Help me choose my next project!

I'm almost done with my pretty, but slightly annoying, sock yarn baby sweater, and I need to have enough advance warning to get the yarn ready for my next project.

Ironically, after I mentioned here that I was finding the sock yarn sweater, particularly the underarm, problematic, my husband has decided to do the following whenever I am knitting on it:

Him: "Wow, that's looking really good!"

Me: "Oh, thanks. It's coming along."

Him: "I love that colorway! It just knit up so nicely!"

Me: "Thanks. It's Vivien Leigh. Named after the beautiful actress."

Him: "Yeah, it's too bad that underarm just looks so bad. I'd hate for our baby to wear something with an underarm that looks like that. She is going to find that totally unacceptable, because she'll be spending a lot of time inspecting the underarms of clothing, like all of our other babies have done. Are you sure you can't rip it out and redo it a fifth time?"

Me:

He apparently finds the eyebrow of death amusing enough that this joke must be repeated with regularity.

If you're not familiar with my eyebrow of death face, you might be interested in this post.

I recently sat next to a group of unruly teenagers in church, who were not with their parents, but who were being disruptive by whispering, laughing, and ripping up offering envelopes into shapes of animals. (Hello? You guys are 17? My nine year old sitting next to you is far better behaved.)

I calculated my options, which included confronting them, standing up and yelling, "I HAVE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOU!" while pointing to the offenders, patrolling the aisles for similar looking people who might be their parents, and using the eyebrow of death.

The eyebrow of death, which is silent but highly effective, won. I swept back my bangs, arched my left eyebrow to an epic height, and stared them down. It took four seconds for the boy sitting nearest me to notice. He stopped ripping the envelopes and stared straight ahead. The girl next to him continued to giggle, and he elbowed her and pointed to me. In turn, she elbowed the girl sitting next to her, and the three of them sat quietly for the remainder of the service.

The eyebrow of death is one of the best things I learned as a teacher. I intend to use it forever.

OK, back to my knitting project. Here's what I've got it narrowed down to:

The Eloise Eyelet Cardi:

In Threes:

Ribbed Baby Jacket

Like Sleeves for Babies:

Cascade:

And Dragon Skin Baby Sweater

Once I decide on a pattern, I'll be able to choose a colorway.

What say you?

68 days of baby knitting

My baby will never have 25 hand knitted things.

Because mama has fallen woefully behind schedule. Maybe someday Shamrock will be able to forgive me. How did my other babies make it to the ages of 9, 7, and 5 without having 25 knitted things before they were born?

It's a mystery.

I was sick, did you know that? Like, really sick with the flu. I had to cancel a teaching assignment I had been looking forward to for a year. I have never done that before, and I won't lie: tears were shed.

Knitters, being some of the nicest people in the world, made me feel less despondent. When people heard my classes were canceled because I was too sick to travel and my doctor forbid me to leave my bed, I got many messages saying, "I can take your class another time. Your health and the baby's health are much more important."

While I was sick, I was too sick to knit. Do you know how awful it is for someone who never has idle hands to sit and do absolutely nothing? Consequently, I am even more behind on my knitting.

But I am making progress on this sock yarn sweater. I adore the way Vivien Leigh knits up (this is Springvale Sock). ADORE it. But as it turns out, sock yarn sweaters take much longer to make than worsted weight sweaters do. Imagine that.

And at this juncture, I'm going to withhold the pattern info because I am very annoyed with the pattern, and don't wish to steer you towards making it. And I also don't want to upset the designer.

I hate the way this underarm  and mid-back is looking. I have, however, ripped it out three times, and this is exactly how it is supposed to look if one follows the pattern directions.

The beauty of baby knitting is that babies don't care. And someday I will probably look back on this project and laugh about how worked up I was getting over the underarm of a sweater that a tiny person with 20/400 vision will be wearing.

So I'm going to let it go, rather than redesign it, since it's modular, and I would also have to rip out the sleeves in order to fix the back.

I think I need a nice, quick baby project after this one. Suggestions?

design your own spiral blanket

Lots of you have written asking about the pattern I used to make this.

(You can see more pictures here.)

So I made you a tutorial. Because I like you and I wanted to.

