FO: Sugar Bear Cocoon

By the time you read this I should be on the road.  Right after I write this post I am heading to bed and setting my alarm for whatever time will result in pulling out of our parking lot by 530 am.  I don't anticipate any problem getting myself up.  In fact, if I sleep at all it will be a miracle.  Because I am going to Atlanta for a girl's weekend that involves yarn shops and Stitches South! (yes, you should read that with rising, squealing inflection)  The plan is to be there on Friday and then hit Eat, Sleep, Knit later in the weekend.  So if you happen to  be at any of those places and see me stumbling about in a daze, say hi!  This is my first Stitches and I just can't wait.

But before I dash off to yarnie fun times, I wanted to share this with you.

The Sugar Bear Cocoon knit out of an acrylic nylon blend that I got at Joann's with a coupon.  I know, this baby is totally worthy of more expensive knitwear, and she will get it, but I want her momma to have no qualms about popping this in the washer after a disastrous diaper incident (Just saying.  I work around kids.  It happens).

I am really pleased with how this knit up.  The yarn did what I needed, and is super soft.  The pattern makes complete sense, like all of Kate Oats' patterns, and resulted in a finished object I was proud to give to a woman who made my life much easier as both a coworker and a friend.  She and her husband are both historians by trade and so I thought this button was the perfect finishing touch.

One of my few remaining Soviet military buttons, given to me by the niece of a collector.  My friend and her husband joke that if their daughter is born on May 1 they will just have to name her Trotsky, so this little button will remind them of that inside joke long after she has outgrown the blanket itself.

And now I'm off!  For more FOs, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis!

Deadline Failure

I have a confession to make.  The baby shower is today and I have not finished the cocoon.  I know!  I'm a horrible procrastinating knitter.  But I totally would have finished on time were it not for extenuating circumstances.  No, seriously.  They were extreme.

The black hole of texture patterning, folded in half

On Saturday night we drove down to the beach to hang out with my family for Easter.  I knit for as long as there was daylight.  I knit all day on Sunday and was well on my way Monday morning.  I was planning to knit during the morning, knit the entire drive home, and then knit like crazy Monday night.  Next thing I know my husband is having vertigo in the kitchen and I am calling urgent care trying to find out who can see him to find out why he is nauseous from blowing his nose.  Turns out he slightly perforated his eardrum, which is not as serious as it sounds, but caused some serious inner ear balance issues.  Because of this we ended up spending the entire day at the beach so that he could rest and I could get his prescription and everything set up, which was all good but meant that I lost an entire day of knitting.  I did get to Target and bought some lovely gifts for the shower, so the day was not a total loss.

I know what you are thinking.  Why not knit on Tuesday?  You could just stay up all night and get that puppy finished.  Well, you see, I was a little preoccupied with another coworker.

How could I turn down the bride with 150 tea lights she needed put in jars?  I couldn't.  So instead of knitting I spent my evening folding programs and making gift bags.  Which is how I ended up here.  Headed to work with no finished gift in hand, but still exhausted because I stayed up far too late to bake two batches of blackberry macaroons as a consolation gift for the shower (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Raspberry Coconut Macaroons).  I'm hoping that purple cookies can cover a multitude of sins, even if all my attempts to photograph them turned out unappetizing.

So no progress here, but I bet if you head on over to Tami's Amis you will find much happier results.

Knitting for Butterflies

You want to do something fun, knit a gift for someone while you are at work with them.  The baby cocoon I am knitting  (Evidently it is a cocoon.  People don't really react that well when you call it a baby sack) is for one of the women who works in the store with me.  My office is part of the storage area behind the registers and so every time someone needs something they have to come back there.  Monday night I realized that the baby shower for my coworker is next week, so I really needed to get moving on this cocoon (seriously, I feel like I'm knitting for a mama butterfly).  I took it with me on Tuesday to work and tried to knit on it while on lunch.  Only the entire hour they needed to get things out of the office, generally sending her because she often helps organize the storage.  So as I sat, knitting away and watching a podcast on my computer, I had to keep shoving it under the desk every five minutes as she came into the office.

As you can imagine, after an hour of this sporadic knitting, plus scarfing down a sandwich, I did not make a lot of progress.  It looks no different than it did the other day and I'm working hard not to get discouraged.  I would say that I'll work on it as much as possible this week, but I'm sparing pretty much every spare minute at home trying to finish our taxes.  We are going to meet up with my family at the beach for Easter Sunday, and I want them done before we leave.  I'm hoping to get a lot of knitting done on the two hour ride there.  Provided I don't fall asleep, which has been known to happen a time or two.

To see more WIPs, most likely not ones for caterpillars, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis!

Baby Knitting

Red Coat is coming! Red Coat is coming!  Ok, so maybe I am not over last night's episode of Pretty Little Liars, but I don't think I'll be over it until June.  And even then I think we will all still be processing.  Luckily I can process while I am knitting.  Speaking of which . . .

There has been a rash of pregnancies at work.  Three women are due within two weeks of one another at the end of April / beginning of May and another is due by the end of the summer.  One of the women is on my team and you know what that means.  Baby knitting.  Luckily it is almost impossible to go into craft stores right now without being smacked in the face with baby knitting, so there are a lot of places for inspiration for people like me with no baby, no thoughts of baby, and no friends with a baby.

This is the beginning of a Sugar Bear Cocoon by Kate Oats.  I would really like to knit a sweater for this little girl, as her mother is extremely knit-worthy, but she is due at the beginning of May and I just cannot inflict that on anyone, let alone someone who has trouble regulating their body temperature.  I cannot remember what this yarn is, but it is an acrylic/nylon blend in a sport weight.  My coworker adopted a safari theme for her baby shower because she is from South Africa, so I am hoping to get a cute little button -- a giraffe or something.

It is very slow going on this cocoon.  I love the way the texture pattern is working up, but it seems that no matter how much I knit I cannot see measurable progress.  Hopefully I can kick it into high gear before baby Elise decides to make her debut.

To see more works in progress, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis!