Some progress

I have been knitting, really! Just not blogging much about it. I started the Placed Cable Aran from Fall 2007 IK a couple of weeks ago. It's progressing nicely. Above you can see the cable detail which I think is looking lovely. The yarn I'm using for this was a heavily discounted and discontinued yarn I picked up from WEBS for something like $2 a ball. It's Knit One, Crochet Too Angora Soft. The yarn has a cabled construction to it, or at least I think that's what it is since I can't seem to figure out how to coax the plies back together once I stab the yarn and random bits of it come undone.

And yes, there are lots of modifications afoot. I won't bore you with details yet - that's for a later post. But what I AM worried about right now is the cowl neck. Given the fit of the rest of the sweater, is it looking a bit, um, large? Guh... this picture could just as well be my pre-booking mug shot.
I went to see the Yarn Harlot speak at the central library over the weekend. Good good stuff. I failed at taking any pictures at all, so for more pictures and write-ups, go check out Teresa - who modelled a very cute and very new FO for the event, Mary - please go tell her she does NOT have a whale stomach, or Jillian - who for some reason I had expected to see bring about 30 FO's with her given the dizzying speed with which she seems to be finishing projects these days.

That's all for now! Before you go though, BB sends farewell kisses to all who visit chez Spaz. Have a great week!

Ready she ain't

So generally whenever presented with a brand new baby to ogle, people try to hand the baby over to me. Some think this will make me want one more, I guess. Usually, I end up making a face that makes it fairly clear that this is the worst possible idea. It looks a bit like this:
Or if you're lucky and I managed to take the baby and get it AND me reasonably comfortable and not crying, I might still look like What the heck am I supposed to do with this now? For example:
But then a miracle occurred this weekend and I managed to actually hold BB and he didn't cry the whole time. Actually, we managed to spend a bit of time checking each other out. I'm probably biased, but I think he's really darned cute. This is also the FO picture I had promised for the Harvey Sweater. In case anyone is curious, I measured BB and his chest is about 14 inches, he's 3 weeks old and weighs about 9 pounds and the newborn sized sweater fits really quite nicely with some room to spare.


Also this weekend, I made a bit more progress on the TYC. The sleeves were joined, and the underarm stitches grafted and ends so far woven in. And then I hit the wall. I zoomed through the 3 inches of yoke (half a ball!) and then came to a screeching halt once I arrived at the chart. It took me a whopping 2.5 hours to do 2 rows of the chart (and one of those rows was just purling). My advice is to look at the chart carefully. I missed a knit stitch in between the two cable crossings on the first row of the chart and so had to tink back half the row. Add on to that the fact that I had an extremely hard time cabling without a cable needle with the 1 into 5 increase stitches and that's how you get one row taking 2 hours. Guh. I just hope that the rest of the chart doesn't take near as long...

At least it looks like it's fitting so far...

Okay, you can puke now

from all of the cutesy baby pictures that follow. But hey, I can't help it, I want to see more of BB at least virtually since I can't be there in reality for another two weeks.

So I present you with the cutest knitwear model of the year (a bit pinker now that last week's jaundice has subsided):
Grandma and grandpa also like to get in on the cute action:

And dear brother - he looks like he's a bit jealous of his wife's pregnancy, dontcha think?
There would be actual knitting content, but let's face it, even knitters prefer cute baby pictures over boring WIP pictures. Quickly though, I finished one baby sweater, am 99% done with another, turned the heel on a pair of Anastasia socks, and need to rip back on a pair of grey socks now that I know the recipient's correct shoe size. I'm also likely to cast on the tangled yoke cardigan from IK Fall 2007 and maybe even the summer sky pattern from August Magknits, both because I have stuff in the stash that I can use for these. Never mind that I just bought like 4 bags of yarn for projects for lace style. Oh, knitters are a fickle bunch...

On names, part 2

I did get a chance to visit with my grandparents last week and get a bit more information out of them about names. Turns out that they gave DH a name while they were on a naming roll after successfully coming up with something quite nice for Baby Buddha.

So for DH, they gave him the name Wang-Aun. Which when I first asked what it meant, my mother told me, well Wang, that's just a name. And Aun, well that means "peace". Which yields - that's right - peaceful wang. I'll tell you what... DH certainly is no peaceful wang. If anything, that wang is pretty darned aggressive.

But then my grandparents clarified that Wang can be translated into Brilliant - not like supa smaht or anything, but more of the "awesome" variety as one might observe in England. I like that much better, Brilliant Peace.

Does your name have any special meaning?

That's right... it's auntie spaz to you

And I must say... my nephew has just the cutest little buddha face I've ever seen. Baby Buddha was born early early early on Wednesday morning about 10 days early.

And the best thing about a brand new baby? Little baby toes... I can make socks for those pretty quickly, right?

on babies and names

Since I have absolutely nothing to show you today as my Sahara is still blocking (yes, I finished it on Saturday - I had a bit of a knitting binge while DH was away last week), I have only one random thought to share. Babies are freaking everywhere.

