Humble Beginnings

Every project has a start and an end.

This is one beginning.



This is two and a half repeats of the first half of one Celtic Cable pillow. I'm really enjoying this cable pattern, and though I wouldn't have believed it at first the pattern is becoming almost intuitive now. The Cascade Eco Wool is knitting up with a nice sturdy fabric that gives the gables amazing definition! Another pleasant surprise is that I think I may have enough yarn to knit up two of these pillows, which will make sending this present twice as wonderful.

I'm trying to decide what knitting to bring with me on Thanksgiving. I'll have an hour ride in the car each way, plus some knitting time with my Mom before the festivities begin. I'm thinking some nearly finished socks for the car ride and perhaps the Celtic Cable pillow for pre-festivities knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This year I'm thankful for so much that I can scarcely put it all together in my head, let alone on paper (or computer). But I treasure each of these blessings in my heart.

Visualization

I have no pictures to show you of any of these things I'm going to talk about today. Why? Because I've been a bad blogger and have worked on many fun things without taking a single picture.

I'm about 7 inches in on the back of my UnGranny Smith cardigan. I'm really getting into this project and love the shaping. I'm using Rowan Cashcotton DK in the Sage color and if I haven't said it before, I'm so glad that I splurged on the yarn. (Seriously, I bought my LYS out of it.)

Though I'm loving my green cardigan, I had to put it down last night. See, I've been procrastinating on something that I should have decided on a while ago. Last night I wound up some Cascade Eco Wool in the Ecru color and started swatching. Pleased with my results, I started digging through my Knitting Stitch Bible to find what I was looking for. Behold! There it is! The Celtic Cable, done over 24 stitches. It's perfect! I doubled the yarn and worked on size 11 US Denise needles and I'm happy with what I'm seeing so far. This will end up being a pillow for my sister and I'm hoping that it will make it to her in San Diego before Christmas. My new brother-in-law loves Celtic folklore and has a large Celtic cross tatooed on his upper arm, so I know it's something that both of them will enjoy.

In the next day or two I'm hoping to get some pictures of both of these up here, plus show off an FO that I'm really enjoying!

Now for some audience participation... what project have you been procrastinating on and why?

2 FOs and 1 WIP

With the agreement in place that I could touch it whenever I wanted, I finished knitting Bryan's hat on Friday night and it spent a couple of days in the blocking process. Wool/Alpaca blends aren't the prettiest smelling things when wet and this hat was no exception. A few soaks in the sink with some Eucalan did help and Bryan impatiently waited for his hat to dry. It does my heart good that he's worn it every day since Monday.



While digging in the clearance section of my LYS, I found one lonely skein of yarn that called out to me. I love it's colors, the repeats, the texture. Wouldn't it be even better if I could remember what the name of the yarn was? In any case, I decided that it really wanted to be a hat for Owen. So for $3.00 I made a yarn's dream come true. I spent 3 hours making this hat. It's nothing special, but Owen really likes it and I've gotten several compliments on it. I was a little nervous about how much yarn I had left so I added a couple of striped rounds in there using some of the leftover yarn from his sweater last year. Then that made the hat too big so I hand felted it a tad and then tossed it in the dryer. Viola! Perfect!

This WIP is a little longer than most projects I take on, but I think that the end result will be more than worth it. I haven't always had good outcomes on projects like these, in fact this is my 5th WIP of this kind, but all signs indicate that we have a winner!

These may not be the best pictures, but if you look really close on the left bottom left you can see a little light round thing inside the bigger darker round thing. That bigger darker round thing is my uterus and the little light round thing inside of it is our baby with a strong heartbeat and doing lots of wiggling just to show off. We are at 10 weeks right now and doing great. I have been assured that the 24/7 morning sickness and persuant vomiting are a wonderful sign.

So expect to see some baby knits in the coming weeks (30 of them, more or less)! Any prayers you all would like to send my way would be greatly appreciated. We're not completely in the clear yet and won't be for another 6 weeks or so and this Momma is still nervous. But we're thinking positively!

Perfect

I want to knit here. I want to sit and look out at the view with soft yarn sifting through my fingers.

This is the view from the living room in the house that my parents are building. Isn't it beautiful? When the house is done there will be a large fireplace in the living room and lots of lush chairs to sink into. I think it may just be the perfect knitting place.

I've had several moments recently, when I look on what is around me and think that it's perfect. When my son comes up to me and says that he wants to cuddle with Mom. When I walk in to find my husband reading to our son or wrestling or making train noises together. Seeing the silhouette of my husband at the front door as he's coming home from work. Laughing on the phone with my sister or Mom. It's those moments that keep me going.


Mom sent me this picture today and as soon as I saw it I grinned! Jared and Dad out fishing in one of those perfect moments.

I've even had some perfect moments in my knitting! Last night I worked on Bryan's alpaca hat and it was a tactile treat. It's Elsebeth Lavold's Chunky AL and let me just say "YUM". Every time I pick it up I sigh in happy delight. Ever have a project like that? The temperatures have dipped down into the 40s in the morning and at night so Bryan is subtley letting me know that he's ready for me to finish it, but I'm just not ready to be done yet. Maybe he'll let me fondle it occasionally once it's done.