Not just any baby gift.

You go to Northeast Fiber Arts. You buy 20 skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (you hope you can return whatever you don't use, but it turns out you can't return it after 30 days, and you've picked a project that you will spend more than 30 days doing, if only because you are a pastor and you were dumb enough to buy the yarn before Christmas and then leave it sitting in a bag for a month before casting on in the first place). You grab your Mason-Dixon Knitting book (the first one). And you cast on for the Moderne Baby Blanket. For this particular knitting friend, you will Log-Cabin your little heart out.

And then you make yourself write a blog post about it so that you are forced to block the darn thing and put it in the actual mail.

I can't wait to welcome you to the world, Baby Knitting Queen! I love you already!

Startitis Strikes Again

Someday, this orderly-yet-haphazard collection of Kureyon is going to be the Lizard Ridge Blanket.

As of this writing, I've got 10% done. That's two skeins of 20. My hands already hurt.

(It may be the new Harmony Options needles that are making my hands hurt. I'm in denial, though, as Husband gave them to me for Christmas. To be fair, I picked them out in the first place. Also: they're PRETTY.)

Anyway, this is the order of how I'm going to knit these skeins. The finished product is, miraculously, not going to look anything like this photo. That is the amazing thing about Noro. I swear, those people are geniuses.

More Photographic Evidence

This is the current state of my Labyrinth Rug. I have started sewing the fabric around the filler cord. And I've started sewing the coil to itself (you can see it on the left, I swear). But now it's kind of a tangled mess in the middle of my living room floor. And it may be like this indefinitely, as I can't figure out how I was making the seam before, and it's not as nice-looking on my later attempts.

"But, Holyknitter," you say, "won't the seam be sewn up in such a way that you can't see it anyway? Why does it matter if it doesn't look consistent or even particularly nice?"

BECAUSE. I say. JUST BECAUSE. I will know, and I will care, and it will drive me crazy if I know it's not done right. So there.

Maybe I could just move this giant blob of yarn and filler cord to the bedroom where the rug is supposed to go? Husband would be okay with that, don't you think?

I Promised You Pictures

This, my friends, is the new skein of Bulldog Blue needed for my Minimalist Cardigan. It appears to match the other dye lot, so I think we're good to go. I don't even think I'm going to have to do the stripey-knitting-to-get-the-sleeves-to-match thing.

This is totally going to work. It's going to be awesome.

Now I just have to pick up the sweater and start working on it again. Easier said than done.

Adventures with Aubrey

My friend Aubrey and I have a winter CSA share that we split from Lewis Creek Farm, where our friends Hank and Mango live. Mango, being a knitter herself, encourages us to come in and knit by the woodstove in the cozy farmhouse kitchen when we go pick up our monthly bags-O-food, and so CSA day has become kind of a "thing" for us. It's not just a matter of popping down to the farm and then coming back home. It's a day-long (or at least afternoon-long) prospect.

But this weekend, both Mango and Hank were out of town, and it was still a CSA pick-up day. So Aubrey and I threw caution to the wind and hopped in the car for a little adventure. First we stopped by the farm and picked up our food. Aubrey's dog Cisco threw up in the car on the way there (poor puppy gets carsick -- who knew?) so I took him on a little walk around the barn while Aubrey cleaned her backseat in the farm parking area.

Then we hopped back in the car and headed south, which we've never done on that road before. What fun, to see a new part of the state! We stopped in Bristol and got coffee and pastries, next went to Knits and Bolts in New Haven for a little yarn indulgence (very nice store; friendly owners/employees, good selection, good sale room! I don't head south very often with extra time to shop , but I like to support them when I can.).

Then we went down to Middlebury and walked around -- our original plan was to hit the yarn stores there, too, but one is closed-for-business and the other was closed-for-the-day by the time we got there. But we wandered into a few shops (complicated to do with a dog, but one of us stayed with the puppy while the other went in and browsed, and then we switched) and yet another bakery for more pastry goodness, and then hit the road. Next time we do a Vermont yarn adventure, we'll be sure to check store hours before we go. But still--SO FUN! Thanks, Aubrey and Cisco, for a great day!

Fun with Stats!

There are very few subjects I didn't enjoy studying in school. And, if I'm being frank, there were very few subjects that I wasn't good at when I studied them. I'm pretty sure there's a correlation -- I like doing things I'm good at doing, or I'm good at doing things I like doing, either way. But there was one subject in middle school that I hated so much--and I was so bad at doing--that I actively avoided taking it in high school, and then avoided all subjects that required it as a prerequisite in college: statistics. I was terrible at statistics. Probability, really. I get flipping a coin. I get rolling dice. But that's about it. And I don't even understand those very well: add in margins of error, and I'm confused all over again. Calculating that stuff is just beyond me.

