FO: Maximus

The Maximus cowl should be called Minimus, since it takes minimal time to make it. I started it last Thursday at knit night, didn't touch it until last night, and voila, here it is (many apologies for the cell phone pictures... camera, camera cable, and computer are in three different rooms, two of which are occupied by the German crowd):

I was in need of an emotional pick-me-up after last week's health scare, thus I wanted to make something that provided instant gratification knitwise as well as snuggly warm comfort for months to come.

Baby Chunky caught my eye when in the store last week, and I couldn't resist the color ("barley"). To finish the cowl I went back to Blazing Needles; it was owner Cynthia's birthday today and half of Salt Lake City popped in to congratulate her. It was a fabulous birthday party! (While there I started a new project, using delicious new yarn DH got me for Christmas--but I was too chatty and too distracted at the shop and made half a dozen mistakes in the swatch alone.)

Merry Christmas!

Everyone's here--DH's parents, my folks--and things are stressful! It's hard to keep six adults and a baby content, especially if there's a language barrier. So, I'll keep it short and... wish you y'all a Merry Christmas und Frohe Weihachten! I hope you are well and have a peaceful and relaxing holiday among loved ones and with good food! xo

FO: Grey winter shawl

Oh gosh, it's been so long that I cast on for this shawl that I don't remember any of the details! The body is Evelyn A. Clark's Shallowtail Shawl, but I skipped the lace border and worked a garter stitch edge instead to make it a heavy, winter-y shawl (I'm copying this straight from my Rav project page).

I had finished the body more than two years ago and added the border last summer, as we were getting ready to move. While packing I realized how many WIPs I had in my knitting basket (and several closet corners), and this shawl seemed to fastest to finish. It sure was easy, but, man, June isn't the month to knit with an alpaca blend!

I wore the shawl tonight for the first time--and I wore it to knit night at Blazing Needles! I had an awesome time. My in-laws got here yesterday but weren't offended that I left for the evening; I hope my parents will be as understanding next week, when I hope to go back again.

FO: Conrad's stocking

Done! And it's gorgeous!

I bought the Knit Picks kit Hearthwarming Stockings that came with the pattern and enough yarn to make two stockings. The pattern gives many different colorwork charts, leaving the mixin' and matchin' up to you. I'm pleased with the outcome, and so is Conrad, it seems:

It looks pretty good next to its neighbors, doesn't it?

Ten on Tuesday: Things I have to do before Christmas

When I saw this week's topic I thought, Great! All I have to do is publish my to-do list, which this morning still had 29 items on it. By cleaning the house today several things got checked off, but the list is still pretty long. Given the current situation in my home (sick Bean [still!] + water coming into the office), priorities have shifted, and I'm no longer hoping to wash the car or paint the staircase, but here are a few things I would like to get done:

1. Let the plumber in tomorrow morning and hope he can fix the problem. Otherwise we'll have six adults in the house over the weekend, with one working bathroom, which is in the basement.

2. Get a haircut. (It's gonna be short. Like, SHORT.)

3. Decorate the tree. But first get one!

4. Major grocery shopping. My mom is doing Christmas dinner but won't leave Germany until Friday. So she sent me a list of things I need to buy beforehand. Luckily she left off items difficult to get here (veal, goose, steak tartare). The remaining challenges are real mayonnaise, speck, and creme fraiche.

5. Wrap presents.

6. Wash towels and sheets, and make all beds. There's a weird German superstition (or perhaps just my mom's weird superstition) that washing towels and sheets between Christmas and New Year's means bad luck.

7. Knit four feet. Can't say more than that, since it's related to (yet another) Ravelry swap. :)

8. The chimney was swept today. Now all we need for a fire is wood!

9. Not exactly something I need to do, but something I would love to do: go to knit night this Thursday.

10. Blog every day! :)

Random photo of Conrad, to add cuteness to the blog:

I can sew! (sort of)

Wow, what a crappy weekend. Conrad's stomach bug was NAS-TY, and my poor baby was getting so dehydrated that we considered taking him to the ER to put him on an IV. He wouldn't drink anything--we tried every flavor of Pedialyte--until we forced liquid down his throat with a syringe. It wasn't pretty. :(

Luckily Conrad started feeling better last night.

Unluckily, this morning a pipe broke (or something), and water is dripping through the basement ceiling onto my bookshelf in the office.

Currently Conrad is taking a nap, and I'm waiting for the plumber. Ugh.