It's free. You can download it now, if you want.

Download the free tutorial here.

I also put the info up on Ravelry, since y'all would just ask anyway.

You can make this blanket any size and with any weight yarn. The sky's the limit.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

You are my sunshine announcement.

It's easy to get bogged down in the sheer number of people, the sheer number of catastrophes, of causes, that truly need help in this world. It's easy to be paralyzed by indecision about where to send your money or volunteer your time. How do you choose one natural disaster and not another? How do you help the family next door and not the one down the street?

I don't have answers to why the world works the way it does. All I have are questions.

But I've decided -- and so have many of you -- that my inability to fix everything is not going to preclude me from helping with something.

When you start getting bogged down in the indecision, try casting a narrower net. Try looking for someone to help in your immediate family or circle of friends. Look for something close to home, something that speaks to you in an inexplicable way.

Many people wiser than myself have suggested that one of the best ways to improve your own happiness, self worth, and sense of purpose, is to help others. Don't let the fact that you can't fix everything stop you from helping with something.

One of the things I know how to do is make pretty yarn. In honor of one of my friends who lost her baby Charlie, I made this colorway last year, called Glimpse:

We took orders for it for a set period of time, and when the sale was over, donated a portion of the proceeds to SHARE, a nonprofit that helps families who have lost babies.

This year, we made You Are My Sunshine, and hoped to be able to beat last year's donation of $2,500.

It took a lot of work to create the 1,144 skeins of this colorway and its coordinates that were ordered. But it was worth it. Not only were we able to send something tangible to all of you who ordered some -- either for yourself or a loved one, but we were able to raise money for SHARE to extend help to more families who need it.

This morning I sent in our donation.

I'm really proud to say that, thanks to you, we were able to send $5,100.

I sent it with this message:

Thanks for caring. Thanks for doing something even though you can't fix everything.

love's labor's, ruffled

It took me an entire extra week of furious ruffling, but my spiral baby blanket is done.

Here it is, pre-blocking.

 I used two skeins of yarn for the center spiral, and about 90% of a third skein for the ruffle.

And after a nice bath and smoothing, things are looking much nicer.

I am a huge proponent of wet blocking.

I also like how serendipitously this turned out -- the skein I used in the middle was obviously a bit lighter than the other two, and I love it. 

The finished size is about 33" across, and it's perfect. Not so huge that it will drag on the ground, but large enough to wrap a baby in or to use as something comfy for her have tummy time on. By the time I was done with this, I was scrunching one hundred million stitches onto a 40" circular, which slows down progress considerably and does things like break your interchangeable circular needle clean off in the middle of a round.

I am done with interchangeable circulars from a certain company who shall remain nameless. My fixed circulars handled the heavy load just fine.

I will put together some simple directions so you can make your own spiral blanket if you want, and will put that up soonly.

After I finished this, I was ready for something quick and easy, and this was the balm my frayed knitting nerves needed.

It's the Rosy Scalloped Hat from Tot Toppers, and I made the 0-6 month size in one movie and one cup of breakfast coffee.

I followed your advice and knit this out of Parisienne on Springvale DK. I love how it gently spiral striped around the hat.

And you couldn't see it in the above pictures very well, but isn't the edging just the cutest? And it's really not that hard to do, thanks to the easy to follow directions in the pattern.

(Blocking on a happy birthday balloon, of course.) The details make this hat. The rosettes, the scallops, the little pixie top.

When I was done, I immediately wanted to make another, and I could, because I have plenty of yarn left. This only took about 1/4 of a skein of Springvale DK.

I have 82 days of knitting left, and 23 projects left to finish, which means I have about 3.5 days to make each project.

I've decided the next colorway I'll be knitting with is Vivien Leigh, which has been a favorite of mine since it was released.

And for everyone who messaged me telling me to stop wasting time knitting and to hurry up and make your orders, I say phooey. I already work about 12 hours a day, and I promise your yarn will be be headed your way as soon as humanly possible. Emphasis human.

The Yarnista is allowed to knit now and then. Especially when she is 82 days away from having a baby and sick with a sinus infection that's been hanging around for two weeks.

Also, I'm bigger than you. Moreso now than ever. So there.