Toddlers and Stash Don't Mix

I have made it through the first year of motherhood and seem to have emerged relatively unscathed. If only the same could be said for my knitting. Actually, the knitting is fine, it was just taking a hiatus while I learned what being sleep deprived really means and how to balance full time work with full time work (i.e., balancing paid work with non-paid-but-equally-demanding work).

I am proud to say that I am officially back. My needles are no longer lonely and my yarn is being loved once more. In fact, I made a hat last night. That's right, a whole grown-up sized hat complete with a pom-pom. It even turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Said hat was knit from a pattern out of my 2005 Knitting Project A Day calendar in RCY Soft Lux using size 8's. The RCY is nice and soft and is a lovely winter white color. What you can't see in the picture is that the yarn has a thin gold metallic thread running through it that adds just a hint of sparkle... perfect for a holiday winter hat.

Other things that I have been working on lately include:

Thumbless baby mitts (don't they just make you want to cry from cuteness!) and...

A scarf in a lovely heathered purple alpaca. This is the yarn that I bought for my very first knitting project years ago. I learned to knit with this yarn and produced a finished product that was, in a word, awful. It was a ribbed scarf that was knit with needles way too small for the yarn and a pattern that hid the loveliness of the texture. I frogged it and spent the last two years trying to figure out what this yarn wanted to be. Turns out, my scarf instinct was correct and this is the final product

The picture isn't the greatest but suffice it to say that the yarn is finally at peace.

There is more knitting going on too but I don't want to blow my load with my first post in a year so you will have to wait.

As for the title of this post, girlfriend has recently figured out how to open the plastic drawers where I store my yarn. Most of the time all she does is open the drawers and pet the yarn (we use the word "gentle" a lot in my house these days). Every once in a while though, her impulses get the better of her and suddenly there is yarn flying all over my home office. It makes quite a mess and takes a while to untangle the skeins (especially when she rips the labels off). Unfortunately, she thinks playing with my yarn is the most fun a girl could ever have, so there will be no keeping her out of it. Oh well, at least she has good instincts.

Cheers!