Dear Friends,
How are you doing? It has been awhile so I've last written to you, but such is life these days. First and foremost, may I offer my deepest condolences for falling into an annonymous world of bloggers that never update- who wants to follow a starving feed? In the past two months, I have lost a family member, suffered through two ear infections with Sureya, cut off my internet at home because daycare, and not Netflix, is a necessity. Sureya started walking, and then turned one,is now beginning the joys of teething, and has been the only recipient of anything knit during this hiatus. (see the picture at the top? that is how life is right now- a blur with a smile in the middle)I am still working full time, and keeping up with housework has been tiring- I actually turned off the kitchen light the other night, saying something like "if I can't see them, then the dishes must not be there". Toddler logic I know, but it worked while I was sleeping.

On Small Business Saturday I went to my favorite yarn store in Shelton, Fancy Image Yarn, and picked up a baby legs kit, with a bonus Christmas hat kit gifted to us by dear Myra. I knit the baby legs kit into a hat that Sureya will receive at Christmas, and the Christmas hat was given to her for her birthday.

I have started and frogged two mittens for her as well, because after a chilling trip to the zoo for her birthday I realized that the little acrylic mittens she has DO NOT keep her fingers warm at all- thank goodness she was tucked into a stroller with wool blankets to keep her cozy. The mittens are a striped combination of leftover Malabrigo sock and leftover Fancy Image fingering, in a color combination I wouldn't normally use but sweet none the less. I did manage to pair up some knits- Sureya's knit sweater with her knit pumpkin hat- when we went to the pumpkin patch with her daycare(it was all of course covered with her rainjacket and hood, so no one but me knew it was there)

I am going to attempt to put in some pictures now, but all of this is being done from my smartphone and may not be very easy. (I am totally stealing wifi at my moms house now, so I can actually use my laptop)

Well friends, that concludes my pathetic attempt to make up for being completely absent for 2+ months....
Sincerely,
Procrastaknitter

PS- I made new stockings for Sureya and I so that we would have a matched pair

bi-craftual, and double digits

Sureya hit 10 months old yesterday, and to celebrate the occasion I crocheted her a hat. Yes, you read that correctly- procrastaKNITTER crocheted a hat. I needed to be able to make it while she was napping (okay, it took both the morning and the afternoon nap), and so I chose to crochet because I know that it is faster than knitting. I used up the end of yarn from her adorable striped sweater, and as you can see by the uneven holey-ness along the left side, I haven't yet figured out how to transition from single to double crochet smoothly.

I did however, come across this lovely little thing while cleaning out underneath Sureya's changing table-the last time I tried it on her it was too big, and now it *just* fits. (for some reason her eyes look blue in this picture, but I guarantee you they are still black as coal at midnight) Not that her backside needed any enhancement, but I still think the ruffles totally make the outfit work!

I am currently working on a green and yellow (Packers) striped hat for a friend of mine who has waited patiently for as long as I have known him and then finally gave up, bought the yarn, and brought it to my house. I figure after 10 or so years he has seen enough of my creations to know what he is getting, and the whole being allergic to wool issue made it hard for me to get just the right color in non-wool. It's probably better that he picked the colors himself, because you know how football fans are about getting just the right colors. Also, the thought of him going anywhere just to buy yarn made me smile enough that I had to knit it up into something!

P.S.
I am considering changing the name of this blog to something a little more appropriate like 'procrastaknitter has a baby and therefore has no more time for knitting or procrastinating', but I think that's too long of a title. You get the idea, right? I sadly had to inform one of my nephews yesterday that he may not actually get a hat from me this Christmas, since I don't even know what I am going to make for Sureya yet, let alone the 15 offspring of my siblings!

Sureya's Striped Sweater

No need to point out how long its been since I have shared anything...my darling daughter is still sleeping and I am here now! Yesterday, I finished knitting a sweater that I started in August. It was a super easy pattern, but life got in the way of me finishing it in a reasonable amount of time.

I know that it will fit Sureya right now, and for at least a couple of months. I began with the stitch counts from a Knitting Pure & Simple pattern for a Little Girl's Shrug, but used larger needles and in general deviated from everything but the stitch counts. I thought about making a hood as well, but instead opted for a stand-up collar since a hood would require so much more knitting! There is one buttonhole and the fronts overlap right now, but I was thinking that as she gets bigger I could sew in a zipper. {20 minute break, Sureya just woke up}
Details: size 8 needles, knit 18 month size, yarn is Bernat Mosaic in color Optimistic (see, even my yarn choices reflect my current knitting stage).

