I’ll spare you all the gory details of how miserable it’s been at my house. Let me just say we’ve been ill, and go from there. (I’m beginning to wonder if there will ever, ever be a time when we are not ill, at least some of we, for any length of time, but I’m trying not to let myself think that way).

I wanted to address a couple of the comments that were left oh such a long time ago on my last entry about the boy’s sweater. First of all: thank you, yes, we think he’s pretty cute too. Secondly: Monkee, I’d have been bored to tears with one color and plain stockinette — and I didn’t want to spend all that time making something I knew I’d never put him in. I love the way this sweater looks, so I know it’s something he’ll get wear out of — and I didn’t get bored knitting it. Third, I’m really glad that I made an “in miniature” sweater before I decided to try and full size one — it gave me the confidence to just go ahead and do whatever I wanted to do with it, even if I wasn’t sure I could, and I wasn’t terrified about just how much time and labor would have been lost if I messed up.

Though I have a confession to make — all the ends are woven in, the zipper is basted into place — but I still haven’t sewn in the zipper. I borrowed my mother-in-law’s sewing machine to do it, but that was quite literally the first time I’d ever even touched a sewing machine, so I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing before I tackle the actual zipper in the actual sweater.

In other knitting news: I’m a good chunk of the way through Branching Out, and after casting on for the seventh time for Mother’s socks (the Retro Rib pattern from the Winter ‘04 Interweave Knits), I’ve made it through quite a bit of the leg of the first sock (trust me, it might not sound like much — but it’s progress). Both of these ventures were seriously endangered by the two-year-old. As everyone knows, when a house with a two-year-old in it is quiet, that’s bad news. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting in the office and noticed it was quiet. Sure enough, there was trouble. In a fit of supreme idiocy, I’d left both projects on the end table next to the couch. He pulled the needles out of both projects, and did a pretty good unraveling job on the socks. (Luckily, he apparently didn’t think it would be as much fun to unravel the scarf, for which I am inordinately thankful.) Since that was obviously not enough fun for one day, he then took my wooden DPNs from the socks, snapped each of them in half, and tried to feed them to the dog. Guinny munched for a moment, but decided they weren’t much of a treat.

Here are the culprits:

Oh well. My fault for leaving the stuff where he could get to it. In the end, it turned out okay. I was able to get the BO back on the needles and only lost two rows, which I thought was a minor miracle, and my husband actually voluntarily took me down to the LYS to buy DPNs to replace the ones that got broken. (He even encouraged me to buy a couple of extra sets, or sets of different sizes if I wanted to!) I did have to start over on the socks, but hey, by the seventh time I could do that in my sleep. (I’ve almost come to accept it as the natural order of things!)

So, pictures! I have a couple of pictures of both projects. First, the scarf. I am doing this in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, color 581, on size 8 needles.

Second, the socks. I am doing these in a yarn from Elann.com, Esprit Sock It To Me! Collection Esprit, in very bright red, (my mother really likes very bright red) on size 3 needles. It’s a sport weight yarn, so knitting on the size 3’s is giving me a pretty firm fabric which I like a lot. I tried this on lots of different sized needles, and this is what I was happiest with — plus it gives me close enough to the gauge in the Retro Rib pattern that I don’t have to do much fiddling with the math! So here are photos:

So those two things are pretty much the only things I’m actually working on right now. I’m very anxious to finish them so I can start working on something else. I’m very thrilled to report that I found a different purse to do for my mother, that she will be quite happy with and that won’t be nearly as boring to knit as the all garter stitch purse (in fact, it won’t be boring to knit at all, I’m pretty sure!): Via diagonale from the spring Knitty. I’m really looking forward to starting that.

My little sister’s best friend (who is also a good friend of mine) is going to have a baby in September, so I’m going to knit something for him. I haven’t decided what yet, but I need to get started soon!

And, finally, I’m going to make a shawl for myself from Meg Swanson’s A Gathering of Lace. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m going to pick one. In fact, I’ve about decided that I’m never again going to be without some kind of lace project on the needles. I am just having too much fun with Branching Out.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot to mention that I got stuff from my Knitty Secret Pal. She sent me some beautiful stitch markers and the stuff to make my own beautiful stitch markers quite some time ago, and just recently I got another box with great goodies — including some yummy mohair yarn from Jaeger, three balls of it! A gorgeous red and a lovely cream color. I feel spoiled, and I’m already browsing through books and online trying to figure out what I want to make with it! When I get a chance to play with my camera again, I’ll post photos. For now, my head is about to explode from looking at the screen, so I’m off.