one stitch short

By the way...

I went to Maryland!  Yeah, so that was almost a month ago.  I've been a lousy blogger.  Maryland was fantabulous!  On top of getting to hang out with some of the greatest people (and folks that just pick up with you where you left off at the last festival, or blog post, whichever was more recent), I of course got some great yarn, too. 

I got some sock yarn from Tess for a sweater for the kiddo and 20 balls of Louisa Harding Kashmir that was super cheap and will become a sweater for me. The prettiest stuff is the Brooks Farm that I couldn't resist.

 
The husband asked for some crazy bright sock yarn, so that explains this purchase.

I do have a perfectly good reason for my recent bloggy absence.  The husband has been sick off and on since November, including the weekend I was in Maryland.  It was the worst this month.  We finally found out the cause of the problem...tonsils.  Combine that with a kid with a perpetual ear infection and we had to take both of them to the ENT yesterday.  It's been a crazy month, but we finally have a light at the end of the tunnel, with procedures scheduled for both of them that should make things better.  And, um, come back for the winner of that summer reading contest that I posted oh so long ago!

Summer Books

There is something about the approaching summer that always makes me want to read more.  I think it must be the summer book clubs that I used to join in the library when I was a kid.  Mix that with the fact that I need to make some room for more yarn with my upcoming trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool and I'm having a little bloggy contest. 

Tell me three books that you think I should read this summer.  They can be from any genre whatsoever.  On Wednesday, April 30th at 5 p.m., I will draw a name of a person who will receive a box o' yarn (good stuff, I promise!).

The last time I made this request, I got some great suggestions so I'm looking forward to hearing from you!!!

PS This little monster is ready for summer, too!

Maryland or Bust!

Yep, I'm re-entering the world of fiber festivals after sitting out a year (as I was very pregnant and just returning to work during the biggies - MD and NY - last year) and going to Maryland Sheep & Wool!!!  I just got my ticket and I'm super excited!  I am thinking it will just be me, but I may get weak and bring the kid along.  I haven't left him overnight, yet, but on the flipside, I want to experience the Ravelry party on Saturday night, too!  So, this may just be my mothers day present to myself - a weekend away with nothing to worry about but which yarn I should buy!  YAY!

Catch up!

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Originally uploaded by onestitchshort

I made this back in February and never even got ithe finished object into Ravelry. In November or December my mom mentioned that she would like a hat/scarf combo. I had just seen the Nomad Hat and Scarf pattern in Interweave, so it was great timing. It got to her just in time for Nashville to have snow!

In which I learn to knit while chasing the kid...

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Originally uploaded by onestitchshort

This weekend, I did just that. I knit rows between going to the other room to retrieve the kid. Saturday morning, I got up early and went to a garage sale where I scored a ton of clothes for the kid for pretty cheap. Conveniently, the garage sale was located close to one of my favorite area yarn stores! So, while we were on that side of town, I stopped in to pick out some yarn for my sister's wedding shawl.

The wedding is in less than three weeks.

Yep, cutting it close on this one! I didn't find the yarn I went in looking for, so I asked the person working there for her recommendations. She was great! She helped me pick out some RYC Cashsoft 4 ply and gave me the great suggestion of incorporating some beads along the edges.

So, this weekend I cast on for the Flower Basket Shawl. I've made it farther than the picture indicates because I worked on it some tonight, too. I've discovered that I can get some good knitting in between trips to retrive the crawling kid. Granted, there is some unravelling that has to occur every once in a while since I get interrupted, but I'm hoping I'll be able to learn the pattern and see when I've made a mistake.

The knitting mojo has returned!

All work and no play

...Makes me pretty dull, that's for sure!  Zero knitting going on around here.  The closest thing I've come to crafting was stuffing the munchkin's Easter basket.

I am really feeling the need to knit but haven't found the time to get anything started.  I also have everything ready for scrapbooking but haven't found the time to scrapbook.  The issue is not "oh I'm so busy".  I am, but that's not the issue.  The issue is finding the motivation in the time I do have to do something other than sit around.  I have some motivation in that I'm going to try to knit a shawl for my sister for her wedding.  In less than a month.  Yeah, there's some motivation for ya.  I'm going to hunt some yarn on Saturday and that should get me jumpstarted.

In the absence of crafty goodness, life continues.  The kid is taking swim lessons.  Yes, I'm a soccer mom already.  I mainly wanted to get him in the pool so that this summer I could do some swimming.  Of course, that would require that I go swimsuit shopping as I'm not too keen on putting my post-pregnancy stomach back in any of my bikinis.  After three lessons, he is starting to warm up to being in the pool and is trying to do some of the things the other kids are doing in class.

A post on this blog wouldn't be complete without a picture of the kiddo, this time in his Easter finery!

Ah, shucks!

I've missed you guys, too!  Thanks for reminding me of one of the best parts of this whole blogging thing...the friendships!  I am going to try to post more after the kid goes to bed even if it's just a short thought.

