Swallowtail

Finito!

Specs:

Yarn: Fino Alpaca with a Twist
Needles: Size 4 Addi Lace
Started: Early June
Finished: Late August

I don't have much to say about this, except that I love lace, and that I'm rigging up some blocking wires for the next go-round! Oh, and Addi Turbos are awesome, and even though nupps are hard, they are so worth the effort.

Edited to add: I blocked the sh#! out of this shawl. Also, I wanted to say that there are a few people I know of in the knitting world who are suffering from multiple myeloma. Alot of people know of Gerry, Annie Modiesitt's husband, and I *kind of* personally know Betty. Julie is doing the York Beach Light the Night Walk to raise money for doing research to develop new treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. Last year she raised $1216 dollars! Let's help her reach her goal of $1500, she's got some great prizes in the raffle, so go check it out!

A morning

alone! Rob took baby Robby on a walk to give me some much needed after yesterday, it was hellacious. Robby napped for 1.5 hours the whole day and was fussy, whiny, and cranky for 90 percent of the day, plus trying to get work done, sigh... I normally don't do this, but yesterday I was so overwhelmed, I let him cry in his bouncy chair for 5 minutes because I was so worn out. I'm guessing it's his top teeth coming in, it seems to be extra rough for him this go-round. This past month, I haven't been letting Robby nap in my lap, and it WAS working well, but this past week, he wakes up after 15-30 minutes and doesn't go back to sleep, so I'm torn between letting him stay in my lap so he can get some good naptime in, or just pressing through and continue to lay him in his crib when he's asleep. He hasn't been sleeping well at night, he's getting up 3-4 times a night, and I've read that if babies don't nap well during the day, they don't sleep well at night. Any ideas?

So, here I am, doing one of my favorite things, blogging, and after this uploading some projects into Ravelry :) I've made some progress on Robby's Tomten.I'm 1-2 rows away from splitting up into the arm holes. I think I'll do the armholes as specified in EZ's pattern, but do some mods when I start the sleeves. I'm also making pretty good progress on my MIL's Swallowtail.I'm on the third row of nupps, and it's moving along!

Greetings from Ataranta

I'm posting from Atlanta this week, we've had lots of fun so far. Robby's been a hit so far. We tried feeding him a little rice cereal to see how he would doCheck out the crazy eyes in the first picture! He didn't take as well to it as I thought he would, I think he's more interested in the spoon, so I just give him a few tablespoons a day at most. I finished my shawl.Here is a picture of it warming the shoulders of my halmoni, it was 80 degrees in the house but she was happy to oblige, I hope it keeps her cozy when the weather gets cold this fall. It's been great being with my family, but I really wish my Korean was better, it's so hard to communicate with my halmoni, I wish I could understand more of her stories, she was born in 1916 and has so many interesting stories I wish I could hear.I'm already thinking of what I can make for my aunt for a present, a felted vest maybe....And speaking of presents, I started this for my mother in law, a belated birthday present, but heck, everything is belated these days!

Mother's Day Numero Uno

I had a great first Mother's Day. Robby got me this card and even signed it, with Daddy's help of course.The inside of the card says "Mommy, you do so much to make me feel loved. And guess what? I love you right back! Happy Mother's Day." Awwww. And here is a picture of Robby's signature.He's getting so big, and it gets more and more fun being his mom. He's not crawling yet, but will get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. He can sit up for several seconds if he supports himself with his hands. He already tries to get out of the car seat, the other day I put him in it and walked away for a second, and he had rolled over in the seat and was attempting to back out of the chair! The past two mornings, when he wakes up, he makes these funny noises, he will purse his lips and "bthhhhh" sounds. And he has become a lot more vocal lately, while on his belly chewing a teething ring, he will say, "Wowohh wowooooh." He is such a happy baby, he is warming up to all of his aunts, cousins, and grandparents. I'm excited to see how he does around my half of the family, only ten days till I get to see them, and stuff my face with Korean food! I've been zooming along on Swallowtail, I'm done with the nupps, yay!It's hard to get a good picture of the shawl, since I only have two hands, but I think these pictures show how drapey, light, and fluffy it is. I'm very happy with how it's turned out so far, and I have 10 days left to finish it.I think my grandma will love it. I've definitely caught the lace bug, I bought a copy of Lace Style, there are some amazing patterns in it. I definitely think I want to do another lace project for myself, maybe Eunny's Print O' The Wave stole? I think I have a sickness, I finish one project and start two more...sigh.

Almost!

Almost done with the Swallowtail, well, kind of. I've reached the border of the shawl, and am on my 3rd row of "nupps".They are a k1, yo, k1, yo, k1, then on the next row you purl into each of those, making 5 stitches, then on the next row, you PURL 5 together, yuck. I wouldn't even want to try these on the Addi Turbos, thank goodness, my Inox circulars came in just in time, and they are working great. The surface of the needle is just the right amount of stickiness without being so sticky that the stitches don't slide easily. Plus, the tips are nice and pointy, so I can do those purl 5 togethers without too much trouble. In Robby news, check out these action shots, sorry about the blurriness, but it's hard to get Robby still these days unless he's sleeping.This is my favorite picture,even though it's blurry, you can tell he's smiling, excited about being able to almost crawl, and smiling at me because I'm cheering him on. When he's trying to crawl, he gets frustrated sometimes, but when we get down on the floor with him and cheer him on, he always tries harder, it's so great. Can you believe he's almost crawling? He just rocks back and forth now, and has mastered the art of scooting backwards, but hasn't developed the coordination it takes to crawl. It was only a few weeks ago he was rolling over...sniff... I'll blink and he'll be a pimply 16 year old asking for the keys to my car, gosh it goes by fast.

Chugging along!

I won't talk about the million other projects I have lingering that really need to get done, like the entrelac baby blanket, and Robby's little jeans, and sweaters, not to mention that Treeline cardigan that I have yet to start on, because Swallowtail is my focus at the moment.Looks like third time was the charm!I've had a few scares, but since I understand the lace pattern now, I was able to fix mistakes without ripping out. It's not perfect, but the pursuit of perfection was abandoned a LONG time ago. I had one really scary incident involving thisguy getting tangled up in the yarn and dragging my knitting downstairs, thankfully no stitches were dropped in the process.

In Robby news, his Aunt Amanda has been watching him since Aunt Olivia has been sick. He loves his auntie, and he LOVES his cousin Lizzie. He is just fascinated with her. I think when he gets a little bigger they will be really good buddies, what do you guys think?Don't they look like they will be serious partners in crime here?She is such a doll and calls herself "big sister" :) Check out the super long drool string! That big smile is for Aunt Amanda, which shows how much he has taken to her! His separation anxiety is starting to ease up, I also was told that he put himself to sleep and napped for an hour, hmmmm, must be a different baby. The cut on his face is from this week, I left him in his cosleeper for a minute, and he grabbed his Snappi and hooked his face! I felt SO bad, but it's healing up nicely thanks to help from Aunt Kacey, NICU nurse extraordinaire and owner of Baxter, the above mentioned doggie. I have some photograhic evidence of some hijinks Baxter and his brother Bentley carried out on Robear and the blanket I knitted, but that's for a different post.