House Arrest

77

Yesterday I cast on for a new project. No, it wasn't Kauni-related. Rather it was this lace stole that'd been sitting in my Ravelry queue for a bit. For some reason I'd begun to seriously obsess over it. It was on my mind every free minute so, after a particularly harrowing day at work, I decided to screw logic and start yet another frigging project.

Starting something new ALWAYS thrills me.

Winding the yarn -- laceweight from Handpaintedyarn.com -- was a bit of a pain because it flew off my swift and wound up tangling badly. I had barely enough yarn to make the pattern as written so I was stressing over every quarter inch. I almost threw in the towel right then and there but I persevered and got the entire skein wound up. I didn't have all the supplies gathered and the yarn ready until 10 p.m. and again I wondered if I should stop. I kept going though and worked the beaded cast on. I miscounted, naturally, and found out after I worked my first row. Rip! By then it was 11:30 and I knew I should have given up and turned in. But my day at work had been so frustrating that I decided to give it one last try. I got the cast on number right and was able to work the first 6 garter rows of the pattern before finally crashing. Success at last!

I worked a row of it on the subway this morning before switching over to the Ribbed Baby Jacket. This is definitely a much harder lace project than the Storm Water Scarf so I expect that it will get worked on sporadically. Still, my romance with the pattern has just begun so who knows where it will lead?

Family-wise, the kiddos kept Mark busy today:

I've finally gotten them asleep and hope to get some knitting in after I wash bottles, prep formula and do the regular nightly chores.

79

Guess what I just got in the mail?

Yeah, so much for a yarn diet.

(Although you really have to give me credit for not buying a lick of the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk that went on sale on Elann today. I had over $100 worth of yarn in my basket when I got a hold of myself, hit cancel and closed the browser. Must. Save. For. House.)

But I really couldn't resist the Kauni. Blame Stephanie and Maria and especially Ravelry. Ravelry is beyond dangerous. I fell totally and utterly in love with Trillby's Kauni Vest while looking up other Kauni based projects. She charted the damask pattern that Maria used since that is practically impossible to find these days. I'll probably try to do the same and chart mine from other's pictures of their finished projects. I'm itching to start, however, I've lovingly hidden placed the yarn in my stash until I finish all of the baby sweaters I currently have on the needles.

How's that for motivation?

Speaking of baby sweaters, I'm roughly 3/4 of the way through the first Ribbed Baby Jacket.

This pattern is the kid's version of Lara, which I knit way back in the day when I had another blog -- you know, the one that actually had knitting content? :P

Anyway, the kid's version is just as easy -- and monotonous -- as the adult version so I plan to take a break between knitting the first and second. I still have the Milan Jackets on the needles so I will probably pick up with those again.

As for the Storm Water Scarf, I could knit on that puppy all day long. It was my commuting project all last week and I was averaging a full pattern repeat (16 rows) each day. It's so super easy and the yarn is wonderful to work with -- it actually smells kinda oceany -- but I made the hard choice of putting it aside in favor of working on the babies' stuff.

After all, a scarf will always fit me. The baby clothes I'm knitting are supposed to fit them until age 2 but at the rate I'm going I won't finish them until then!

Thankfully, spring is approaching and not fall so I have some time to work on outfits for these cuties:

As you can see, Aden and Hunter joined Mom and Dad for dinner tonight. Aden grabbed a spoon chock full of cereal goodness and put it in his mouth. It was the first time he'd actually fed himself.

Hunter wasn't to be outdone, however. She kept "ba ba ba"ing at Daddy and trying to steal the spoon and cereal from him.

Good times.