On that note, I mentioned in my last post that I had made some baby stuff recently.  I had these projects planned for ages and of course waited until the night before I was supposed to gift them.  Go figure.   But the good news part of that is that I was able to make these things in just a few hours.  That's the big bonus of sewing to me...quick gratification, at least on small projects.

I also didn't think to take a decent picture at the house, but I took this one with my cell phone in my car.  As you can see here, there are two bibs, made using this tutorial, another pair of baby shoes (this one in the 0-6 month size and skully denim), and a denim Kidlet Wall Pocket found via whipup.  I think I'm going to make the kid several of these wall pockets to hang on the wall of his room to help us organize the plethora of toys that he has acquired.  First, I have to make his Easter basket, so I guess that will be this weekend's project.  I am also working on knitting a hat for this baby...I've just got the decreases left.

It's been too long

You know it's been too long since you blogged when you can't remember your bloggy log-in.  Yeah, it's been that long.  I miss blogging, for purely selfish reasons.  I miss knitting, too.  There hasn't been a whole lot of that going on around here.  Part of it is just that I am exerting every ounce of energy I have on work and the kid. 

It's crunch time at work, so there's a lot of time and effort invested everyday.  Plus, there's no internet time, which means any blog surfing I do happens at night.  Not that there used to be a ton of blog time at work, but I used to have a lunch break.  Those were the days.  :-)

Then, I come home and chase a crawling kid.  It's a never-ending cycle.  Watch the kid crawl into the other room, pick him up, bring him back into the living room, repeat.  I love him, don't get me wrong, but this whole motherhood thing can be exhausting.  He's super cute, of course, so that helps me forgive him for making a mess with the dog's water bowl or digging dirt out of the house plant pot. 

I am working on a baby hat for one of my friends...the baby hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  I also made her some things on the ole' sewing machine on Friday.  All I have is a crappy cell phone picture but I'll try to remember to post it.

Speaking of sewing machines, I need an upgrade.  Any recommendations?  I'm still on my starter machine and I'd like something that has some more functionality without being outrageously expensive and hard to use.

Am I the only person who has been really screwed up by daylight savings?  It seems worse than usual.  Maybe because the kid decided to stay up until 9:30 last night (his bedtime is usually 8 so it was late even for regular time).  I LOVE the daylight lasting longer, it's just the adjustment that gets you.

Hmmm...how to end this supremely random post?  How 'bout a gratuitous kid picture?

The Magic of the Blogosphere

I visited my Mom this weekend, which meant flying with the kiddo (it's against the rules to show up without the kid, she might just send me back) :-) and flying back late last night.  I decided to fly back late as it would be after the kid's bedtime so I hoped he would sleep.  He did sleep during the flight, but as soon as we landed, he woke up and stayed awake throughout the luggage gathering process and on our walk to the car.  As I'm walking to the car, I notice another woman with a baby, hers in a front pack.  I was happy not to be the only one with a kid awake at that hour, and was looking at the cute kiddo.  When I looked at the woman, I discovered that I know her!  It was High Energy Jenny!!!  Forgive her for not posting in a bazillion years, something about the kids getting mobile really puts a cramp on the posting and the knitting (yeah, the kid is crawling, which has made for little crafty time).  Anyway, I met Jenny a while back at my very first fiber fest, Maryland Sheep & Wool!  It was the MOST random encounter that we saw each other last night, as we are from different states and thousands of people are in and out of that airport every day and if I was two minutes later getting my bags they would already have been gone.  Or if one of us didn't have the kiddo with us, we might have never noticed each other.  And yet we saw each other!  I even got to meet Mr. High Energy and the High Energy Baby!  Yet another example of the Magic of the Blogosphere! 

Baby's First Shoes

I am one of those mom's that feels the need to put shoes on her baby before going out of the house.  I know he really doesn't need anything other than socks, especially in our warm climate, but I feel like he's not fully dressed without shoes!  Recently, he grew out of his shoes and the shoes in the next size that we have are the kind that he shouldn't wear until he starts crawling and walking.  So, Inspired by the baby shoes over at Gleek last week, I declared this the weekend of baby shoes.

I made two pairs!  I used the same tutorial and Stephanie's pattern for 6-12 months. 

For the brown pair, I used light brown cordoroy for the outside and dark brown fleece for the inside.  This was my first pair and probably took me twice as long to make as my second pair.  Now, I've got it down and even had the confidence to make some minor modifications on the second pair.

My favorite part of the second pair...the secret skulls on the bottom!  I used regular denim on the top and skully denim on the bottom, with red flannel as the lining.  I also wanted the red to show through a bit more than the lining did on the other pair, so instead of flipping the heel part inside to accommodate the elastic, I flipped it outside.  I also used a zig-zag stitch in red on the top to tie it all together. 

He wore his brown ones all day today and they even got their first compliment when we were out for lunch.  I was so excited that someone else thought they were cute!  I'm still not completely confident with my sewing skills, so I was happy to have pulled these off.  The best part, they stay on!  The kiddo has discovered how to take his socks off, but these shoes didn't budge.  I think he likes them...