Shower Gifts and Ravelry Stalking

I guess it's pretty obvious from our lack of chatter that July is a pretty busy month for everybody. Maybe I can make up for some of the silence with a Mystery Project reveal:


Yep, my big Mystery Project that was lingering in the Work in Progress list is a baby blanket that I've been working on for my very first nephew. I've never been an aunt before and wanted to make something special, so I knew it was going to be a big project. In an effort to make sure I could finish before he was born I even started in March knowing that he wasn't due until late August. Of course, sometimes forces conspire against you and I found myself sidelined with an injury that kept me from knitting on the blanket for a month or so. That just made me even more thankful that I started early, though, because while I couldn't quite finish the blanket in time for the baby shower, I am on target (hopefully!!) to finish it by the end of August. Anything could happen, but at least it already looks like a blanket at this point!

That brings me to the baby shower story. It was a small word-of-mouth shower and I was the only one traveling from out of state. So, while I knew in advance what weekend it would be I didn't know about a registry until much closer to the shower. But, I intended to wrap the blanket on the needles if need be (and it did end up that way) and I had already planned another small gift:


My sister has often borrowed Halloween costumes from me, so I though it was only appropriate that I set the nephew up with one for his first Halloween. So I stuck with wrapping the knitted gifts and decided to just go baby-stuff shopping with my sister while I was visiting rather than trying to lug anything extra to the shower.

So the shower was nice and small and included a tasty potluck brunch and the usual photos and conversation. When we gathered to open gifts things started with the usual baby clothes and accessories and then she started to open a pair of shirt-sized boxes from one of her friends and was instructed to "open the lighter one first". And there, in that lighter box was a knit baby pumpkin hat (more umbilical cord style) and crocheted booties to match. I kept my best smiling poker face and kept taking pictures of the gift opening. I avoided looking at my Mom, for the most part, because I knew we'd be sharing that look of knowing that my gift was going to show up eventually and was going to be, essentially, a repeat. And although I wasn't panicking either outwardly or internally, I knew that if the heavier box was a baby blanket of some sort I was going to completely lose it and die laughing - which would be really embarrassing because other than my Mom no one would understand why I suddenly went insane. Fortunately for my sanity, the heavier box was full of cute children's books.

When she did get around to opening my gift I only got a picture of the look of realization and laughter when she found the matching pumpkin items. She said something like "well, these have little mittens, too" and the other knitter of the group (I'll call her Knitter Friend X) told me it was a good thing it happened in that order because she wouldn't have been quiet and would probably have hit me. Knitter Friend X also said I was safe from the matching blanket problem because she had made one for a friend's baby before and it took so long she didn't ever want to make one again. So at least that gift was as unique as a baby blanket at a shower can be. ;-)

And that brings me to the Ravelry stalking part. Knitter Friend X mentioned that she put photos of the pumpkin hat and booties up on Ravelry. I didn't know her Ravelry username, but I did manage to find her by searching the recent pumpkin hat projects. Muahaha, I know another real life person on Ravelry to stalk now. Of course, maybe she's doing the same with my pumpkin projects, too.

As much as I love how the blanket has turned out so far, I am looking forward to some smaller knitting and knitting without so much of a deadline. More on some of those projects later.

A Few More Finishes

I've finished a few more pairs of socks since we last saw each other, so I'm going to go ahead and show them off.

My first Monkey socks, which were super quick to knit when I actually had time to knit on them.

And Spring Forward, in Lorna's Laces Bittersweet colorway. I love the orange and purple! I guess I'm also showing off my new Knitpicks sock blockers. I basically got these solely for the purpose of photographing socks. On that note, I will leave you with a photo of my handy sock photographing helper, my sweetie husband Scott.

Ain't he cute?

Traveling Socks

My Maui Fire Dancer socks are definitely my most traveled knitting so far, although this time they only went to a concert. We had lawn "seats" for the No Doubt with Paramore concert and since we were trying to get there early to stake out a good spot, I wanted to take something along to knit in case of a long wait for things to get started. I didn't want to take anything that would require any significant amount of concentration or counting and although I had originally planned to take something smaller and new to work on, I found that one of my new circular needle tips wouldn't tighten and needed to be returned. So, the sock that was already almost finished got to see the light of day again.

I was a little concerned that I might not make it through security with knitting needles, even though they were the wooden toothpick-like variety, but I stashed them in a smaller makeup bag within my main bag that security didn't even bother to open, so no problem there. But, it turns out the long wait wasn't too long and it was hard to avoid the people-watching because the atrocious outfits seemed to be at an all time high for this particular concert, so I only managed to knit a few rows before Paramore hit the stage and then the knitting was packed away for the rest of the show.

It was a great show and the audience was definitely revved up for it, all 25,000 people or so! Unfortunately, some sort of accident or just the sheer numbers overwhelmed the parking area somehow so that those of us that arrived earlier and were parked furthest in were stuck waiting for an hour before anyone could move. That's when the knitting came in very handy - definitely therapeutic to have something nice to do while other people are loudly griping about firing the parking attendants and promising to swear at them on their way out. The three of us in our car just settled in to wait, listened to the radio, and then laughed at the fact that the entire parking area was nearly completely emptied before our poor little entrenched area was finally able to move out. It was a really fun night, but a late one after that!

Happy Fourth of July!

A little Independence Day Red, White and Blue in the form of Colinette Jitterbug in Morello Mash, Knit Picks Bare, and Malabrigo in Buscando Azul. No fun knits to show off, but plenty of yummy yarn. Have a great holiday weekend!