It's My Turn

For months now I haven't been knitting as often or as quickly, which also means I haven't been blogging as often.  Xandermommy jumped in with a sock club update (and will hopefully keep posting!), but I finally have some progress to show, too.  I just finished a little baby blanket:

And I finally feel comfortable revealing that there is a reason for the abundance of baby knits beyond just the simple desire for some smaller, quicker knits: I'm pregnant!  That's also the reason I've been knitting and blogging less.  The first trimester really sapped a lot of my energy and my desire to knit.  There's a seemingly endless amount of cute knitting patterns for baby stuff out there and I just didn't feel like picking up my needles to work on anything.  Knitting suddenly seemed to take so much longer to accomplish anything than it did before.

Now that I'm in the second trimester I do have more energy, and plenty of non-knitting distractions.  But I have been knitting consistently enough to finish up this little blanket.  These pictures don't really do it justice, though -- it has a lace pattern and I haven't washed or blocked it yet, so it's kind of a bumpy mess at the moment.

Anyway, the pattern has been in my queue for well over a year and I had intended to knit it in a neutral semi-solid for someone's future baby, someday.  But then I decided I wanted to make it for our little one in some special yarn that wouldn't be traditional baby pastels.  I was leery of using a variegated yarn, but I had a skein of Miss Babs Yowza with plenty of yardage in a special, non-standard colorway that had called to me and became a splurge purchase at Stitches Midwest last year.

It seemed fitting to make something special with a yarn that I bought just because I loved it even though it was an unusual color combination for me and I didn't know what to make with it.  It knit up darker than I would have expected from how it looked in the twisted skein, but I still love it.  The variegation obscures the simple lace pattern, but hopefully even that will look better once it's washed and stretched.

Pattern:  Baby Chalice Blanket by Lykkefanten
Yarn:  Miss Babs Yowza - Whatta Skein! - A Day at Jellystone
Needles: US 8 - 5.0 mm
Completed:  April 25, 2011
Mods: I cast on 103 stitches and had quite a bit of yarn left near the end so I added one more full repeat to make it slightly longer.

I'm sure I'm not done knitting baby things yet, although I'm not sure how ambitious I'll be.  One expectant Grandma has insisted that I absolutely have to knit more booties like these, possibly multiple pairs, so those should make an appearance before too long.  I just have to figure out which of my enormous stash of sock yarn I want to start with first.