I've been overcommitted. Completely over-scheduled and over-extended in every area, and nothing is coming together quite right.

Too scattered.

Too hippie.

Too big.

Too girly.

Too MySpace.

But not close enough.

Spring is coming. Soon. It has to.

Somehow, I skated past the holidays with almost no gift crafting. Selfish Knitters would be proud.

My sister got a pair of Snapdragon pop-tops that I contemplated keeping. I really liked them and loved the yarn. Ysolda is on my short list of favorite designers, and her patterns are really well written.

I have another skein of this yarn. I'm planning to make a lacy cowl out of it, using one of the charts from the Estonian Lace book. That is, if Amazon ever delivers it.

Snappy and warm

I've been wanting to make the Hemlock blanket for a while. I'd been thinking I'd make it for some baby, but somehow a hand-knit getting beat up bothers me more than a quilt gettting tattered. So I decided to make it for my other sister for her b-day. She'll treat it well.

Keeping the floor toasty

Finally, when snowed in over Christmas, I finally made my first Saartje booties. I have no idea how I've avoided making these for so long with all the tiny people entering my life. This went to my cousin's new baby, Sophie.

Almost as cute as Sophie... almost.

This weekend will be something for me. I'm going to finish my Vine Yolk cardigan that I've been working on since November. Just in time for Spring...

I told myself for every project worth's of yarn I bought, I had to finish two project from the stash. This has completely sucked all joy out of making things. I lazily jump from project to project, starting, but never finishing. I only have attention for small things.

Like booties.

Don't get too close. You'll get baby rabies.

These are craft felt, decorated with random stuff I had. They still aren't as cute as the examples, but they make me want to go steal a baby and put bows in its hair.

My attempt at punk and sporty

Some will be baby shower decorations, some gifts for my nephew and cousins' belly bumps. There's a lot of reproducing going on.

Purty

And... adorable.

I was highly productive while avoiding writing my final paper. Now that I'm trying to finish my sister's Christmas present, I'm working on everything but it. Deadlines are crafting dementors.

I knocked out my first clapotis for a friend. It's about 3.5 skeins of Cascade Luna. I still don't know how I feel about cotton yarn, but this stuff was nice to work with, and seems to wear nice.

Holy clap.

I think I only did two repeats, both horizonatlly and vertically. I finished it in a weekend, by far the fastest I've ever made a scarf.

All that's left to do is hand-sew the binding on the quilt I made from this fabric. I'm pretty happy with the result. The owner should be making her world debut in about 2 months, so I'll post the top after I give it to her folks.

I'm pretty pleased with my quilting, though. I did something other than stippling.

Back up.

I bought fabric for the nephew's quilt. It's fishy, so I think he'll grow up to be a marine biologist. Hopefully, I'll start that this week or next.

I made Oliver some catnip toys using scraps from the quilt.

Kitty toys

First wiff of catnip

Kitty approved

I have this.

Pico is judging me.

I made it from cutting up 6 batik fat quarters and reassembling.

I was thinking about doing a paintbox-style quilt, and cut this up into squares and then put white sashing between the blocks. Not sure if I'm going to do that now.  I'm thinking vertical rectangles with white between.

Whatever it is, there will be lots of white. That much I know.

Finished a damson last night. I do like it, but I fear that it's one of those things that knitters love and wear and non-crafters think are weird. There is something about making things that makes you completely blind to whether or not you should actually wear them.

I'll wear it 'backwards', so that the back bunches up in the front. Can't quite do the shawl thing. It's a little too 1940's Poland for my tastes.

Anyone else see a BSG raider?

I also finished the quilt top for one of the baby quilts. I went with a slight variation of Layout #3. I don't have any backing fabric, so odds are this one will sit on the shelf for a while.

I'll put up a pattern for this...soon...

I can't really decide if I'll actually give it away. I kind of want to drape it on Pico's chair, but that's all but a death sentence for the poor quilt.

From what I understand, most people working on their Master's read and write papers. I don't take that approach. Instead, I bring my laptop to coffee shops and make mix cds and surf the internet.

15 page paper due which means I've been googling my patterns. Narcissism is fun!

Found some people who've made monster booties. It's pretty sweet to think that so many people have been inspired to make something due to me.

The monsters have gone international.

Jen made the Tetris Quilt laid out so it actually looked like Tetris. Looks really cool, Jen!