Sorry you only get to see Sureya in the sweater from the back, but everytime Sureya sees the camera she thinks she needs to hold it and I have dozens of pictures of her lunging forward with hands outstretched!
In life I am crossing my fingers for a new job that I recently applied for-in my hometown of Port Townsend! I moved to Olympia in 2006 to attend The Evergreen State College (go Geoducks!) and started working for Community Youth Services. Life and an awesome career with a great organization kept me here for the past 6 years, but now that I also have to consider Sureya's wellbeing I decided that being closer to family would be my goal. An opening in Juvenile Services was finally available, so I through my hat in the ring and am now waiting to hear back.
Wish me luck (in job AND knitting!)

Good Morning! It's been awhile, summer finally arrived in Washington and all of my free daylight time is taken up with baby, work, and playing outside, and then when I'm inside it's diaper washing, making baby food, and play. I have made nearly zero progress on the Citron shawlette in the past month, but I have knit one and a half teddy bears and an entire blanket (that I just frogged last night). I pointed out to a friend that I have not taken pictures of anything lately, except my daughter doing exceptional cute things 200 times a day. In fact, I pulled out my old SLR just last night, to find that the batteries were dead and I can't remember the last time I used it, nor can I recall what is on the full roll of film that is in the bottom of the camera bag. I love mystery developing! My best guess is Christmas 2010...
Wait, I lie. I totally finished the scrap scarf and spent two days sewing in all the ends-80+ in total! I also collected up many of the things I knit without having a plan for who they would be gifted to, with the intention of photographing them and listing them on Etsy. It's time for me to downsize and reassess my yarn/knit collection because Sureya is completely mobile and LOVES pulling yarn out of the boxes that are in her room. In the time it takes me to put away her laundry, she can completely tangle two bins of yarn and WIPs that are stored in photo boxes on her bookshelves.
Because I don't have any other pictures to share, here is Sureya working on her new favorite hobby

June-uary

goodness, it has been awhile! I could mention baby, single parent, full time work, school, and let you fill in the blanks....but it's the battlecry of all mothers everywhere-never enough time! My knitting has slowed down incredibly now that Sureya enjoys the reaction she gets from me when she pulls the yarn off the needles, or drools on pattern pages, but I am currently stumbling through the Citron shawl using Malabrigo Lace in the Burgandy colorway. I have read several reviews that say the shawl is small, but I do have two skeins of this yarn and am hoping to add enough length to at least cover my shoulders (or find someone to gift it to!). The weather has been too unpredictable to be enjoyable, but being stuck inside has made me want to sew, not knit-lots of new diapers were made, and lots of back burner projects were finally sewn together. I haven't even got pictures of anything to share, because that would mean that I need to remember to buy batteries for my camera...Hope everyone is enjoying their summer-what are YOU knitting?

Striped socks

These socks were started so long ago that I can't actually remember when. I was pregnant, so it was in the last 13 months they were started. I think there may even be a hospital/delivery room picture that includes the socks. Regardless, they are now done. I even slipped them on long enough to take one picture, seeing as how these are awesomely striped WOOL socks and the sun finally decided to shine on Western Washington-

I can't exactly perfect my Chaco top of the foot Z-strap tan if I am wearing wool socks. They were made from Stitch Nation Washable Ewe, knit on size 4,5, and 6 needles, loosely based on the Pricilla's Dream Socks pattern. I say loosely based on because I used her gauge chart to guess at how many stitches I should start with, but then I went crazy from there changing needles sizes to accomodate the fat and skinny parts of my ankles and feet, switching the short row toe for two different types (like I said, it was so long between knitting each sock, and I never take notes!) and I made the cuff significantly shorter, because people with cankles should never cuff their socks. Ever.
And once again, I will need at least two years to recuperate from knitting this pair and will only be able to knit small child socks because the time commitment is much less.
Now I am on a mission to figure out how to make my own knitting chart for the Washington State University logo, since my youngest brother was just accepted as of Friday. This means that I have at least four years to make something with the logo, and most likely it's gonna be a hat. I should just say that it will definitely be a hat. Also, it's his birthday TODAY. 18 years old! 8 years ago some overeducated unbelieving oncologist told my parents that he wouldn't live to 11 because his cancer was too advanced-and now he's going to college! I love him more than he would probably want me to tell the annonymous blogger world, but here's a picture of him with Sureya.

Happy Birthday Gabe!

As promised, here are some pictures of my little darling.