But if someone gives me numbers to look at -- like, polling numbers on election day, something like that -- I do find them fascinating. The real-life application helps.

So when I tell you that Blogger is now showing me a Stats tab, you can maybe anticipate the progression of thoughts that went through my head. First was "OH GOD NO." What can I say? The reptilian fight-or-flight part of my brain is pretty quick. Then I remembered that I would not be tested on these stats, and I thought "well, it might be interesting to see what kind of things Blogger is measuring." It's number of pageviews, what kinds of browser my readers are using, where these readers live in the world, and where they came from to link to my page. I can look at stats broken down by time: stats are listed in terms of "today," "this week," "this month," "this year," and "all time." This is geeky-cool.

So now I know that people are connecting to my blog from Ravelry (which is not really a surprise), but that more people are connecting from my friend Elizabeth's blog than they are from Ravelry. Crazy! And the most-viewed page is my Snail Hat post -- so something I said there was apparently very helpful, and maybe the word has gotten out? In the last week, there have been as many as 10 people reading my blog at the same time. Ten! Who knew I even had ten readers total, much less ten at the same time?

And, not entirely surprisingly, most of my readers are from the United States... but the second-highest population of my readers are in the Netherlands. Not what I'd have thought. At all. If you'd asked me if I thought anyone from the Netherlands was reading my blog, I'd have laughed and said no. Canada, sure. UK, maybe. But the Netherlands? Not likely. (See? I have trouble with probability.)

So I'd like to give a shout out to my Dutch readers. Welcome! I'm glad to have you checking in from time to time! Also, my readers in China, and Australia, and Russia, and Brazil, and Germany, and India, and the United Arab Emirates (!?!?!??!!!!)... y'all, I had no idea you were out there. I'm grateful and humbled, and it makes me want to be a better blogger. I've got to be honest and tell you that it's not likely I'm going to get my blogging act together anytime soon (again with the probabilities... I could be wrong!), but knowing you're actually out there is pretty nice. So thanks for reading.

And if you're a reader from some non-USA country, please drop a line in the comments. I may or may not be able to respond in a timely manner, but I will appreciate knowing where you're from! And I'll try to respond eventually. I have done a bit of world travel (mostly Europe, several times) and it's great fun to learn about new places and new people. So say hello! Bonjour! Dobra dyen!

...And, um, if you are from the Netherlands, can you please tell me how to say "hello" in Dutch? This is apparently a hole in my education.


(Yes, Mom, I'll be sure to show you the stats stuff when I'm home. I know you want to see it.)

Making Progress

Okay. It's been a while since I posted. I have been knitting, but I have been knitting baby gift things for friends, many of which are surprises. In the interest of not blowing the surprise, I haven't been posting.

Also, I am again stuck by my inability to transfer photos from my Blackberry to my computer. Apparently there is this thing called a "cable" that "plugs in" to connect the two, but... well, it's all the way over in my desk drawer, and that's in a whole 'nother room. Too difficult.

But:
*I have started sewing the labyrinth rug around the filler cord. It's taking for-freaking-ever. It's also been sitting on my living room floor for four months now. Every morning, as I'm getting dressed and standing on my cold bedroom floor in bare feet, I think "man, I wish that rug were finished so I could have something warm to stand on." Motivation. I got it. But apparently not enough.
*Baby Gift #1 is finished, I just have to block and cut ends (which are already woven in, thankyouverymuch.
*Baby Gift #2 is almost finished. There is one seam and a little bit of end-weaving, and then it's done too. A one-seam baby gift? You should know what this is. Mama may or may not read my blog. I see her in 5 weeks, so this will get finished up relatively soon.
*I purchased that one final skein of yarn I needed for my Minimalist Cardigan today! HUZZAH! I was (a) in a store that sells LPW in Bulldog Blue and (b) remembered to buy it! At the same time! Tomorrow I will look at the yarn in the daylight and make sure it actually matches. This is a huge step in finally finishing the darn thing. A year ago I wrote a post in which I admitted to working on the darn thing for "a shamefully long time." A year ago. And since then? No progress. Until today!
*I also purchased the one last skein of yarn I needed for the Lizard Ridge Blanket I've been wanting to do for a while. I shall cast on for this soon. I know, I know, I could have started it without that one last skein, but I want to look at everything I have and do a bit of strategizing with the colors before I cast on. It's a getting-the-big-picture thing, because I know I won't like the finished product if I don't plan it right from the beginning.

Here. A photo from the "archives" because I can't give you anything new. This is Doc deciding he likes the Kiki Mariko rug. And looking kind of undignified at the same time. Poor sweet kitty.

5?th Blogiversary

Holy knit! I can't believe I've had a knitting blog for 5 years. How in the world can this be? 5 years? 2006 to 2011? Anyway, whatever the number is, happy blogiversary. Thanks for reading. I'm terrible at responding to comments, but I appreciate them anyway!