Since I'm not in the mindset of tackling my to-do list (clean! the! house! and get! ready! for! Christmas!) I took out my beloved (and wrinkled) first sewing project and took some photos.

I made a robe. It's a very simple, Kimono-style robe.

(There's no seam on the back--that's just an accidental fold.)

The robe's got belt loops and a pocket...

and top-stitching...

and plenty of beginner's mistakes.

But it's wearable and practical, and I love it. I couldn't have sewn anything without taking sewing lessons--unlike knitting, sewing is quite difficult, at least for me, and there's no way I could have taught myself. My MIL got me a machine for graduation, but it sat in a closet for a year because I felt too intimidated by it. (I'm still intimidated by it! It's got way more buttons than the machine at The Sewing Parlour. But I got this book [and this one] [and this one], and hopefully I'll get a chance to sew on my own before I forget everything I've learned.)

One big thing I noticed about sewing that's totally different from knitting is that you don't actually spend a lot of time sewing. It's all about planning: cutting the pattern, choosing the right fabric, pressing the fabric, marking the fabric, cutting the fabric, pressing the fabric, pinning the fabric. It takes a loooong time before you actually sit down and sew something. And the sewing happens so fast that, before you know it, you're back at the ironing board pressing the fabric. And so on. A nice bonus result of having taken a sewing class: it has cured me of my fear of ironing. :)

Today's favorite app

Of course I didn't take photos of my sewing project as I had planned. The hours of proper daylight were too few and the errands to run too many. (But I did go to the gym--hooray! Have I mentioned that DH and I made a deal to go to the gym four times a week during the month of December, otherwise there wouldn't be any Christmas gifts for us? So far so good, I'm still on Santa's "nice" list.)

But while out and about I took a few pictures with my cell phone, this one, for instance:

And then I played with my current favorite iPhone app, PictureShow, and now I got a gallery of tree pictures:

This is so much fun!

Less fun: Conrad has a stomach bug. He takes it in a stride; when not vomiting he's all smiles and his usual happy self. I'm trying not to be worried...

No one mentioned that today was Thursday

I'm so upset. I missed knitting night again. Here I am in Sugar House, super close to the LYS with the most amazing knitting group, but I keep forgetting to go there. I love these guys, so what's wrong with me?!

This would be the perfect opportunity to talk about my adventures into Sewing Land, however, I don't have any pictures at hand to show off as evidence. When we first moved here I went to Blazing Needles every Thursday--until I signed up for a six-week sewing class. I didn't want to leave DH with a Bean at bedtime (dangerous combo) twice a week, so I went to sewing on Tuesdays and skipped knitting on Thursdays. My six weeks of sewing have long ended, but I still have not returned to knitting. Argh.

Anyways, the sewing class was awesome, and I made something incredibly useful that I wear every day. It shouldn't be so difficult to take a picture of it and post it! Perhaps tomorrow?

In lieu of knitting I addressed 84 envelopes. That's how many Christmas letters we are sending this year.

Hallelujah!

The semester is over! I turned in grades today and am unofficially on vacation (officially I'm doing tons and tons of original research). Just a few short months ago I didn't think I'd be back at work before January. Originally I had planned on teaching again in the spring semester, thinking I'd stay home with Conrad throughout the fall, thus taking 11 months of maternity leave. But then, one lovely day at the end of August, five days before the semester began, I was called to duty, so to speak, and asked to take over a language class. We hadn't lined up any childcare, and I agreed under the condition to teach early (early!!) in the morning. And so the past four months went like this:

I got up before the crack of dawn, ran to school, taught my class, ran back, grabbed the baby from DH. Then DH went to work, put in a full day, came back at night. Then I handed off the baby and prepared next day's class.

Meaning, I was a stay-at-home mom and worked part-time. Even after Conrad started sleeping through the night sometime in October (Hallelujah!) I still had to stay up late and write lesson plans, put together powerpoint presentations (one a day), and grade papers. It was kind of... stressful. (I should add: Conrad does. not. nap. ever., and I don't get things done during the day.)

Now that Conrad is in daycare for four hours a day things are much different... much better. And since school's over and neither DH nor I have to go in tomorrow, we're doing something radical: we're going on a date! We'll be mean parents and take Conrad to daycare, then we'll go to the movies and catch a 11 am film. We haven't been to the movies in over a year and don't even know what's currently playing. When DH googled our local movie theater he came across this user review:

"I was able to get my groove on with my lady in the back of the theater. This was a nice change of pace since I live with my mom."