First of all, I'd like to give a little plug for my friend Peggy who is trying to start a career as a doula. I had no idea what a doula was before Peggy started talking about it, but they sound like great resources for expectant mothers. I'd also have to say that Peggy is probably the best person to have around when you're giving birth because, let's face it, having your nether parts exposed to strangers as you're in the worst pain you could imagine leaves no room for niceties. Peggy is one of the straightest talking people I've met, with a real warmth to boot, so I think this combination will serve her well in this chosen career. Go check out her website, Little Bird Birth.

Next, my brother and sister-in-law are nearing the arrival of my nephew. They're either undecided on a name, or being secretive about it as they haven't shared anything with me. The closest thing I have to a name for him is the name my grandfather gave him. See, my grandfather on my dad's side gets to name all the kids who have his name. So what's his name? Well, for lack of being able to spell in Chinese, it's Wah-Sun. Or as my parents would say, Watson. Good thing that's going to relegated to middle name status or this poor kid will end up with too many Sherlock jabs. As with all Chinese names, there is a literal meaning - his name means something along the lines of "problem-free Chinese person". Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, eh? But hey, that's a whole lot better than the literal translation of my Chinese name, "precious flower peasant". ugh, I'll stick with Jen thanks.

She returns!

and you thought I'd been swept away by an albatross...

no, no, just off on my honeymoon. In case I didn't mention it before or you hadn't gleaned it from my last post, DH and I took a delayed honeymoon to the bottom of the planet where we drove around a lot on the wrong side of the road, stalked wildlife, sheep and people's dogs, laughed at roadsigns and billboards, hid from the sun, fell for all the tourist traps and otherwise had a grand old time. I'll be slowly posting the highlights from our Kiwi adventure over the next few days (weeks? I hope for your sake not...) so be forewarned that I'm going to hijack this knitting blog for some travel pr0n.

But before I dive in, I should mention that I did manage to finish 3 projects since last we left off. I just don't have any progress pics to show you and everything's wet still from blocking, so watch this space for a cute baby sweater, some quickie socks, and finally polishing off the g-ma socks.

Auckland Dec 25-27

DH and I left on Dec 23, lost Christmas eve somewhere over the Pacific and landed in Auckland on Dec 25. We figured that we'd go with the good old standby for Christmas evening of Chinese food and a movie, but we found out that Kiwis really do take their Christmas holiday seriously and completely close up. So we took our loopy sleep deprived selves for a walk about the city center and marveled at the funny sounding signage: "Dogs on Lead", "Beware of trucks maneuvering", and "Park and Display" (which immediately brought images of Hugh Grant and Divine Brown to mind).

The next day, we met up with a friend of a friend for some Boxing Day fun. We took the ferry out to Rangitoto but we might as well have arrived at some beautiful deserted island in the middle of the Pacific. Lush greenery around and some of the best views of Auckland to behold:

Okay, from the top there were definitely beautiful views of Auckland, but I have a thing for lighthouses.

We then rewarded ourselves after the 3 hour hike (boy does that cure jet lag!) with a visit to a Belgian beer cafe. Belgium is known for its mussels, and so is New Zealand for their green-lipped variety, so we went for two pots of steamers there. The waiter was so apologetic for the mixup with our order that they decided not to charge us for the drinks we had and brought another round, supersized, again for free. I think DH had almost a liter of free Lefft Dark, so he was happy. I was happy with the Texas sized mussels:

We were told that it's actually illegal to pull anything out of the water less than 4 inches there, so apparently this is normal. If I were home, I'd be wary of eating anything this large for fear of toxic waste contamination causing the mutant gargantuanism, but hey, this is New Zealand, nobody lives here to dump anything in the water!

We toured 2 of the extinct volcanoes that make up the seven hills of Auckland and discovered that Kiwis are a practical bunch. Not only do they use their public spaces as park land, but they also use it as farm land. I was very pleased to see the bovine and other inhabitants of the park:

The next day, we explored the city to check out the various churches and their stained glass windows. Then we ventured out to the Waitakere area to hit the black sand beach. I guess these beaches aren't exactly LA beaches where people hang out all day basking in the sun:

Next up: Christchurch

Post-Script: If you're still reading this, then you must be truly interested in my ramblings. So I have more to share. Turns out DH's brother popped the question to his girlfriend while we were away! We're extremely excited for the two of them and cannot wait to see them wed. They are a loving couple and very good for each other. We wish them all the happiness in the world.

Post-Post Script: My brother announced to me yesterday that he and his wife are expecting! So I guess that makes me an auntie-to-be, and one crazy busy knitter. I have burp cloths, blankets, bibs, sweaters, hats, booties, and toys all lined up, so get ready to see a whole lotta dishcloth cotton at Chez Spaz. Just don't tell DH that it also means a few more trips to Michael's since dishcloth cotton is hard to find round here. Unless you think babies will like the scratchy tweed?