Somehow, little by little, over the course of weeks, I managed to knit the back of wee one's bees knees sweater. I don't know when I did it really - stockinette stitch on US2's in white will numb the senses, let me tell you - but after what was probably dozens of brief knitting sessions, I was at the top where the little design goes. The options in the pattern call for either a big stripe or a little rectangle. That was all too square for me, so I gave wee one a tiny pink and brown heart.

And now she needs some serious blocking. I'm blocking in the new year!

School's back in session, phew! Now to get back to work. Design project overload! Wanna peek?

I can't say any more, except, I gotta get knitting!

Starting the new year off with another fun baby hat. (I am just in love with this Itty Bitty Hats book!)

This is a variation of the Marshmallow Bonnet from said Itty-Bitty Hats book. (It's actually on the page right before the Cherry-O hat that I made last week, so you can tell I've barely begun to knit my way through this book!) The original pattern is adorable, in moss stitch with little curly squiggles in pink at the top corners of the bonnet, but I wanted to make this one match wee one's großmutter sweater and bee's knees sweater, so I changed it to stockinette stitch, put a stockinette hem on the front (like the edges of the großmutter sweater) and kept the reverse stockinette roll in back (to match the edgings on the bee's knees sweater). I used leftover Sirdar Snuggly from the großmutter sweater and the leftover ribbon to close it, so the colors are a perfect match.

I really like the look of bonnets (check out this pattern I got at Purl and plan to make for wee one for the summer!) and am very pleased with how this came out. Still, I'm thinking two little curly squiggles in leftover pink from the bee's knees sweater would make it just perfect! And then all I'll need are some white stockinette booties and baby could have a whole matching outfit to wear home from the hospital.

This was the subject line in some junk mail I got this morning. I like to read them out loud (they always sound better out loud) and then say "Yes!" "Absolutely!" "Just what I wanted!" right before I delete them.

But this marshmallow bonnet with the pink squiggles is the real deal. "Yes, absolutely, just what I wanted!" Why didn't I put the squiggles on in the first place??

The pink is left over from the bee's knees sweater (I'm making use of all those color sequence repeats I had to wind off to get the pieces to match). I'm so excited about how good it looks with the peachy/pink ribbon from the großmutter sweater. I really think this hat will work well with both sweaters. Which means that I can move on to the next page in the book and make a different hat.

"Yes!" "Absolutely!" "Just what I wanted!"

I'm back! A few lingering little blog problems (comments, oh comments, where did you go? and did you take the archives with you?), but my host is still recovering from a weekend hacking incident, so let's give him a break. And let's talk final holiday knitting!

I may not have finished all my holiday knitting (one baby sweater still overdue and two sock creatures still left to be sewn), but lots of the knitters over at WWLAHKG did! Go check out all those stars. And gifts!

So that means it's time for me to give away some knitgifties, which the holiday all-stars can use for some January selfish knitting or earmark for gifts for next year. And they are:

two gorgeous hanks of Hipknits hand-dyed silk in gray

two balls of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Pumpkin
(this would make a great hat or mittens!)

two balls of Knitpicks Essential sock yarn in navy
(looooove this sock yarn - soft, washable, beautiful colors)

one big ball of Regia Africa sock yarn from Germany!

I'll be pulling names later today from among the holiday knitters who earned their star, so update me right away if you finished all your holiday knitting. And then tune in next time for the winners!

Note: No need to post your comment multiple times. Comments are coming into the system (you can see the comment count increase if you refresh this main page), just some program glitch is causing only the first comment of the day to show up. My master webmaster is working on it!

The boys have been desperate for a little fun time with mommy, so yesterday after school we made some candy sushi.

I saw the recipe on a Rachel Ray show and then after the boys went to a Japanese classmate's birthday party and got this toy food sushi as a favor, I thought, oooh we gotta make these. Rice krispie treat wrapped around a twizzler, rolled up in a green fruit roll up and it's the sweetest sushi you've ever eaten in your life!

Then, late that night, I finally finished the second sleeve on baby's neapolitan candy sweater.

I ate some hershey kisses and wee one danced around in my belly. A little mommy and a lot of candy for everyone!

I found this sweet book at 7th Avenue Books in Brooklyn and couldn't resist buying it for wee one.

