Where Is Spring?

Hi again. I feel the need to introduce myself. Hi. I'm Jen and I knit. Sometimes. Lately, not so much. And because I'm not too big on complaining publicly, and lately I've had not much nice to say, I've resorted to...well, not saying much. Which is probably not the right thing to do because I think about blogging quite a bit.

Just do it, right?

Genuine tagged me on her blog and even said I'm "very inventive" so I guess I need to follow through with that or lose her respect forever. This is a six-word memoir and it can include an illustration. Mine will not.

Reads, knits, writes; usually plays nicely.

Boring? Well, tough. In truth I would have liked to write something like "Writer saves humanity with poignant prose." But I have neither the ego nor the crystal ball to say that. So I'll stick to the here and now.

T&A
In other news, our daughter sailed through her tonsillectomy & adenoidectomy last week, but not through her recovery. It has been a tough, long slog. Two days after the surgery, she came down with croup and a nasty cold. Which meant she didn't want to eat. At all. Not even ice cream, popsicles or pudding could entice her. So it has been rough, but we're managing. She's almost 3, so she's got that 2/3 thing going on, too.

I was able to finish another diaper cover (before the surgery)! This is another soaker for Sam. It's from 100purewool's 3ply; the color is Brown Lilac and I just love it.

I also finished the second sock in a pair (after the surgery). This pair is made with Duet from A Swell Yarn Shop. I had traded for it on Ravelry a little while ago. I have to say while I adore the colors (cream, tan, pinks) I'm not in love with the yarn base. I found it splitty and squeaky. I think I've decided I'll mostly stick with wool/nylon blends for socks after this one. Superwash 100% wool just rubs me the wrong way. It feels too much like acrylic to me.

Even though they are heavy wool socks, there's something about them that says "spring" isn't there? (Despite the fact that we're supposed to get two more inches of snow tomorrow. On top of our 100+ inches for the season--we passed by our previous record of 76 inches awhile ago. Oh the humanity!)

No New Knits

Blog posts are daunting when you have no new knitting to show. But there has been stash acquisition and other fun things, so I'll go ahead anyway.

This past weekend the knitting guild in my city hosted a Knit-In and I came away with quite a few items:

Tribbles. More specifically, 12 Tribbles for free.
Won as a door prize.


Blue buttons from Jennie The Potter
I couldn't resist!


Pink Button for Imogen from Jennie The Potter
oooooooooo.


MC Bearfoot for Periwinkle Beret
to match my brown winter coat


Aussi Sock in Faded Valentine

I also may or may not have purchased 8 skeins of Black Water Abbey 2-ply in Ocean. She didn't have them on hand, so I don't have them in hand, but I think they are making their way to my house as I type. Or perhaps that was allllll a dream.

I do know one thing. This week is "Kids Week" at the local children's hospital and because we were there today for a pre-operative appointment, we got two "doctor bags".

Surgical masks turn out to be a really handy plaything when your 5 year old has a low fever. Can I just point out that...shouldn't every week be "Kids Week" at a children's hospital?

Miss M is scheduled for her tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy March 19. Yes, we'd like a matched pair, please. No seriously, I know this looks and sounds ridiculous. But rest assured that we are not operating on our children willy-nilly. Our ENT is a very conservative guy and we all agree it's time to take hers out, too. Even the nurse practitioner who saw her today commented on the size of M's tonsils.

Ah life. It just keeps doling out the sweet and the not-so-much sweet.

Back to Reality

The lull experienced on this blog was actually a refreshing vacation in Jamaica. For six days we frolicked on the beach, soaked in the sun and ate delicious, authentic Jamaican food. Truthfully, I had low expectations for this trip. Let's face it: I am the mother of a 5 year old and a 2 year old. I know that vacation can have it's trials for little children. Especially an overseas vacation. But it was seriously very fun. We kept the activities to a minimum so as not to wear out the children (and thus ourselves) and we happened to get really lucky when we booked our stay at The Blue House near Ocho Rios. What an amazing place. They call it a B&B but it's more like a boutique, luxury hotel. We stayed in the cottage behind the house and there was so much privacy and the food was amazing.

