Zachary 4

Unbelievable, that this kid

has suddenly grown into this one

His birthday top ended up taking me until midnight on his birthday (at the end of his birthday) and I had to block it overnight and dry it in the sun in the morning. At least he's happy with it...

Though perhaps not as happy to model it as I'd hoped

hehehe. This is him, pouting, because I'd callously asked him to smile when his knee was sore!! (He had a tiny graze from about 2 hours before.)


The pocket turned out a bit too thin, I think, but it doesn't really matter, as long as it will hold a rock or two. The pattern is "childHood", with lots of modifications. hehe. This Summer baby doesn't really need a warm birthday jumper, especially when he inherits Byron's ones. But he still loves them.


I guess, when he's older and wants 'shop clothes', I'll knit him birthday socks.

FAAT

Fourteen-At-A-Time socks are up to 50% now. At least, I said I'd do the toes and 50 rounds of foot for my NEWT project and call it half-way. For February, my goal is heels, and March is for legs. But I plan to do more than 60 rounds for the legs, which is at least 2 rounds a day, and a round is still taking me most of an hour. Hmm. Need to get ahead a bit.

I also finished some spinning today, half the fibre I got from Sunshine Yarns called "Dark Mark". It mixed up nice, I think.

And I've discovered that taking pictures of yarn in the bottom of my white bath tub is as good as a light box. LOL.

And I overdyed this atrocity-to-Madelinetosh-Worsted-MCN. I thought it was variegated brown, from the photo, but in real life it's purple, brown and green. It is called "Wicked", so I suppose the colors make sense when you think of the Wicked Witch of the West in that musical, but... bleurgh!

Now I have 6 browns and one purple.

Better. Hard to be worse. :)

I've only made one New Year's Resolution this year, and that's to knit 20 hats for the hat box at the chemo ward. One of my patients last year was wearing this horrible furry hat that she got from the hat box (and loved) and I thought I'd add some hats in nice yarn.

Number one is not very nice yarn after all, though. The dark red is Shelter, held double, very warm, and the shiny stuff is firestar 100% that I spun. (You're supposed to add a pinch of it to your fibre as you card it, if you want it to be sparkly. 100% looks like fluffy metal!) The Shelter is yukky; if you pull it a bit firmly as you knit, it just snaps! It's like it's made of a heap of short fibres, held together with felting. But it's warm, and someone might like the shiny...

Zachary's 4th birthday is next week, and his birthday top is coming along well. I'm loving the combo of colors, though they're hard to catch properly with my phone camera :)

I'm doing a sleeveless hooded pullover with a kangaroo pocket, loosely based on ChildHood. Just need to finish the hood, knit on a pocket and edge the sleeves.

Coming up: Winter Ravellenics (knitting Olympics), Nerd Wars X, and the Order Missions and more Quidditch! Also, luckily, the start of school and kindergarten, where I get three days a week with no kids for a few hours!