And wouldn't you know, I thumbed my nose at Mother Nature and she responded by sending the sun to 98368....but Sureya did wear her entire bunny suit for about 10 minutes.

Then she was stripped down to the sweater and the hat, because she wouldn't let go of the ears. Finally she ended in just the sweater, her tights, and a onesie.

This last pic is to give you an idea of why it is that I always talk about my nieces and my nephews-there is honestly a dozen+ of them! That's my step-dad Paul holding Sureya and Owen, and my Mom is on the left trying to tame Olivia with her Easter/Halloween bucket. It's a wonder that they can remember everyone's names!

I also finished knitting a bonnet that I keep forgetting to photograph, and I am down to the heel of the second sock-this pair might be done before the end of the month.

the Easter outfit

I finished knitting Sureya's Easter sweater. For the second time. The first one wasn't nearly as cute as the current one, and in her own spazzy little way, Sureya kind of chose the one that I am making. I was initially working on a bolero type sweater, an old Debbie Bliss pattern that I found online and it was taking FOREVER to finish. In my 7+ years of knitting I have learned many things, but the one thing that I always seem to ignore is whether or not I am really excited about a project. If I LOVE LUV love a project, I can't sleep until its done. If I am kind of ehh about a project, I let it sit in the project basket for months. That is what kind of what was happening with the first Easter sweater, 2 months in and still not done with a baby sweater? ridiculous, I know. But last week I was holding a sleepy Sureya and forcing myself to knit this sweater when the phone rang. Naturally, I moved the knitting to the same hand that was holding Sureya and answered the phone with the other hand. I was looking away and could feel Sureya wiggling about, but I was trying to see the calendar on the wall without getting out of the rocking chair. Well, my clever little darling was sliding the stitches one by one off the end of the needle with her tiny fingers, and using her foot to apply pressure to the dropped stitches to create some really giant ladders. Yes, she did it all on her own. I looked at the stitch marker swinging on one of the ladders, realized I didn't care, and then frogged the entire thing with a little help from the little one. Now, where is the rambling story going and how did Sureya choose the current sweater pattern, you ask? Well, ten minutes later we are standing in front of a bookcase where I am choosing a bedtime story for her while she is using her new-found grabbing powers to pull my knitting magazines off the other shelves. I watched them thud, and then flutter open to various pages-where I of course saw a cute simple little raglan that shows off the yarn more than the shaping-perfect for this bright Fancy Image yarn. And ta-da, the First Easter sweater was born!
As for the rest of her Easter outfit, we in Washington are often fooled by the Easter advertisements of adorable pastel Spring-ish dresses and tend to overlook the reality that it will probably rain, it likely rained the day before, and the temperature will never rise above 60. Dresses, tights and white shoes are a ridiculous way to dress a little girl who will likely be cold, wet, and muddy while hunting eggs-and what BABY needs all of that? Well, I have this old jacket that was ruined by bleach that I saved because of its awesome white faux fur interior-and this will become bunny pants for my little bunny.
Check back next week for pictures, I am only awake right now because I am waiting for Sureya's diapers in the washing machine....

knitting for a cause

I know it has only been 4 days since I last wrote (which is some sort of a record for me lately), but this deserved its own mention. I was sorting through work emails and noticed 'knit' in the subject line, which NEVER happens on work related email. Naturally, I opened the email and found information about a charity knitting opportunity-Click for Babies- knitting purple hats for babies to raise awareness about shaken baby syndrome. This is a subject that personally scares the hell out of me, because I can not imagine how tragic it would be to lose a child. I have had a couple of moments where I needed to put Sureya in her crib and go to the other room because I was overwhelmed by crying, and that is exactly the mission of this campaign- to remind parents and caregivers to walk away instead of get frustrated. Now I have a new goal-to knit at least 2 hats for them. What do you say, do you think you could knit or crochet a couple too?

I have a few pictures to share!

This is the sweater that I am almost done knitting for my cousin's baby, due in May- I just might finish it before he arrives!

This is a new yarn that I found at Port Hadlock yarn a couple of months ago, and will hopefully become a sweater for Sureya-it is SimpliWorsted by HiKoo

Here is Sureya wearing her tiny aviator hat- unfortunately she has almost outgrown it!

And this is the Cascade 220 Sport that will be another hat for Sureya, soon!

Now that I have finished fixing my car, and finally sent off my grad school application my free time will be saved for knitting!

ok, for reals now!

Here is actual proof of what I have completed in the last few weeks:

The scarf made it through 45 days before I needed to repeat a yarn-what that means, folks, is that I have at least 22 shades of green AND 22 shades of blue yarn stashed away in my house. Yes, stashbusting was a necessary evil.