I am learning to smell the flowers from my friends the Knitsmiths, who pitched in to help me make 24 little flowers for this hat for wee one. Yes, it's another hat out of Itty-Bitty Hats. I loved the hat as soon as I saw it, but couldn't imagine myself making it unless I was put on bedrest or something. (By the way, this week I passed the date at which I had to go on bedrest while pregnant with the twins. And I'm definitely planning on doing the remainder of this pregnancy vertical!) The Knitsmiths loved the hat too and said they could each make a rosebud or two (or in Lisa's case, twelve!). I just happened to have Rowan handknit dk in six lovely colors in my stash, so I brought 'em in to Knitsmiths and we made a garden.

The rosebuds are really easy to make, just simple tiny garter stitch strips that get rolled up and attached to the hat. You wouldn't think they could ever look very flowery, but put a little green garter stitch triangle leaf (oh yeah, they made 13 of those for me too!) behind them and voila!

Now I just have to make the hat and sew them all on. That'll be easy. Thanks to all my friends!

Are you getting ready? Sockapalooza 4 has a new button! That's all I've had time to do so far (I am in design work crunch right now and it just won't stop), but in another week or two, I should be able to start getting organized. Keep an eye on the sidebar for details and updates!

I haven't knit socks in ages and am so excited about getting back into it! I even picked up some Yarn for Sox for socks for poor neglected hubby at this morning's Wild & Wooly semi-annual clearance sale.

Hubby may have been neglected in the last few months as far as knitting goes, but his socks haven't! Check out the heels on his last pair of Yarn for Sox socks.

I made these for him back in 2002, because he loves wearing thick socks over regular socks when it's cold. He still wears these, even without heels. And why not, they're in way better shape than the Peace Fleece socks from 2004.

Oh yes, it's time to make socks!

In order to move things around and make room for wee one, hubby is giving up his office and I've got to pare down my stash. (Wee one will be housing my stash in a corner of her soon-to-be-room: pretty colors, soft yarn - I think it'll look nice.) Which means I'm going through a major major major stash reorg and purge. I've taken a long hard look at what has settled at the bottom of my stash (oddly, there's a lot of green at the bottom of my stash) and asked myself what I am likely to knit and what I can part with. The things I can part with I'm offering up for sale here! There's lots of sweaters' worth of great yarns and some smaller lots of lovelies too - all at bargain prices! Here's a peek:

This is the link to my sale page with all the prices. You can leave me a comment here or send me an email letting me know which item you want and I'll sell the yarn on a first come, first serve basis. PayPal or check should be fine. I'll try to update the list as things get sold, so you know what's gone and what's still available.

And there's also a grab bag of (almost) freebies!! Peek:

Here's a link to all the grab bag items. You can put your name into the grab bag almost-giveaway by leaving a comment saying you want to be in the giveaway, and in a couple of days, I'll grab a name and grab a bag and send each thing out to its winner. (I'm only asking for a couple bucks for shipping!)

Who would have thought that getting rid of yarn could be so much fun?!

(4:30 pm update: I'm working through the initial batch of emails and will update the sale page shortly. I'll change items to "hold" that someone has already asked for. Once I receive payment, I'll mark 'em "sold". This is so exciting!)

(One week later: Looks like all the yarn is pretty definitely spoken for at this point. I'll let you know if any sales don't go through, but for now, I'll be closing the sale and the list for the grab bag. Grab bag pulls should happen this weekend, so fingers crossed!)

I couldn't help starting another Itty-Bitty Hat! This time it was the cotton stria hat.

I dug up all the tiny little scraps that I had leftover from Johanna's circle of friends blanket and jumped right in. Each of my scraps was good for only about two rounds in the hat, so I had A LOT of ends to weave in at the end, but it felt so cool to actually make something useful out of those tiny bits.

Dani had some aqua and orange and hot pink leftovers for me to throw in to the mix and the result is so adorably stripey, I can barely stand it!

And speaking of Dani, she was so inspired by all those cotton stria colors that she created a new sock yarn colorway for Sunshine Yarns based on them.

I think she's putting some of it up for sale in her store tomorrow! I grabbed a skein right off the production line, so to speak, for booties to match the hat. How perfect!

This weekend, my best knitbuddies threw me a huge surprise baby shower.

I was shocked when I walked in and saw all my knitting pals and over a dozen pairs of knitted booties strung across the room like streamers!

So many different booties in different styles and sizes - wee one's feet will be quite literally covered!

There were other knit gifties too, like this gorgeous Baby Kid shawl (that I've been dying to make for myself - now I don't have to!) and the giant "Cheeky Monkey" toy from Zoe Mellor's Knitted Toys (both of which were knitted by the amazingly talented and generous Dani).

