Birthdays Galore

The gals in my family apparently like to get pregnant during a specific two-week period. There's an overabundance of Pisces in our family and I'm one of them. My cousin (mother of Caroline) has her birthday this Saturday. My mom's is on Monday. Mine and my cousin Joseph's birthday is on Wednesday. My brother's was two weeks ago, but he was two weeks premature, so you do the math. This makes for a happy and celebratory Sway with no money at the end of February.

This striped pullover I've been working on went into overdrive because I realized my parents will be seeing Caroline this weekend. This is a present for her and her mom. The pattern is from Rowan's Story Book of Little Knits, which is a beautifully presented pattern book with lots of gorgeous, wearable children's clothes. No Rowan 4-ply cotton anywhere close by, so I settled for the very very similar Dolce Amore from Filatura di Crosa.

One sleeve left to go and then seaming. I think I've become addicted to stripes. Stripes are fun! They're easy! Perfect combo for my poor overworked brain.

Also, Annie's has a wonderful relationship with Iris Schreier at Artyarns and she keeps sending us lovely colors of yarn. I don't know if this is available at other places, but it's the first time I've seen this color:

It's Ultramerino 4 and the color is a bit off here. The grays are right, but the "red" stripe is actually a deep hot pink/fuchsia. It makes me want to rock out.

Also, it is not a good thing to be in the vicinity of people who do other crafts. It makes you want to do them, too.

Instead of jumping into any crazy needlepoint and getting confoozled, I opted for this small makeup bag to stitch for my mom. She likes ladybugs. I don't think I'm very good at this (you can sort of see the canvas through my uneven stitches), but it's fun trying.

Ice, Ice, Baby

This week, winter weather finally decided it would show its face. Unfortunately, the snow hasn't been sticking and I am sad. I'm always sad when it's a snow-less winter. I'm one of those weird people who like blizzards. Maybe I should move to Minnesota, where apparently the temperature hit 40 below zero this week.

I've also been "under the weather." Muahaha. I caught bronchitis two weeks ago and shuffled miserably through a week of fever, chills, dizziness, and the coughing up of lungs. Haven't been that sick in ages. All I could do was fall asleep in front of the TV and pray desperately for the fever to break. I've decided Mucinex is maybe the most useless OTC medication I've ever ingested.

But now that I'm feeling better, thanks to much orange juice and sleep, here's a fine sprinkling of snow from my bedroom window. It ain't much of a view, but us NYC'ers make certain sacrifices.

My poor little camera just couldn't capture the snow as well as I wanted. It's okay. The camera can't help that it's poor and little.

It did, however, capture the ice that's forming on my window ledge.

I heart snow.

Unfortunately, that whole bronchitis issue also left me completely incapable of putting together sentences, walking without holding on to the wall, and picking up my needles. I did not knit for a week and a half straight.

When I picked up the needles again a few days ago, I realized my brain is still not 100% present and I cannot concentrate on anything other than stockinette. Can't do it. So it's the perfect time to make a little striped pullover for my toddler niece. (My family refers to all younger cousins and such as nieces and nephews. She's actually my cousin's daughter.)

It's cotton, since she lives in DC and it will not be very cold for long there. I'm not a huge fan of cotton, but I do see its strong points when it comes to knitting for small children.

I think Caroline needs a reward for drawing this masterpiece last week:

It's her interpretation of VeggieTales when Viking veggies fall into the water and call fo r help. I had no idea it was vegetables at first and was worried that she was drawing people drowning.

Pre-virus, I finished up the first Veronik sock:

Again, second sock syndrome is upon me.