There was even time to knit. I started and almost finished another Koolhaas Hat. I didn't bring dpns with me, so I had to wait until we got home to finish it. I'm calling it my "Rum Cream Koolhaas" because the colors remind me of Jamaica Rum Cream, the most delicious drink on ice that I've ever tasted. It's rather like Irish Cream, but so much better.

We brought a few bottles back.

Project: Koolhaas Hat by Jared Flood of brooklyntweed
Yarn: 100purewool.com 3-ply merino in "Tostado" colorway
Mods: none (4 repeats, not 5)

You know, for all the complaining I've been doing about this winter, I was so happy to come back to 30-degree temps. Today it's 41 and the snow and ice is melting. Much of the week it's going to be in the 30s. That's all a girl can ask for--it's my 36th birthday tomorrow and I'm just glad it's not supposed to snow.

ETA: *sob* it snowed last night. I guess there are worse things, right?

C is for Cup

Ok, so I'm late again and it's a mug, not a cup, but I had to show off this new-found rescued mug from my parents' house.

Why, right? Why rescue this cup/mug? I love tea. And this mug is really big. I'd say it holds more than 20 ounces. Upwards of 80 inches of snow has fallen so far this winter, and it's only February. That calls for a lot of tea. This mug makes me giggle, too.

Baby Love

I reckon it has been over a week since I posted. Things are going well. Our son flew through the surgery like a champ. We were there from 9:30am to 5pm, so it was a long day, and we were both happy to be home. He actually spent the morning at preschool today, the first day he has been there since the surgery.

The surgery had an immediate effect on his sleep. The first night I went to tuck him in, I put my ear to his face to make sure he was breathing. In contrast to before the surgery, when we could hear his sleep apnea episodes from downstairs. We are so relieved that he is getting sound sleep now.

Our daughter also may need the surgery, but we are watching and waiting right now. Her tonsils are very large and her sleep is also interrupted, so she may need them out sooner rather than later.

Knitting Content
I've always thought those wool diaper soakers were so darling. But I never wanted to cloth diaper my children. (Please, no flaming me for that. Save it for BID in Ravelry, K?) So when my good friend Alison recently said she wanted to try wool with her second babe, I jumped right all over that. This is the Curly Purly Soaker:

It's not quite done yet, so technically a WIP. I still have to do the one cuff. These are extraordinarily quick and easy. This one is made of discontinued Chester Farms Pride of the Flock, which has built-in lanolin and is undyed. So now her baby can be an accurate Revolutionary War re-enactor. Or something like that. Just kidding. But at least his soaker might match his poop.

I did not do such a hot job on the grafting, however. I *will* get better at grafting. I figure that's mostly a part not many people are going to see on a very young baby, though.

There's also another knit in progress for another baby, and unfortunately I can't show that one because it's a gift for another friend (blogless) who reads this blog. Sorry!

There is something else I'd like to alert you to. I know some people who read this blog have young children. If you have tiny-person clothes packed up in your basement, or attic, would you please consider sending them to Mel, a doula in South Africa, who is giving them to new mothers? Otherwise, if they run out, sometimes the babies go home wrapped in newspaper. And I can't think of many more sad things than that.

Sweater & Surgery

This is a drive-by post to upload photos of the finished sweater. I love it so much. It has replaced my pregnant Wallaby as most favorite knit item yet. I tried two new things on this sweater: applied i-cord and a zipper. This was made with 100Purewool 3-ply merino. Decadent stuff. If you are enterprising, you can find some for sale on some swap boards where mamas congregate because they often use it for diaper soakers and the like. You can also find some co-op buys out there for it. It's very soft.

That is a Melissa & Doug "Princess Mirror" she's holding. Sigh.

Our son is scheduled for a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy tomorrow. We only just scheduled it today. But we had waited two weeks to see the ENT, who subsequently said today, "These need to come out. Now." So. An update will come again when possible. I'm looking forward to getting our happy go-lucky, well-rested son back.

B is for Buried

Somewhere between 12 to 18 inches of snow. Another snowstorm and we'll have to dig out the poor mailbox.