There was a cute and classy baby shrug and bonnet set for wee one (knit by Shannon) and enough books for me to keep her in cute and classy knitted items for a while!

Even the boys got the perfect gifts...

And thank goodness for the clean-up crew S loves pink!

I haven't been knitting anything for myself because I've been so busy with design work and, really, who knows what my body will look like tomorrow anyway. But now that I can see the finish line on this pregnancy thing, I have started to think about what I might make next for me, for after. I've been keeping an eye open for something that might flatter the typical post-pregnancy figure and found two sweaters that I can start just as soon as my design work is done and sockapalooza four is underway. And as I'm trying to whittle down my stash a bit to make room for baby, I've got plans to make 'em with yarn I already have!

The first is a ruffly, side-tie wrap sweater from Edition Rebecca #8. I've got some lovely Ingenua Mohair to use for it that I got on sale at a Wild & Wooly clearance last year. It's red. I like red.

And then an irresistibly cute little shirt-style sweater with deep ribbing from Laines du Nord Simple Knits #5. For that one I've got some pink Jaeger Luxury Tweed I found this year at the same clearance sale. I knew it was safe to buy the yarn, because I simply cannot keep pink in my stash - it will get knit!

Soon, my pretties, verrry soon....

I cannot stop making these Itty-Bitty Hats for wee one! Just a couple of pages away from the rosebud hat is this adorable "upside down daisy" hat.

I'm teaching my beginner's hat class again, and as I needed something simple to cast on, I started the daisy hat. No idea why I had a ball of pink Berroco Touche in my stash, but it was perfect for the hat. I really liked the feel of the cotton/rayon yarn while knitting with it and love the look of the finished fabric. I cast on in class and suddenly, the whole thing was done. It still needs its flower petals of course, but the hat part is done.

I think the actual hat part of the rosebud hat follows the exact same pattern as this hat, so it'll be a breeze to make that with my students next week. Then I can add all the flowers to both of them.

Is it even going to be possible for her to wear this many hats? I'm stuck in "knitting for twins" mode, aren't I?

All seamed and ready for our wee one stand in, the fireman. (The boys are so thankful they're too big to do these try-ons!) I found pretty little pearly buttons for the front that have a little pink sheen to them.

And look how well the sweater goes with the booties I got at the shower from fellow Knitsmith, Terri!

Especially with the teeny tiny heart on the back...

All in all, I really enjoyed making this sweater. It was a lot of knitting at that tiny gauge, but the pattern was very clear and keeping a "one piece at a time" attitude made it totally manageable, even in pre-baby stress. (I still can't believe that it's finished already!) And I love the pink and brown Trekking yarn in this baby sweater much more than I would have ever liked it in a pair of socks.

Thanks to Holli for such a great pattern and to all you blog readers who recommended bee's knees knits!

Congratulations (and some yarn, of course) going out to the following...

WWLAHKG holiday knit-along knit giftie winners:

Amber (4 of 4) - winner of Hipknits silk
Jennifer (10 of 10) - winner of Knitpicks pumpkin wool
Jolene (3 of 3) - winner of Knitpicks Essential sock yarn
Carrie (8 of 8) - winner of Regia sock yarn

"Make Room for Baby" grab bag winners:

Lisa - winner of Classic Elite Gatsby
Carole (email at cs.com) - winner of Phildar Lambswool
Sarah - winner of Classic Elite Bazic
Janelle - winner of Spotlight Cotton
Davy (email at gmail.com) - winner of Fixation sock yarn
Lorraine - winner of Filatura 501
Amy (email at hotmail.com) - winner of Online 157 Tessa
Tammy - winner of Rowan handknit dk
Allie - winner of Lana Grossa Cat
Sally (email at comcast.net) - winner of Knit 1 Crochet 2 Fleece
Oiyi - winner of Sirdar Denim
Wanda - winner of Lurex Shimmer

Send me your addresses by email! (Psst, my email address is in the sidebar.) Grab bag winners, you can send me two dollars to help with shipping at my PayPal account (same as my email).

And speaking of winners, the boys' nosewarmers are a huge hit! Every day that it's below freezing (like today) the boys insist on wearing them on our walk to school.

The crossing guards and the teachers at school all love them. Everyone smiles when they see the boys coming with their "nosehats" on!

