Baby (Not mine!!! :P )

I seem to knit more when I'm stressed. This week, I finished both the Boo-tay and the Mi-uh up to sewing up stage:

Need a needle taken to 'em.

Before I even finished knitting the Boo-tay, I started Happy Baby Grassy Feet:

Stripey!

I was thinking of naming them something that referred to marijuana, but then I took a step back (mentally, of course) and thought, 'hang on a minute, it is going to be a baby wearing these!' So cuteness prevailed over edginess. Happy Baby Grassy Hands will follow, of course.

I was still feeling a bit stressed on Sunday, so I decided to start something bigger. I had been thinking about Elizabeth Zimmermann's Tomten Jacket (named after a mythical Swedish elf-like creature) since I finished reading Knitting Without Tears earlier in the week. It's basically a jacket knitted all in garter stitch, with the back and front in one, and the sleeves knitted up from the armholes. The only section that needs to be sewn is the underarm. The back and front join together into a hood at the shoulders. It's an intriguing design. I'm a bit daunted by the grinding, hair-pulling, cask-drinking 80 rows of plain garter stitch over 112 stitches in the beginning, but hopefully the pull of the interesting stuff at the end will keep me going. On 4mm needles, it should make a good 3-6 month old baby jacket. I decided to make it in primary colours, as I'm still 7 months away from knowing whether it's a boy or a girl. I'm thinking I might knit up a white border all around to unify and and add a button closure. I've already knitted 16 rows - 2 stripes worth! And that was just on the way to Car City to visit my new car! Woohoo! Seven months seems like nothing to worry about at the moment.

active knitting meditation - can you do that with this shade of red??


Oh yeah, remember that Yarn Diet I went on a few months ago? Completely busted! As is the real diet "healthy lifestyle changes" that I've been on for the last couple of years. At least you can't really eat while you're knitting. Wine is a completely different matter, of course....

Stashy goodness

Most of this stuff is for baby clothes and for stuff to sell (eventually, admittedly), so I feel fine about it. I don't feel quite so good about finishing entering my stash into the Ravelry Stash Database. I have 194 balls of wool. That's not a typo. One-hundred and ninety-four. My boyfriend says that when he moves in, I could keep the stash in the foyer cupboard instead of the wardrobe so that there'll be room for his clothes in the wardrobe. I don't mind. The cupboard is bigger. That's just fine with me.