Progress and Completion

There I was, frantically working on the Mason Dixon Knitting dishcloth cotton Baby Kimono for its Wednesday completion date while traveling to visit family over the long weekend, when it happened. Yes, though I had packed not only the kimono but my brothers ginormous, seemingly doomed Maize and Blue Stained Glass Blanket, with its many skeins of yarn, just in case I finished the kimono ahead of schedule, I forgot to pack the as-yet unused ball of Peaches and Cream yarn I needed for the kimono.

Thus, upon finishing the first front, I had to disengage and hope that I would have enough time when I got home on Labor Day night. Instead, perhaps partially out of guilt, I took up my brother's seemingly doomed blanket and tried to figure out whether or not what I had knit on the new square thus far was salvageable.

What do you know? It was. All the problems I saw with it when last I worked on it just weren't there anymore, so I have to chalk them up as wild hallucinations brought on by blanket fatigue. With the problems no longer an issue, I spent a good chunk of Monday banging out rows on the blanket, until, that is, I realized that I forgot to bring the extra skein of white I need to start on the white-colored interior detail of the football I'm intarsia-ing for this particular square. There I was, Monday afternoon on a four-day vacation week with absolutely no viable knitting to do. I could blame only myself.

Here it is, the bottom brown-only portion of the football, right before the white striping and laces come into play.

Either that or I have a very large mustache.

Back at home after an hour and a half drive, I got to work on the second sleeve/front of the kimono from Monday into Tuesday, finishing it up for a quick soak, block, and sun-drying on the back porch by around 3 p.m. By 6 p.m., I started in on the seaming, pausing to play a game of Scrabble before the kid's bedtime, and sewed on the buttons just shy of 9:30 p.m., having searched for and found the perfect shade and size of brown buttons in a mason jar of assorted buttons I purchased at a consignment shop last summer.

It turned out just as Mason Dixon Knitting predicted it would: quick, cute, and practical, despite the fact that before I seamed it up, it looked like this:

Mom-to-be seemed to like it and I hope baby feels likewise. I figure, since the baby will be born in the summer, a nice light cotton jacket will help keep him warm on chilly summer nights.

I even made my deadline, even with the additonal knitting done to my brother's blanket, though I did learn a valuable lesson: In a vacation situation, you can never bring too much yarn.

Baby Knitting

Well, it's happened. I've let myself take a break from my long-standing blanket knitting project for my brother in order to knit a baby shower gift. So this dish cloth cotton

has become the start of a Mason Dixon Knitting Baby Kimono.

I have a week to get this thing done. Otherwise, the mom-to-be is getting a washcloth. Wish me luck.

Ravelry Conundrum

I started making progress on the first intarsia square of the maize and blue stained glass blanket, promised at Christmas to my brother, in hopes of my completing it by his birthday in July. I really did. I made serious progress. Many, many rows were knit. And they still are knit, but the tension isn't quite right in places and I didn't put the yarn into bobbins so now its getting tangled all the time. I might need to rip it out and start over. I'm starting to doubt the feasibility of a July completion date.

On top of that, I have an impending baby shower at the end of May. Do I dare to consider making a wee hat or some wee mittens for the little one? Can I spare the time from the blanket? I know I shouldn't. However, apparently the knitter in me does not agree and has already purchased some cotton yarn with which to make a shower gift for a baby boy.

I'm thinking it could be either the Tea Cozy Elf Hat or the Mazon Dixon Knitting dish cloth cotton Baby Kimono. For the hat to have its full impact, though, it would require that the mommy understands that Dobby the house elf wore a tea cozy for a hat. Thus, if she is not a fan of Harry Potter, she might not get the reference, and I'm not sure she is into the Wizarding World in all its glory. Subsequently, I'm leaning towards the baby kimono, which I've heard from many corners is a great baby gift knit. Plus, the yarn I bought is dish cloth cotton.

Of course, when I purchased my new yarn for this special occasion, it hit me. Despite my best efforts to get my knitterly life organized and tabulated on ravelry, I never seem to keep up with it. As a result, my ravelry  queue is again horribly out-of-date, my stash has grown larger than my ravelry stash listings, and I have no idea which of my knitting books is added to my library and which aren't. The idea of having ravelry features to organize your stuff is genius, but the functionality of all those features gets a bit cloudy in practice. Who can remember to add a listing every time they buy a new knitting book or skein of yarn? Maybe some can, but I am not that girl.

No, I am not. In an atttempt to be that girl, I have faithfully listed to all of the organized knitter podcasts, but none of it has sunk in yet. I'm not sure it ever will.