Well, I don't expect "to get my groove on" with DH, but it will be a nice change of pace since we live with a baby. :)

Ten on Tuesday: Hostess Gift Ideas

Unlike Carole, who gets invited to a bunch of holiday parties, we aren't going to any Christmas parties, but if we were I might bring one of the following:

1. Flowers! I'm all for flowers. It's the right thing to do, or so I was taught by my parents. Unfortunately flowers are damn expensive here, especially in the winter, and I can see why few people bring flowers. Some celebrity host said on the radio it's rude to bring flowers, since it implies the host(ess) hasn't decorated the house nicely; he also complained that flowers are an inconvenient gift because the host(ess), who's busy entertaining, needs to take a break from doing so to find a vase. Unless we're talking about a wedding, neither reason makes sense to me. I'm pro-flowers.

2. Carole lists wine and champagne as good hostess gifts. I'm with her, sort of. The one time we went to a dinner party here in Utah we wanted to bring a bottle of wine but were told explicitly not to: the hostess and her family are Mormon and non-drinkers. So, I guess you better make sure beforehand that alcohol isn't going to offend anyone. Now, if I were the hostess I'd be happy about a nice bottle of something--wine, champagne, an interesting Belgian beer, homemade eggnog.

3. I'm running out of ideas. But I like Carole's suggestion of bringing a lovely kitchen towel. Napkins might be nice too.

4. How about a beautiful tin with some very nice but relatively common tea, such as Earl Grey? Everyone drinks tea, right?

5. Coffee?

6. Would it be weird to bring yarn? Yes. Unless we're going to a knitter's party. In which case you should scratch all the above and bring yarn. Definitely bring yarn when coming to my Christmas party! :)

7. A nice lip balm or (as Carole already listed) hand lotion. Both are perfect for a wintery party!

And now what NOT to bring:

8. A store-bought fruit/candy/nut/etc. basket. To me that is very "corporate."

9. Scented candles.

10. Food, unless it's a potluck dinner or you're a genius of a chef.

Cultural misunderstandings

Postscriptum to yesterday's entry:

Today I talked to my mom, and she asked which socks she should bring for Christmas, and whether the socks I made her might be appropriate for the sock-extravaganza on the 25th.

I laughed so hard I almost cried. Socks, stockings... it's Strümpfe in German, and my mom had thought we hang regular, every-day socks above the fireplace. She was relieved when I told her this wasn't so, since she had worried a bit about seeing everyone's old, used socks and having to fill them with goodies. :)

'Tis the season...

Christmas stockings are a first for me this year. I haven't had a stocking before, nor have I ever had a traditional American Christmas morning, despite having lived in the US for ten years. In the past DH and I opted for a German Christmas (the exchange of gifts--Bescherung--happened on Christmas Eve), although a very stripped down version: the few times that we were not visiting family over Christmas and spent it by ourselves we didn't even have a tree, since our old apartment was too small to fit one, and neither one of us owned any tree decoration.

This year will be different. The lure of a baby is irresistible, which is why we are hosting Christmas at our house for my parents and parents-in-law. It will be a German-American Christmas, with bits and pieces borrowed from both traditions. There will be goose and ham; the Vienna Sängerknaben and Bing Crosby; egg nog with and without alcohol; a real tree with fake lights; new pajamas and my great-grandma's Christmas pyramid. Most importantly, we'll do Bescherung on the 24th but also have stockings and stocking stuffers on the 25th.

Which brings me to today's picture.

I'm knitting Conrad a stocking. I asked my in-laws to mail their and DH's stockings, which they have done, and I'll have (cheap-ish) "souvenir" stockings for my parents that they can take home to Germany. But the Bean, the little Bean, he doesn't have a stocking yet! So I decided to knit him one. I started a few days ago and am almost halfway finished (I knitted a lot this afternoon, after I took the picture). I haven't done stranded knitting in a billion gazillion years--and it shows. The stitch definition leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm getting better, and perhaps--big question mark there!--I'll tackle the Insanity Closet project next year.

Back to the needles....

Baby, it's cold outside

You're so right: I'm cheating. I changed the timestamp to Friday, but in truth it's already Saturday morning as I'm writing these lines. We collectively pooped out at eight last night, without having blogged or done the dishes. One week of daycare, and the three of us are sick. Conrad's got two green "worms" creeping out of his nostrils at all times so that even the "nose police" can't keep up wiping snot off his face (that's daycare lingo), and DH and I have a cold too.