I had one last ultrasound yesterday. The technician said the baby was doing great, everything was right on track, and went on and on about how good things looked. Then just as I'm getting ready to go, she says, "big head." Nooooo, don't say that. Those are so not the words a woman wants to hear a couple weeks away from delivery.

I'm trying to ignore what that comment means for delivery and have returned to the hat factory to make more hats for that big head. (Some of you asked about the sizes I've been making. I made two hats in a newborn size on an 11" circular needle, but all the rest have been in a 0-6 month size and knit on a 16" circular. They should be large enough for her big head.) To prepare for hat class tonight, I knit the white hat for the rosebud wreath up to the decreases.

Eeeek! Looking at all these knitted hats and finishing the last few I've still got on the needles is not helping me keep my mind off that big head.

We were awakened by the crying. It would seem that S dangled his blankie over the side of the bunk bed and when B gave it a little tug, off went the favorite corner.

And the rest of the blankie ain't looking much better.

Since S has been up on the top bunk, the blankie's been pretty much disintegrating unseen. (Which is really how I preferred it.) Each morning though I'd find a little scrap on the floor and toss it. But yesterday was the big one.

We rushed out after school to pick out more yarn for a new blankie. S picked this Lamb's Pride because he said, "it is the softest." (Insert Nanny McPhee "hmm" here.) I wonder if he'd notice if I switched it for some Cascade 220? He says he wants red and blue stripes in the same yo/k2tog pattern that I did his original blankie in. I have a feeling that he's thinking vertical (read, intarsia!) stripes. We'll see if I can maybe talk him out of that too.

But lucky for me, he is convinced that "it takes 90 days to yarn a blankie," meaning I've probably got until late April to get this done. In the meantime, Daddy looped the favorite corner through a large hole in the blanket and knotted it on so S can continue to run his fingers along the edge like he likes to do.

And S promises not to dangle it over the side of the bed anymore.

can you find the daisy hat in the middle of all those legos?

I spent the entire afternoon with the boys working on our "structions". They picked out their biggest lego sets to work on and I had my itty bitty hats book.

how to make a car suspension

how to make a wheel assembly for a helicopter

how to make petals for a daisy hat

While the boys built a car and a giant helicopter, I mananged to make all the petals and sew them to the top of the upside-down daisy hat. The boys were actually watching my progress, asking how I was putting the petals on. They were really interested! And they thought it was so cool that I was following 'structions just like they were.

And here's bear/dog with the finished hat!

It came out super cute (despite the fact that my gauge must be a little different from the desired gauge in the book and I could only fit five petals on the top instead of six), but I think it still looks just like a daisy! This may be my favorite of all the hats I've made so far. Of course, I can't really see all the hats I've knit, since baby's stuff is all piled up in a heap in our bedroom. Next week we'll finally be setting up baby's room. And then I promise a pic of all the hats and all the booties all together!

neglected knitting in bookcase

No knitting this weekend. Each day I tried to do a little bit of preparation on the baby's room (so far she's got a changing table and a wardrobe, but no bed, no bookcase and hubby's desk and computers are still in the room with her). I'm not able to get too much done because as soon as I'm vertical, my belly hardens into a solid ball and it pretty much stays like that. Non-stop Braxton-Hicks contractions! I'll do a little and then by the afternoon, I'm so exhausted from all that contracting that I end up sitting or lying on the sofa for the rest of the evening. Still contracting of course, but not as often, just every time she moves, or I move, or I touch my belly, or have to pee, or drink something. So only then - ha, ha.

And now, no more leaning over this computer. It's making me contract.

And I thought they'd outgrown them!

The boys' weasley sweaters from two Christmases ago still fit. They seemed like the perfect thing for them to wear on the coldest day of winter so far. Warm but light, that Rowan Felted Tweed was just right! (And so was a trip to the neighborhood Dunkin' Donuts where I snapped these pics with my camera phone.) The boys still love the sweaters too: "Oh, look my H sweater!" And two days later: "Are we wearing our H shirts again?"

And did I mention that they still fit?!

The baby knits books have a new home - in wee one's bookcase. Since she's sharing her room with my yarn stash, she'll be sharing her bookcase with my book stash too!

All my faves are there, like Rowan Pipsqueaks, Phildar Tricotez Calin, Itty Bitty Hats, Jess Hutch's Unique Toys, and the Miss Bea books. And don't worry about wee one, thanks to my friends, she's already got an awesome selection of books!

So what are some of your favorite baby (knitting or otherwise) books? Anything wee one's bookshelf still needs?