why I haven't been knitting much lately

I haven't done much knitting recently. I've been exausted every evening. Why, you ask? Well, we are expecting a new little one! I told my knitting friends and a few others but didn't want to spread the word until my 1st doc appt, which was today (well, yesterday, more on that in a moment). After I saw the tiny heartbeat flickering on the sonogram screen, I felt so relieved. We are still considered high risk though because we had a lot of complications with my daughter who ended up being born 11 weeks early. Hopefully that won't happen again, and I have several doctors that I have to see, but I'll do whatever it takes :-)

Although thankfully my morning sickness has been very minor compared to my other pregnancies, this time around I'm totally wiped out. I take a nap during the day whenever I can, and usually end up falling asleep on the couch around 10. Not much knitting time! My MS4 has sat untouched for a couple weeks, I'm not even done with the first clue yet and clue 3 came out last Friday. I have a pair of socks started, a pair of footies I just started tonight, and I just finished a production knitting piece for an upcoming book ( I didn't write the pattern, just knitting the sample for the photo) but I'm not tellin' what it is yet, so don't ask! :-D So, if I'm so tired, why am I up at 4 am you ask? Well, I took a 2 hour nap late this afternoon, and fell asleep on the couch just after 10. Woke up at 1:30, woke up hubby who had also fallen asleep on the couch, and then I couldn't get back to sleep. Hubby started watching TV so I got sucked into the show, then once he started falling asleep he started snorting and snoring, (it is allergy season) and it was driving me crazy! LOL. So, now I'm on the PC. I might knit, I might go lay on the couch, not sure. But I thought it was a good time to catch up on my blog! :-)

I really should try to get some sleep though, so good night!

to block or not to block, that is the question.

I was beginning to think I lost my knitting mojo. Last week everything I was knitting just wasn't turning out how I wanted. Gauge, size, overall pattern, just not going well. For example:




Some socks I was working on. My own pattern, I was hoping to enter them in the LSSK design contest. Yeah, not going to happen. I'm not much of a designer, can you tell? First of all, they were going a lot slower than I had hoped. Plus the foot was smaller than I wanted, which of course I didn't realize until halfway thru, and since I had already frogged them once for being too big I decided to just deal with it and add a few stitiches near the ankle. Well, then I did one heel, thinking I had enough length but apparently not.

They were supposed to have a chevron type pattern, but even that wasn't coming out well. I'm just gonna frog them. Forget it.

So I put down all the projects that were troubling me, put them in time out to give myself a break, and worked on my husband's grandma's shawl




Tonight I was planning on doing one more pattern repeat, which meant 30 more rows (SIGH), but decided it was big enough, so I only did the last 10 rows and bound off.

Luckily it is a mohair blend, and blocks much bigger.

Nana is considerably smaller than me too, she's a very tiny person.

Before blocking. Note the yard stick to compare.

After blocking. MUCH better. I even got to FINALLY use my blocking wires, that I got a year ago and haven't completed a project to use them on since then. I think it will fit her fine. It is the luna moth shawl from elann.com. Done in patons brilliant something from michaels. Very shiny sparkly stuff. A little hard to work with b/c it is so fuzzy, a little hard to see the stitches but I took my time and it came out fine. I'm glad I didn't do one more repeat, nana is only here for a month after all. :-)

My son starts soccer tomorrow, I need to find an easy take along project that doesn't require a lot of thought. I have my special olympics scarf, I'll probably bring that. Have to bring the big balls of yarn for it, but I guess I can take a big beach bag instead of my purse. :-)