Anyway. It's Saturday morning and super duper cold outside. It was in the high teens when I snapped this photo at 7:20 am:

What you see is our backyard (the antlers? the "dude" trash can? Courtesy of the landlord's son, who's a pretty cool dude, so we kept his stuff), plus a hint of pink that greets us every morning. Yet one more thing I love about Salt Lake is the weather: we have had clear skies and sunny days almost the entire time we've been here. Very little rain, very little snow, very few gray days. I love the crisp, dry air. It's cold now, but by noon it'll be just another mild December day, perfect for a stroll through the neighborhood to watch people putting out Christmas lights. And what are you doing today?

Iva's Dress & Cardigan

My contribution to the swap? Tora Froseth's Magda dress and Classic Elite Yarns' Provence Baby Cardigan.

I used Koigu KPPPM for Magda and Cascade Sierra for the cardigan; the buttons came from Berlin. I'll note exact mods and specs on my project page.

Little Iva looks gorgeous in her violet outfit! But then again, she always does. :)

(My apologies for keeping it so short today. I got a yucky sore throat and want to go to bed, sip hot milk with honey, and read a good book. Good night!!)

Swappin'

During the very early weeks of my pregnancy, before we told anyone for fear of jinxing it, I joined the Ravelry group "January 2011 Mommies," and in the past 18 months (which we spent not only drooling over each other's babies but also yakking about the not-so-savory aspects of pregnancy, the gritty details of birth, and the challenges of juggling motherhood, a career, and our changing relationships to our partner, our parents, and our friends) I have grown very, very fond of the thirty or so women who post there regularly. My "mommies," who are from around the US, Canada, and the UK, from Iceland and Uganda, are unbelievably knowledgable, resourceful, attentive, and kind. And--they are knitters. Knitters who love to swap stuff.

Yesterday's mail brought a package from JayJay. In it: Jennifer Lori's Moss Block Cardigan, which had been sitting in my queue forever, made of gorgeous Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

Conrad's favorite, though, isn't the cardigan but a cardboard book that he couldn't put down today:

Looks like he is planning a trip to California, doesn't it? Well, JayJay did mention that we should stop by her house if we plan on visiting Disneyland a few miles down the road. Since Conrad is making friends with Mickey already (also a present from JayJay), we might do so next summer.

JayJay: Thank you!! (Many thanks also for See's Candies, which were meant as a Californian treat for me, but which DH got his teeth into first, and now they are... gone. I know. He owes me, like, big time.)

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Holiday Traditions

Ok, so as I was sitting down to write about my ten favorite holiday traditions I asked DH, "Hey, what are my ten favorite holiday traditions?," and in less than 30 seconds he had a complete list:

1. Nikolaus
2. Advent Sundays
3. Stollen
4. Weihnachtsmarkt
5. Christmas carols
6. Christmas trees that catch fire
7. Männerkartoffelsalat
8. Midnight mass
9. Three-day Christmas
10. Adventskalender

(Note how half of this is in German? We speak Denglish at home and are dooming our child to speak neither language properly.)

Just in case you're curious I'll expand on DH's bullet point list:

1. It must have been one year on the fifth of December that I learned how to polish shoes, in anticipation of Nikolaus, the 4th-century patron saint of children and secret gift-giver who nowadays checks children's boots on the night from the 5th to the 6th and, if they are shiny, leaves nuts, fruit, and some candy, perhaps even a book. I still shine my boots on the 5th, and Nikolaus has not ceased to surprise me with small gifts.

2. Ah, Advent Sundays! Hear the Christmas music, see the candles on the Christmas Pyramid and Advent wreath, smell baked apples, fried cinnamon bread and Stollen? Pass me the tea, would you, please? Advent Sundays are sacred. Bring a book, get comfortable, and stay for a while.

3. No Advent Sunday without Stollen!

4. When it's super cold and snowing, nothing is better than wrapping your begloved fingers around a mug of mulled wine at a Christmas market. The lights, the food, the big-eyed children... it's really quite something.

5. I'm a Christmas song addict, although I listen to (and sing) only classical/traditional Christmas music. My mom wouldn't let us listen to Silent Night/Holy Night until Christmas eve, when she played it for the first time that year at five o'clock, thus inviting us to enter the living room and see the Christmas tree (which in my family isn't put up and decorated until the morning of the 24th).

