what's done is done

As you can see, the Baby Surprise Jacket is done. Yay! This is going to be a great little item for spring.

I did venture to the yarn store, and though I was sorely tempted by all the new spring colors (new colors!!), I stayed focused and bought only one skein of yarn to complete the project at hand.

It's always the sock yarn that tempts me. I think I justify it to myself by saying, "but this is an entire knitting project for just $20! What a bargain! I'd be crazy not to buy it!" Lately whenever I do that, I come home and put the sock yarn away in the sock yarn department only to discover that I actually had a different skein of $20 sock yarn in almost precisely the same colorway. After doing that twice in a row, I finally realized that I really could not reasonably buy even one more skein of sock yarn, which has helped tremendously with my focus in the yarn shop.

So what was I talking about? Oh yeah, focus. So I stayed focused and I just bought the one $6 skein, although it was kind of a gambit, because it wasn't the same yarn that the rest of the project was made from. It's not even the same fiber content! They didn't have any Cascade Sierra or Sierra Quatro with any of the colors I was using, so in my desperation I bought some Cascade Pima Silk, which they happened to have in precisely the right colorway. Despite the fact that the Sierra is at least two years older and a totally different fiber, I have to say that the Pima Silk was a pretty good match. At least, color-wise and gauge-wise. But it has a totally different handle (of course) and hangs in a totally different way (of course), and I am hoping against all odds that blocking works out the weirdness, and also taking comfort from the fact that most of the time when my child is wearing something, at least a third of it is in her mouth, so nobody will notice the drape. Right?

Pragmatic as this move was, I do fear that I have committed a cardinal sin of knitting: Nonchalantly mixing fibers and acting like they're all basically the same yarn.

I tried to do the right thing, I really did. I trawled Ravelry for over a week, peering into people's stashes and sending polite "Are you done with that? Can I have it?" messages, but to no avail. And I surely was not going to spend $6 on shipping and $8 on yarn to finish a scrap yarn project. But I fear that this time, I have gone too far. I pray to the goddesses of blocking for their intercession.

where did the time go?

Oh dear, it's March already!

It's been such a cold, gray, wet winter that I must have been fooling myself that it was still January or something. Today it's bright and sunny, and I ventured out into the garden for the first time this year (I can't even believe I'm saying this). There is so much to do! We haven't even set up the greenhouse yet! What will we eat this spring?

Of course, cold wet weather is perfect for both knitting and reading, which I've been doing plenty of. I'm working my way through a stack of Elizabeth Zimmerman's books, and they have me itching to knit big wooly things for me and HWWLLB.

I'm also knitting a Baby Surprise Jacket for the Little Pea (who else?). It's a totally addictive little knit, and I find myself unable to put it down. Unfortunately, I may be unable to finish it...



With at least 2/3 of the knitting done, I'm running out of yarn. This was supposed to be one of those fabulous projects where I use up a bunch of stash yarn - in this case some Cascade Siera left over from a long-ago project. I keep having to get up and rifle through the stash to find just one more little scrappy ball hiding in a corner... but I fear I am out of scrappy balls, and this sweater is not done. Now I must do the unthinkable, and buy a skein of yarn to finish the last few inches of a scrap yarn project.

HWWLLB does not understand what an utter defeat this is, and keeps saying, "Just go over to the yarn store!" Go to the yarn store??? Now I'll wind up spending $50 and coming home with a big bag of yarn I don't really need, to finish this one little scrap yarn project. Ah, well - there are worse problems to have. Like no lettuce this spring. The garden to-do list is calls!