Chilly weather = knitting

Yesterday we woke up to people scraping ice from their windshields. As Bill walked of to school wearing his woven scarf and knit hat and gloves, I decided it was time to unpack and put up the hat rack.

In our old apartment we didn't have a hall closet, so the rack held our coats, and the hats and other wintry accessories lived in a plastic bad on a table to the side. The new apartment has a nice big closet where we keep our coats, so the rack can finally be used to display our winter accessories.



Everything on the hat rack but Bill's driving cap was hand knit by me. I actually still have a few tams that didn't fit hanging in their old bag in the closet.

In other news, I have a few FOs!

First, TW's baby poonam



I knit this using LB fisherman's wool, and size 7 needles. I did it mostly in the round with steeks for the armholes. This was my first time steeking and boy was I nervous! But I looked up the crochet steek method from see Eunny knit and it was a breeze. It was actually quite fun once I got going!

I didn't really do too thorough of a blocking, just kinda patted it into shape, and after I uploaded the picture I noticed that it was a bit lopsided, I went back and fixed it a bit, but I'm not going to stress over it too much, because really, nobody is going to notice how well a job I did blocking it while my most awesome TW is wearing it ;)

And last but not least, socks!



Knit picks Felici in Aurora, size 1.5 (2.5 mm) needles, toe up, two at once, magic loop

blogging to win

as you may or may not know, i occasionally like to sew.

so i was very excited to see that Sweet Jessie is having a contest to give away an awesome new book:

one yard wonders
this is by the same people who did one skein wonders which i already have, and love.

why not go on over and enter yourself?

Spinning, Rhinebeck, and a very special hat.

The last month or so has been really busy around here, there is only about one more month to go before the baby is due, and I can definitely feel it! We've been in a flurry of baby preparations, doctors visits, ultrasounds, and weekend visits from my parents to buy last minute supplies.

But I've still managed to spin and knit a little, and even to haul myself to Rhinebeck for the NY sheep and wool festival

++++

First the spinning:

You may remember this fiber that I bought at the Southern Adirondack Fiber festival.



Well it's been spinning up nicely into a lovely worsted weight two ply which I plan to make a baby surprise jacket (ravelry link) from for little TW. I wanted it worsted to make a slightly bigger jacket to fit him later on, as he will be born in winter, so by the time a regularly sized jacket would fit him, it would be too warm. But I figure a larger size will fit him slightly longer.



I wasn't quite happy with the amount of plying twist so after this picture was taken I went back and added a little more, and I'm much happier now.

I have two skeins finished now and am working on the last.

++++

Rhinebeck:

Rhinebeck was awesome this year; there were so many places to go and sheep to see.

I even bought my first Abby Bats by Abby Franquemont who is an amazing fiber artist. They are 40% merino, 40% tencel, and 20% BFL, and they are DELICIOUS! I can't wait to start spinning them. I only got about 76 grams, whish isn't much so I think I will spin them up lace weight, and see if I can find some green silk in a matching colour to spin up and ply them with for a shawl.



The rest of the festival was awesome, and so was the afternoon Ravelry meet up even if I was a bit too shy to talk to some of the people I wanted too, unfortunately I completely forgot to take any pictures. Luckily, Bill did take a few, and you can check them out at his flikr stream. (there's even a picture of me with Bob!) please try to ignore how big and squishy I look, pregnancy has not been kind.

Specking of pregnancy, I was SO SORE by the end of the day! I missed so many things that I wanted to see because I was just too tired and sore to keep going. :(

But there is always next year, and we can introduce TW to all the sheep and critters!

++++

And the very special hat:



No I did not knit this hat.

A few weeks ago, we got a package in the mail from Bill's mother, inside was this hat.
No she didn't knit it either.

Bill's Grandmother did.

Many, many years ago, Bill's Grandma Bid knit this hat for one of her nieces who was expecting. Unfortunately the baby never got a chance to wear it (he outgrew it before it was cold enough to wear.) but it was a hand knit, so it was kept. Years go by and Grandma Bid passed away. But when the niece heard that we were expecting she immediately thought of Grandma Bid (I have been told repeatedly that she would love me) and she sent the hat our way.

The hat is so tiny! I hope that it will fit so that TW can wear it at least once. I nearly cried when I read the letter and story.