6. What DH means is candles on the tree. I don't understand why he thinks there is something wrong with that.

7. Men's potato salad? Obviously that's one of his favorite traditions. Potato salad and wieners is a traditional Christmas eve dish, and I make two kinds of potato salad: one with oil and vinegar (yummy!), one with bacon and a gallon of mayonnaise (yuck). The latter is the "men's version." DH loves it.

8. Because of the music!

9. In Germany we start celebrating on the afternoon of the 24th; the 25th and 26th are official holidays. There's also the 27th--the unofficial but widely practiced holiday for children of divorced parents, who have twice as many family visits to check off.

10. Behind every door of the the 24-day Advent Calendar is a piece of chololate--what's not to love?

Check the correct answer

The boy in blue--that's Conrad. Judging by the (admittedly poor cell phone) picture below, is he:

(a) wondering where his momma is
(b) afraid of other children
(c) crying his head off
(d) none of the above.

The correct answer is D.

I cannot believe it! Today's first experience of daycare went so über-well that I'm almost shell-shocked (in a good way, if that's possible). The moment I put Conrad on the floor he darted off to check out all the unfamiliar toys (tasty book, anyone?) and hang with the other babies. That's little Sam he's playing with; Conrad's way of introducing himself was to pull off Sam's socks. And why not.

I stayed for an hour, per recommendation, during which Conrad looked at me twice, then I left. His teacher called me, per my request, and reported that Conrad ate his food without putting up a struggle (huh?) and went down for a nap without putting up a struggle (and again: huh?). When I picked him up three hours later he crawled over to say hi, then turned around to squeal in unison with his new pal Lily. I think I could have left the room again and he would not have noticed. My little hero didn't shed a single tear all day long, and neither did I.

And now it's time to thank you. You gals rock. Thank you so much for your comments and emails.
Vicki, by the time I read that you were on your way to Salt Lake City you had already left again. I hope you'll come back and that I'll be at the retreat next time around (I know some retreaters through the amazing knitting group at the amazing LYS Blazing Needles).
A-L, CongratulationsCongratulationsCongratulations! A January baby!! You're almost there, so be well, the two of you!
Meeries, vielen Dank für die lieben Grüße!

TDC

I'm an inspiration to my husband! I'm his muse!

Well, probably all wives (husbands, partners, etc.) are inspirations to their husbands (wives, partners, etc.), so I need to clarify. The resurrection of my blog inspired my husband to revive his own. For a long time he blogged about what he considers to be interesting dinner party conversation topics (thus his blog's name, The Tuesday Dinner Club, or TDC), such as food, books, arts, but he stopped writing in 2010 and didn't blog for a year. His most recent post is a very short summary of the past twelve months, and I'm going to copy & paste his entry to bring you up to speed (a lot of this you already know, and I apologize for the redundance). Here we go, I'm plagiarizing quoting DH:


What happened between last November and this one? I had hoped to build blogging momentum through NaBloPoMo, but I quickly fell off the wagon. We were yet again struggling (mentally and physically) with job applications on top of our regular teaching and research duties, and this time around we were also preparing for the imminent arrival of The Bean. TB made his grand entrance at the end of January 2011 and promptly began keeping us exhaustingly and exhilaratingly busy tending to his every need. M. naturally took point in terms of Beancare, while my normal work duties continued unabated, along with the job search, which thankfully turned out much more more positively this time: I landed a nice job in Salt Lake City.

The new opportunity meant an immediate amplification of stress and disruption, of course. House hunting, renting, packing, loading, trucking, flying, unloading, unpacking, shopping, repairing, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and so forth. And a conference in the US, half the summer in Germany, a conference in Sweden, new employee orientation .... and suddenly a teaching job for M., so last minute that there was no time to find daycare for TB. Up to this point, we have been juggling two full-time jobs, one full-time Bean, and an incomplete house. What spare time we've had has been largely devoted to sleeping.

But we've made steady progress and things are finally seeming to settle down. It seems reasonable to start writing in this space again. With some effort and discipline, regular TDC blogging may even prove sustainable.

I'm still thinking about what to write about in the rebooted TDC. The old categories, of course: writings read; art and music appreciated; movies, plays, television watched; items eaten, imbibed, and cooked. (...)

(See, my blog takes off where his ends: books, art, movies, food... it's all good and well, but what about "things knitted"? Well, for that you have yours truly. [Add to the list: "things sewn." Did I whet your appetite? Good.])

