Shoes To Fill

Right-0, so the knitting project is going terribly. Despite having knitted a gauge swatch (I am so virtuous), I felt like the fabric was a bit too loose as I was knitting, The measurement for the cuff was over an inch under what the pattern called for, which seemed about right to me since the hem and cuffs needed to be blocked anyway. But then, as I finished the decreases and measured the bicep circumference, it came out an inch too big. Huh? Then I checked the gauge of the piece and found that I was knitting 5 more sts to the inch than it called for. So much for my swatch-making abilities. Still, I'm perplexed by the cuff too small/bicep too big dichotomy. I frogged it and will leave it alone for a little while because I have baby shower craftiness to get to. Oh, and as a mental note to myself: buy a ball winder. I never understood why people couldn't just wind a ball of yarn themselves (this is relaxing to me, and sometimes involves Andrew holding the skein - bonus bonding time), until I tried to wind 1200 yards of lace-weight yarn. Oh, now I get it.

Since I don't have anything to show for the last few days of knitting, here are the house slippers I made a little while back. My shoes came out a little small, which might be that I just wasn't being super-duper particular about maintaining perfect seam allowances, or because I put a few extra layers of felt batting in between the sole pieces to give a little cushioning. I am going to make a bunch more of these in different sizes, so my friends can wander around my house without the embarrassment of showing their holey socks (which is nothing to be ashamed about, I have my fair share of holey socks too).
And this is my first pair of baby booties. I have to admit the whole idea of there being a baby in the house in a few months still seems quite abstract. True, I go to the birth center every week for appointments and they hook me up to a machine that confirms that the being inside me that visibly makes my belly move around does indeed have a heartbeat, and true, my naval is almost gone and I can't reach the plates in the the cupboards because my belly can't clear the counter...but still, a real, live BABY? It's all a bit weird.

I ordered a bunch of really cute baby bootie patterns over here and then bought craploads of fusible felt interfacing that will last me for approximately eighty thousand more baby booties. Needless to say, this will probably be the baby shower handmade gift of choice for me for a while. Anyway, they were pretty easy to make, except for some tight turns which required a little finesse. I've already cut out some fabric for a few more pairs, and this time I've cut the fabric for the inserts a little smaller. The inserts I made for this first pair fit in, but they are a teeny bit bulky so I'll see if scaling them down a bit makes them fit better. Andrew picked out the fabric for these, which was a nice way to involve him in the process. I think I'll have him pick out fabrics for my projects more often, it adds a level of surprise and it's one less thing for me to obsess about...

It wasn't until I flipped these shoes right-side out and saw them as little booties that the reality of tiny little feet coming into the house seemed more grasp-able. What is about shoes that gives us such a strong image of a human being occupying them. If the news shoes the wreck of some disaster and I see a glove or a jacket strewn about I can generally handle it...if they show an empty shoe, I can't deal...what's that about?

Yarn, finally!

I ordered some yarn for this project from IK knits a while back. I found the substitute and colorway that I wanted, but had some trouble finding a source that still had it in stock. In the end, I ordered it and it got backordered and I sat around moping for a while. I didn't start any other knitting project, just moped. My recent adventures in frogging every single UFO I had laying around (the rewound yarn filled an entire large-ish tote bag) have made me wary (for now) of starting a project that I don't really love. Of course, I already have a great pair of socks that I was working on that I don't have enough yarn for and I don't yet have the heart to rip out (UFO #1), a brown cardi that I was working on a while back which I didn't frog because it felt too soon, but it's already too far in the past that I don't really remember where I left off (UFO #2), and something in a green linen tape yarn that I found the other day that escaped my frogging whirlwind (UFO #3), but who's counting?

Anyhoo, tired of moping about my lack of a pretty laceweight yarn, I went searching on etsy and found this lovely lavender skein from PennyRose Yarns. It was in stock, came quickly, and is a whopping 1200 yards, so I'm good to go. I'm not usually a lavender-wearing person, but being on bedrest has made me long for some pretty colors around me - - which explains why poor Andrew is perpetually asked to bring me a new bunch of tulips when the old ones peter out, even though there are 50 million other more important things he could be doing with his time. Anyway, I'm going back to bed, this time with yarn and needles, and I'm casting on. Look out!