Sixty months, three weeks and two days

Hey Boo! Guess what?

...

...

...you're five! I know you know this (and are most gleeful about it), but I still have to remind myself that it's been that long since you were a wee pink wriggling slug-thing.

This past year has been a big one for you - we got a dog, so you're no longer the youngest. You started school, and are thrilled beyond belief with being in a real class. You are picking up reading and math like, well, a sponge - you are reading well ahead of our previous experience with Reception (which I suspect is due to a combination of your brains, exposure to your older sister, and an absolutely spectacular teacher who lets you progress at your pace, not the pace of everyone around you). You came home a few weeks ago and informed me you had finished all the Reception maths books and were now doing Year 1 maths. I didn't think much of it at the time, because, well...sometimes a firm grasp on the strictly factual is not your strong point. But then I went to a conference with your teacher and she confirmed that yes, you zoomed through the first two maths books saying "My sister taught me this!" and were now zooming your way through the math for next year. Clearly, this is an area in which you take after your logic-obsessed physics-major father, not me.

It's also been a big year for you socially. You've always been more comfortable playing by yourself, doing your own thing, but this year you've started actually asking for playdates with classmates, and engaging with your peers when we happen to see them around town. It's wonderful to see. To be fair, you are following in Dev's footsteps in making all the boys fall in love with you (there are currently three potential candidates for the future Mr. Boo). I'm just hoping it doesn't come down to drawn swords on the playground at lunchtime.

You adore your sister. And your parents. And your dog. You skip your way merrily to school and are entirely too sunny and cheerful, except when you're not. You are warm and open and loving, and even the tears and tempests are (mostly) short-lived and the sunshine after the rain is as bright as ever. Sometimes there's even a rainbow.

Keep on shining sunshine.

Love, Mummy

How not to dye

1. Put fiber and dye in crockpot, turn on.
2. Walk away and go watch some TV.
3. Forget about crockpot.
4. Remember when the smell of wet wool permeates the house.
5. Return to find boiling and felted fiber. 

Oops!

     6. Whatever you do, don't go and do the same thing two days later.

Sigh...will have to think of something to do with 12 oz of felted Corriedale. Anyone have any suggestions?

Regressing

After a solid week of fingering-weight, handspun colorwork*, I felt the need to do something waaaay mindless and straightforward.

Enter toe-up, thick yarn socks, in handspun. Fiber is superwash Corriedale, colorway "Tartan" from Spunky Eclectic. US 5/3.75 mm needles. One sock finished in two short evenings of knitting. Gotta love it**.

* I finished on Saturday afternoon, wrapped it up, and gave it to Himself for his birthday. He was very pleased, and totally unsuspecting. Now I have to find the mental fortitude to weave in all the ends.

** I've also finished the center panel (yay!) and started the border on the SYB, picking up umpteen million stitches around the edge and starting to work in garter stitch. I'll keep going until it's big enough or I get tired of the damn thing.

More! New! Patterns!

Well, not exactly new, but newly available...

First up: Flip

I knit Dev this skirt umpteen years ago (it now barely fits Boo), but then never got her to wear it and/or stand still long enough for pictures. Finally managed that in the summer of 2009. And then managed to work up a pattern for it last week - nothing like four years from object to pattern!

The pattern is written for any weight yarn - you need to knit a good gauge swatch, but then it's a matter of plugging in some numbers (I used my calculator, so don't feel bad if you do too) and knitting around and around and around until it's long enough. I used self-striping sock yarn, but anything would work well.

Second: The Harpswell Vest

My poor Dad. The man celebrated his 70th birthday last spring, so I wanted to knit him something big. Little did I know how slowly handspun colorwork would go. Plus, it was a little busy for him. So I decided to knit him a textured sweater (blue of course!) of my own design. Then I discovered how big it would have to be (I'm looking at you 24 inch arm length). Ehem. So Dad got a vest for Christmas instead of a sweater for his birthday. In any event, he seems to like it.

Same stitch pattern as the Harpswell Pullover (which went to my brother, who has shorter arms thankfully), same classic fit (2-4 inches of ease), but faster to knit because hey, no sleeves!

You can buy both of these patterns from the Pay Patterns page, which also includes loads of other patterns and more details about sizing and suchlike.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going off to finish my Waterloo...

So effing close

It's 8:45 pm. At 4:00 pm this afternoon, I ran out of light grey with 1.5 repeats and a cuff left on sleeve #2. Bugger.
Thankfully I had some singles left from the last spin, so I quickly plied, weighed the teensy amount of yarn, soaked it, threw on some dye and hoped for the best.

It's now dry and ready to go. Here's hoping its enough!

ETA 9 March 2012: I gave up at 11:45 last night and went to bed, but...I've got half a repeat and 20 rows of corrugated ribbing to go. This puppy will be done (at least knitting-wise, I make no promises re weaving in 400 bazillion ends or blocking) for the birthday on Saturday. Hooray!