At some point this month I will go into the "suddenly a teaching job for M." and "a conference in Sweden" bits. Not now though. Now I need to go to bed and cry myself to sleep: the darling "TB" is starting daycare tomorrow morning. I'm a mess because of it; I hope he will fare better tomorrow than his momma.

The Santa Shack

When deciding on a neighborhood in Salt Lake City we had very little to go on. By pure chance we ended up in Sugar House, one of the oldest neighborhoods in town that is far enough away from downtown and the university to make for affordable living, without being in the 'burbs. A great mix of "normal" people lives here; students and families, older folks, white and blue collar workers. My favorite aspect of the neighborhood is that everything is within walking distance, including three big parks and two grocery stores (Whole Foods for Food [in the Michael Pollanean sense] and a regular one for everything else). What we don't have (not yet anyway; plans to change this are underway) is a large shopping mall. There's no Macy's in sight, and because of that we also don't have a mall Santa.

I hadn't thought about mall Santas before--or Santa Claus in general (after all, I grew up with the Weihnachtsmann)--until the topic came up among my mommy friends. I didn't think I was going to take Conrad to a mall, wait in line, and then plop him onto the lap of a stranger, especially since he is going through a bad case of separation anxiety. I changed my mind, though, when I saw the Sugar House Santa Shack, which, as I later learned, is somewhat famous among locals and an articulation of the neighborly anti-big-box-store attitude. A small wooden shack with a large Santa inside, just two blocks away.

So I bundled up the Bean, put him in his stroller, and took him to Santa. As anticipated (feared!), he lost his marbles when he met the hairy fella dressed in red. It took the photographer several stuffed animals that she had to throw at me (!) to squeeze a tiny smile out of Conrad. But here it is: a photo with Santa.

Little pink Munchkin

I'm going to start with the most recent FO, since I can't trust my memory to recall all the things I knit the past six months. Not that there were that many, it's just that my memory has taken a turn for the worse. (Still pregnancy brain? Really?)

It's a baby project, no surprises here, but I made it not for Conrad but for little Edie, the now eight-week old daughter of my BFF. I believe Edie and Conrad are linked cosmically: My BFF called the day before Conrad's birth and left a message that she had news. Because of the time difference--my BFF met a Brit, married him, and is now lost to the UK, much to my dismay (although I am happy that she's happy, naturally)--I couldn't call her back but emailed her, saying I'd return her phone call the next day. Well, a couple of hours later I had to email her again and let her know that I would not return her phone call but be in the hospital instead. Anyway, it was a whole week later that I finally talked to her, and the news--you guessed it--was that she was pregnant with little Edie. Since then we've been planning the happy couple's wedding (Conrad & Edith, that does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?).

Before I'm going all chatty on you I'll show you some pics of (my version of) Amy Swenson's Munchkin Blanket. The second I saw Amy's pattern on her blog I was, like, yay, I gotta make that, too bad Conrad's got two five blankets already.

I bought the yarn in March or April, long before my BFF knew the gender of her baby, alas, I knew it would be a girl. (Just as I knew my baby would be a girl and our friend Miranda's a boy. Now look at us, I got Conrad and Miranda's Valentina is soon turning two months. Ha.) At any rate, I was right about Edie, but I was lost in the mom-to-a-newborn universe (=utter chaos) and unable go to my LYS, so I ordered a bunch of Cascade 220 online. Bad mistake, since the two hues of pink and the two browns I had ordered didn't go together. So I ordered more pink and some off-white. And then I ordered even more pink, because the second shipment of pink wasn't to my heart's content either. Eventually, though, I got four colors that work. (There's a little nagging voice in my head that claims this still isn't a great color combination, but hey, I'll just ignore it.)

I can't really give any specs. I used a different yarn, ergo had a different gauge, which messed up the stitch count of the borders, so I modified the pattern slightly. That's about as detailed as I can recall things. However, I do remember that I loved knitting the blanket! It's worked in four triangles, each from the outside in, and the borders are added at the end. There aren't any seams but hundreds of picked up stitches. My favorite part: it's all garter stitch. I love garter stitch (which is why I bought EZ's Knit One Knit All--oh my, could I please, please have more time to knit? I adore some of those patterns. That, BTW, was the only knitting book purchase in the last ten months. It's so sad, I'm totally out of the knitting-world loop. Which fantastic books and patterns have I missed, tell me!).