The diaper cover is a bit too large for Sureya right now, but I loved knitting the yarn- it's the Stitch Nation full o' sheep from Red Heart Yarn. Not too scratchy, AWESOME colors, and super-economically priced- LOVE it...(and the pattern is super simple, just a triangle with ribbing added on to all sides)

I am still working on a shrug made with the Fancy Image yarn that Myra sent us back in December, and I have one of my socks finished, and I need to start a sweater for my cousin Lesly's baby-Mikey-to-be, and I have a newborn. She sleeps REALLY well during the daytime, while I am at work, according to the babysitter. When I am around, she apparently can't sleep.

oops, sorry!

I realize it has been more than a month since I posted anything, but here's the deal: newborn babies are VERY time consuming in the best possible way, and then my own kind of crazy made me throw in a return to work while applying to grad school at the same time. I still knit a couple of rows at time, and the scarf is only 4 days behind right now (evidence of my return to work, I'm sure)but until I figure out how to knit in my limited sleep, it will kind of take a back burner to everything else... kudos to those other single moms who can handle a newborn, full time work, and grad school at all at once!
In other completely unrelated news, I went to the pediatrician with Sureya today because I was utterly convinced that her congestion was life threatening (limited sleep, people, remember that) and we found out that she weighs 12 lbs 8 ozs as of today-thats up 3lbs3oz since birth and a perfectly acceptable weight for a 7 week old baby. To the unnamed doctor who told me that I wasn't producing enough breastmilk to sustain my baby and would need to supplement with formula-I accept your apology for making me cry for a week straight

Here's Sureya modeling her Maile sweater, before she outgrows it along with the pants! Thank you to my bestie Corinne of Corinne Hill Photography for taking the picture, and Nikki Van De Car for the pattern.

the "gross" scarf project

After 31 years of pretending I am not listening to her, I took one of my older sisters ideas and decided to improve upon it, me-style. She had suggested a knitting project where you knit one row each day for a year, ideally ending up with a lovely scarf by December 31st. Considering that a.) the world is supposed to end before then,b.)I can never knit just one row at a time, and c.) I have the worlds largest stash of mini balls of yarn, I decided to create a project that would satisfy all of these issues. Behold, the "gross" scarf project.

Start with sorting your stash. I chose to use green and blue, and grabbed my two already sorted ziploc baggies of odds and ends. Then ,I found an easy stitch pattern (Feather and Fan), and started knitting. Because I am doing two 18-stitch repeats of a four-row pattern, I end up knitting 144 stitches a day-thus the name.
Here is the pattern I am using, adapted from the Yarn Lady:

Cast on 36 stitches using size 9 (5.5 mm)needles
Row 1&2: Knit
Row 3: K2tog 3 times, (YO, K1 6 times) K2tog 3 times; repeat
Row 4: Knit

I am changing colors each day, and the plan is to knit until I have used up my yarn. There you have it, the "gross" scarf project.

So far, I love the scarf. It is simple enough to knit without a pattern and I have time to squeeze in the rows while Sureya is in a boob-milk-coma on my lap (she drinks until she passes out, with her eyes open and a milky grin on her face). She doesn't even seem to mind the yarn ends tickling her face.

Apparently, scarves were on the brain in our family, because my cousin Jenn also just posted her scarf project. {Maybe she will want to try my scarf pattern instead}

I will post pictures as I knit along, and feel free to share your pictures if you decide to make the same!
P.S. Please don't ask me what yarns I am using-I suck at remembering to save the labels with the yarns.

In case you hadn't figured it out.....

Sureya Maile officially made ME part of a WE on December 14th, at 231 in the afternoon. She thought about showing up on the 13th, but 35 hours after the contractions began, she was ready to get the show on the road. She didnt waste any time once I began pushing with the contractions, because she arrived in 30 minutes, delivered by the emergency oncall doctor since my own doctor (whom had been in the room an hour before)didn't think she was ready...we showed that doctor that once we commit, we deliver!
Obviously every other part of my life stopped as soon as my little angel showed up, and I now know that I can go 14 days without knitting. And to top it off, the only thing I have knit is another hat for Sureya! She is just 18 days old, and I don't remember who I was before her- she is amazing, my greatest creation

Happy New Year to you and yours, from me and mine!

P.S.
My sister just suggested an idea for 2012- a scarf that you knit, one row a day, using random scraps of yarn -perfect for busy moms who need to do some stash busting....