Thanks to everyone who's made things from my patterns for stoking my ego. Vanity always was my favorite cardinal sin.

Couple finished projects I've been sitting on for a while.

A hat and hooters

I've been eyeing the owls sweater for many, many moons, and I've finally gotten around to making it. I did edit it to be a cardigan since I like them better. It only took a little finangling to move the start of the row to the middle of the front and then added 5 sts of garter st on each side, with a button hole every 12 rows.

I'm pretty smitten with it. It's pretty stinkin' warm though.

Here's the pattern on Ravelry.

Also made this hat, which was my first soiree with Malabrigo, my new bff. I'm not planning to write it up as a 'real' pattern, but here are my notes, if you're up for an adventure.

The hat

Supplies

• Size 8 needles
• Malabrigo worsted weight, about 2/3rd a skein
• Darning needle

Stitch Patten

Hold yarn to front, sl 2 sts to right needle, move yarn to back, move 2 sts back to left needle, k3- repeat

The last stitch will overlap the next round. That off-sets it each round.

Texture

Instructions

• Cable cast-on 96 sts
• 1.5 in 2x2 ribbing
• Next row - increase every 10 sts to 105 total
• Work 5” of pattern
• pm every 26 sts
• Decrease one each row at the markers, adjusting to stay in pattern (this is the part I really should have written down...)
• When 12 sts remain, pull tail through remaining sts and weave in ends

Did I menion Babies Everywhere? I can hardly walk outside without a bundle of joy falling on me.

So these will go to those wonderful people whose babies I'm excited about, but not 30 hours on a quilt excited.

I'm indoctrinating your baby with my pro-color agenda.

I dyed onesies actual colors. I'm not anti-pink/baby blue, I'm Pro-(color)Choice.

The lime color was supposed to be yellow, but I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt at dying fabric.

0-3 mon, 3-6 mon, and 12 mon. They're on their own between 6 and 12 months.

I've done entirely too many baby related activities lately. My ovaries are confused.

Two more babies coming. Babies everywhere!

This means quilts. Any opinions on which layout I should use?

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

I'm pretty sure I won't use 4. These are all layed out as squares, but I'll probably add two more rows to the bottom to make these a little taller.

My Cathedral Socks have been published on Knitty.com. If they brought you to my site for the first time, you might want to check out my other patterns, many of which are free. You can see them previewed in the right sidebar, or view all of them on the patterns page.

S/M, skipping rounds 1-4

M/L in Schaffer's Anne

I tried canning this year. Dad hooked me up with 3 beer flats of tomatoes, so I tried to make salsa. It turned out okay, but holy cow that was a lot of work for a dozen pints of salsa.

I don't know why I do these things. I don't even like salsa all that much.

I say tomato.

Whipped up a pair of these for G-ma K. They were an amazingly fast knit (four days), and after using light fingering weight yarn all summer, worsted was a nice break.

I didn't follow the pattern for the heel or the toe.

Big and comfy.

Fall is breaking through. Hooray for sweater weather.

I finished my couch pillow covers. I'm not completely sold on them. I do love the fabric, so I think it's carry-over dislike of slipcovers and the inherited couch. I used adhesive backed velcro, which doesn't work. Not only does it not hold onto the fabric, it's really hard to sew through once you give up on it working.

Take a nap. Do it.

I also hung the pic today. It's another of Sgier's prints. A word of warning - Target's "Room Essentials" frames don't have the hanger screwed on and the screws they give you are teeny-tiny fairy-sized. I ended up hammering them into place in a fit of rage. I've decided that most man chores just require the confidence to wack the crap out something until it works.

First weekend at home for the first time in a month. I spent it making my house liveable again, and working on my sample for Knitty.

My big project was organizing my messy craft room. I know many craft rooms are cluttered messes, but the throw-everything-on-the-shelf organization was beginnig to drive me nuts.

My newly organized craft supplies

A bin for embroidery, a bin for beads.

Cookie jars holding ribbons and yarn and jars for buttons.

Here are some pics of the sock pattern that appears in the 16th issue of Yarn Forward. You can check them out on Ravelry, too.

They're reversible, so "right side out" and "inside out" are really subjective. I prefer them purl-side out.

Right side out.

Inside out.

In print.

Now, when am I going to finish the second sock so I can actually wear these?