Look at me, I can't keep my mouth shut (hands still?) once I start writing. However, I better stop. I'm in the middle of Christmas Photobook Madness. Everyone in the family is getting books with a gazillion of Conrad photos for Christmas, and putting together those photo books is about as time-consuming and frustrating as ironing multiple sets of sheets, three weeks' worth of button-down shirts, and 4.000 diapers, which is the other thing on this weekend's to-do list. (At least photo books tend to impress more than ironed laundry, that's their redeeming feature.)

One more Munchkin photo...

Blogging has resumed!

So, I totally missed NaBloPoMo. I really, really wanted to start blogging again in November, but then my in-laws were here for a weekend, followed by a weeklong visit my my parents, after which we went to DC for a few days, and just as we got all settled at home again we left for Thanksgiving break. I suck at blogging when nothing is going on, and I suck doubly bad when we have visitors and/or are visiting places ourselves. Ergo, no blog posts in November. (That's a total of five months of complete silence. "Yikes!," DH's uncle Larry would say.)

Today is December 1, and the beginning of a new month is a new chance to give daily blogging another try. I won't promise I'll make it thirty-one days as the (grand-)parental troops are landing December 22 and thereafter chaos will reign. But I shall give it a try! I used to love blogging so much, and I'd hate to give up on Wollgut. I really need a NaBloPoMo challenge, even if one month late, to get into gear and resume blogging.

And if you're curious about the main thing that's happening chez Wollgut? Growing. Mini-Wollgüter Conrad is growing like a weed.

(More pictures to follow, of Conrad and of knitting (!). Stay tuned. Pretty please.)

Dear __________,

Dear Blog,

Before June slips away entirely I wanted to let you know that I do love and care for you, that I even have three finished projects to show you, and that you need not be jealous of the baby, thinking perhaps that he is consuming all of my attention. No, let's not blame Conrad (although my five month old sunshine is about to start crawling and needs constant supervision). Why else I've been neglecting you? Well, first there was my BFF visiting from London; she brought her husband and her baby bump along, and together we did a lot of walking in cold, rainy Boston. The day they left the sun came out, the weather turned hot and humid, and I realized that I didn't have three but two weeks to pack the whole apartment into 170+ moving boxes. The first 100 were easy to pack: books are a packer's friend (and the mover's foe). The others? Oh my. Packing up a kitchen must be one of the evilest jobs evah, topped only by packing those last twenty percent of one's possessions that takes eighty percent of packing time. You know what I mean: you think everything's packed, and then you look at the windows and think, whoa, what to do with curtain rods and curtains? Throw them in a box with the bathroom trashcan, the desk lamp, the hallway rug, the coffeemaker, the book you were reading a minute ago, and that roll of toilet paper that's still left out.

I'm getting agitated just remembering those last two weeks in the apartment. Let's fast forward to the week of moving. (Yes, it took one week.) The minute the last item made it onto the truck (a broom, it was a broom), the moving help had left (two lovely Brazilians who must have possessed super powers, otherwise there is no explanation for how fast they worked), and my recently retired FIL who had volunteered (!) to drive a 26' truck across the country by himself (!!) was in the driver's seat, the sky darkened and released one of the nastiest thunderstorms in Mass history (you probably saw in on TV). Which didn't impress my FIL much, who was ready to go--and then discovered that the truck had some sort of electrical malfunction. Which is why he couldn't go anywhere but instead waited for the U-Haul repair people to fix it. Which took a while. The next day--DH, Conrad, and I had boarded the train to NYC in the meantime, to spend a few days with family--the electronics continued to fail, and FIL had to stop again and wait for another U-Haul repair team. By the end of day two the truck was finally in good shape--and my FIL still in Massachusetts. But now things went smoothly, you ask? Not so. While FIL was racing across the country to make up for lost time, my boys and I were enjoying ourselves in the City, looking forward to our cross-country train ride to Salt Lake City via Chicago. We had booked a luxurious (we hoped) sleeper compartment, but already on the way to Penn Station, pushing the stroller with the Bean, pulling a large suitcase, carrying a giant box with dry ice (nursing moms will know the contents) I got an automated phone message from Amtrak informing me that our train had been cancelled due to flooding in the Midwest and that "no alternative connection" was available. WTF! sums up our immediate response as well as the general mood that followed. It was lovely to spend two more days with our family, but man, it was not lovely to dish out moula for a crappy last-minute flight (I hate flying, full stop).

