Why is that baby nekkid?

Today I wanted to be able to tell you how far along I got on the baby sweater. I had a plan. I had a 4 hour round trip car ride on Saturday, and figured I'd be able to knit most of the time both ways. I was already getting close to the end of the back, which would leave only the two fronts (I discovered a long time ago that I hate knitting sleeves. I cannot tell you how many short sleeve tops and tank tops got made in this house before I figured out that I should knit sleeves first.). Despite the fancy shmancy cable work and bobbles, this knitting does actually go pretty fast when, you know, I have needles and yarn in my hands instead of hiding in my backpack. So anyhow, I knew I'd finish the back and thought I might even be able to finish a front during the trip...especially if, as usually happens, we hit traffic (am I the only one who thinks naming a major highway The Parkway is just asking for trouble?). Lo, it was not to be. I was struck Friday with an enormous clogged duct (I promise I will not go into any details about expressing milk on this blog, and in fact will only mention it when it directly pertains to a knitting anecdote, as it does in this case. If you wanna know the gory details, go here.) which means that Friday night and Saturday I was really trying to pump as much as possible. Which means my knitting time in the truck turned in to pumping time in the truck.

Now, I can knit while I pump. I can even knit and read other knitting blogs while I pump. But that's at home in a nice comfortable easy chair that does not translate every tiny bump into the road into an attempt to injure me. My hands are occupied with holding everything as steady as possible while pumping in a moving vehicle. So no knitting. I did manage to steal enough time to finish the back, and today I managed to cast on one of the fronts and knit a couple of rows.

Actually, I cast it on twice. This is not my fault. One of the things I have been doing to distract myself from the pain of the clog and the fact that I was getting up every two hours Friday night is reading the Yarn Harlot's archives. I find them highly entertaining and very inspiring, as I'm sure you will if you have a knitterly bone in your body. However, they've begun causing problems for me. First, they make me giggle. A lot. There is also cackling, and occasionally howling. This made my darling husband, Chris, look at me very grumpily at 4am, as I was pumping (again) and he was up with the baby (again). The baby is funny, but not so much at 4am. The Yarn Harlot is funny all the time. Second, she mentioned and posted pictures of something called a Festival Shawl. I will not put pictures here or direct you to her pictures, because then you will want one, too. They are no longer available. Not even on eBay.

Then, as I was casting on the left front of the baby sweater -- which of course will later require me to pick up stitches and add a button band, which I hate doing -- I read a post in which the Harlot was doing the same thing. Only she had decided to just knit the damn button band while she knitted the rest of the sweater. So I thought Gee, I've only knitted two and a half rows of this, and I really do hate picking up and knitting -- I should try it her way! It is irrelevant that I had actually already thought of doing this and decided not to. I ripped the whole thing apart, moved the loop back, and cast on again. I had just barely enough yarn in my tail to get the correct number of stitches cast on again, with none left over for the included button band (must've moved the loop the wrong way). I decided it was an omen from the knitting gods and decided not to screw around with it. So you can clearly see that I would be almost halfway done with the first repeat if it weren't for the Yarn Harlot (no, I am not stalking her and I will not be mentioning her in every, or even most, posts).

Tonight during Deadwood I will be going through my patterns to find something to knit with this



It will be fast and simple, and I will replace my current mindless knitting (the aqua Sunburst sweater) with it, so the Becky Bean will have two sweaters from her mommy by fall. Oh, and I forgot to put the sweater I've been knitting for my husband for two years on my list of works in progress. We'll talk more about that next time.

posted by Laura Y. @ 5:14 PM