At last we all made it: DH, Conrad, FIL, moi--we all were tired and cranky, and crankier even we grew when the previous tenant (the owner's son) had not moved out by the time we parked our truck in front of the house and the moving help arrived. For me not to lose my mind I took the baby and strolled away... I don't know anymore how far or where I walked, but by the time I returned, FIL, DH, and three college kids had performed a miracle, and we had officially moved into our house (which, BTW, is gorgeous).

Now, dearest blog, that was nearly two weeks ago. Have we completely moved in? Of course not. First we binge-shopped at IKEA to fill all that empty space (a dining room! Holy cow, we have a dining room! And a family room! Conrad has his own room! Get this--there's even a laundry room!), then spent one week building furniture, and only now are we slowly unpacking boxes. DH has missed plenty of work and currently works 26 hours a day to catch up, while I unpack for about ten minutes and then play with the Bean for an hour in our own backyard (my botanical knowledge is almost nil, but I successfully identified roses, sunflowers, lilies, poppies, lavender, and irises. Oh--and a peach tree).

So, now you know why I have neglected (but not forgotten) you. Whenever something exciting happens (plumbing problems! Salty drinking water! How do I take care of this gorgeous garden and backyard? There are snow-topped mountains in every direction I look! I've witnessed some serious yarn-bombing! There are three parks within walking distance! The LYS is OMG-awesome! The Bean started eating solid foods! And he received a letter from the White House [no kidding]!) I would like to write you about it. Alas, we didn't even have internet until yesterday. And my camera cable is only-God-knows-where. I can't show you pictures even of my FOs. (I also don't know where two of those three FOs are.) Really, all I gotta say is, we'll be here for a while, and I'll collect plenty of SLC impressions I can blog about. Gosh, we are so excited to live here!

My first

Happy Mother's Day!

Mine couldn't have been better: we walked, we talked, we laughed, we ate, we read, we cuddled.

You'll be shocked

Alert the media, there's a finished object chez Wollgut! It's that lace scarf for my doctoral thesis advisor that I started one week B.C. (Before Conrad, that is), which was halfway done the night we rushed to the hospital, and that took three months to complete. Sheesh.

Good things come to those who wait, and while my advisor didn't know she was waiting for anything, this scarf turned out mighty nice, if I may say so myself.

I got the yarn--delicious Madelinetosh Pashmina (merino! silk! cashmere!)--the week after I defended, mulled over lace scarf patterns for weeks, then asked you for input, then ignored your advice, and finally settled on a narrower, longer version of Nancy Bush's Lilac Leaf Shawl. Verdict: one of my finest projects.

Want to have a closer look?

Closer?

Yes, those are nupps. And ya know what? They weren't half as bad. Although I admit that I abandoned Bush's technique of making seven stitches out of one knit stitch on a RS row, then purling those seven together on the next WS row. Instead I followed my mom's advice: make seven, slip those seven back onto the left needle, then knit seven together on the same RS row. Much easier, me thinks. And the result looks the same: I checked.

Waaaaayyyy more nerve-racking than making innocent little nupps was grafting the two parts together (lower edge and body + upper edge, so that the top edge mirrors the bottom). Kitchener stitch in itself isn't evil, but bloody hell, once I lose track of where I am (part 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the operation) I just can't figure out how to continue. You'd think it's easy to see if I most recently worked a stitch purl- or knitwise, but instead I experience complete brain shutdown, and then I make a mistake. This time I screwed up five or six stitches before I was done. I kept on Kitchening as best as I could. The two parts are joined successfully, but the mistake is visible to the knitter's eye (but only if that knitter's eye is mean-spirited and closely searches for mistakes). My advisor isn't a knitter, so I just won't worry about it.

And as always when I block a lace project, this time, too, I cursed the lack of blocking wires. I really ought to have blocking wires, 'cuz this isn't pretty:

I used about 5.000 blocking needles, and with a crying baby tied to my chest, it took about two hours to block the scarf ("5.000" may be an exaggeration, "two hours" is not). By the time I was done, the scarf was dry, more or less.

As I said, the scarf is longer and narrower than the original pattern: if I remember correctly, it's two repeats longer and two (three?) repeats narrower. I didn't measure the blocked scarf, but it's fairly long and fairly wide, kinda perfect, actually. The whole scarf is kinda perfect. I hope my advisor likes it!