Final Great Achievement of my 20s

I made socks!



I took a sock class in May at the Shabby Sheep with my friend Katie, because I'd always wanted to learn how to make socks, and we both thought this would be a great way to learn more knitting skills and gain a bit of confidence with trying more complicated projects.

I'm happy to report I didn't get "second sock syndrome," as they call it. I actually completed my pair. They're a little different because you're supposed to start them in exactly the same spot in the 'pattern' of the yarn so they'll stripe the same, but I was too lazy for that. And I think they look awesome anyway.

Gotta take a sock break but I think my goal for next year is to make another pair. One pair per year, I say. Of note, Katie has finished her class pair, a second pair, and is starting a third. Way to show me up.

Otherwise am busy getting the apartment in order for my visitors next weekend. It's nice to have friends who will travel for your birthday. XO, gals.

A swap

First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind comments, on the blog, on Flickr, via email, etc. I expected it would be difficult, and the whole thing has lived up to those expectations. Time heals I suppose. But gosh, it ain't happening in a hurry.

So what do I do when times are tough? Craft. Craft away, kids. I just packed up my friendship bracelet for Amy's bracelet swap. She read my mind, she did. I'd just picked out some thread colors at my local craft store because I was itching to make one. I was planning to blog about my love affair with these signs of those summer camp days of yore. (You know how I love camp.)

Next thing I knew, friendship bracelets were everywhere, and Amy had this splendid idea to swap them with new friends. I can't wait to see the one my secret friend made for me!



Also on the crafting front, check out my couch, in my soon-to-be-no-longer living room. There's a new addition there! Long ago (perhaps you remember), I was going on about how I wanted to take this awesome horse sweater I bought in Estonia and turn it into a pillow. I also recognized my skills in this area were pretty darn lacking, and I really didn't want to ruin it in a failed pillow-making attempt.

Meanwhile I'd started reading Alli's lovely blog One Pearl Button and was oohing and aahing over her astounding transformational skills when it came to old thrifted sweaters. So we worked out a deal, so-to-speak. A crafty blog swap. Except that I was making a specific request of her (turn my sweater into a pillow!) and she suggested I just surprise her in return( ... !).



I'd been admiring the Granny Square Slippers pattern on the Purl Bee for some time (oh I just love the Bee), and since I'd made myself a different pair of crocheted slippers just last fall, I decided this would be a great opportunity to try out this pattern and create a fun swap present for Alli. Ta daa!



Don't worry Alli, I washed 'em before I sent them! You can't help but try them on. I gathered up some other goodies for her and put them all in the mail. (Of note, it's so easy to shop for someone when they have a blog!) And in return I got a super-spiffy pillow to add to my sofa.



Wow, thanks Alli! I love love love it.

Alright, who's next?

The only reason

The only reason I haven't chopped all my hair off yet is because it looks better peeking out from under a hand-knit beanie.



Soon it'll be too warm to wear them. And then.. off it comes! These days, it starts to hit my shoulders and I start to freak.

But seriously, I'm super pumped about my hat.

What's going on?

Oh, not too much.



You?

Better watch out

I had another one of my utterly insane mornings today, so when afternoon rolled around, I got out to get some air. Air being, hanging out in Joann's. I had to pick up some size 8 DPNs, but then the magazine rack called to me as always. (Speaking of magazines, OMG Gourmet! Every time a great one like that goes down, my heart dies a little. Sigh.)

The November/December Crochet Today was out. I've never bought this mag in the past (I lean Interweave), but goodness, how cute is this stuff? And you know how much I love the Christmas. I know it's early, but we knitters and crocheters need to start planning now. The holidays will be here before you know it (if you're lucky).



I die. Honestly are these stockings not the cutest? I'm gonna make 'em, I am. Maybe not before Christmas, but they're on the list. It's gonna happen.



A little ripple blanket for your tree! Whee! Truth be told, I have a tree skirt I adore already, but this'll be a good pattern to have for when I someday move into a home with enough room for two trees. And one of them will be one of those antique silver ones. Oh it'll happen. All I need is a dining room. Or a study. Right now, I ain't working with much.



I want to start crocheting more ornaments. They make good gifts and will help me improve my amigurumi skillz. Kyuuto!



In these days of dying mags, kudos to Crochet Today for having me at hello with this issue. I love the styling of this cover and the retro theme. It's all so very BL, as we used to say. (Right Amy?) That's another one that bit the dust. Sigh. Hang on, you crazy magazine kids!

It was all yellow

Okay, here's that finished baby blanket.



The shower was a lot of fun, with lots of sweets. Like so many sweets, it could make your head explode. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I had a good time catching up with college friends on Saturday, talking about babies and our families and such, and then on Monday night, one of the friends' sister had a baby. And then, you know, the owner of this blanket is still on the way. And my step-sister is pregnant. See what I mean about the babies?? They're everywhere.



This is the Tiramisu blanket, a very popular pattern, except I adapt it so as not to have to weave in the ribbon. I think life is easier if mom can just throw a blanket in the wash (although, delicate cycle please). I don't like pink but my friend is very girly, so I embellished with a happy flower. It looks nice I think.

And now, to yellow deserts! I made this banana pudding a couple weeks ago and it was so huge and I just couldn't figure out how I'd eat it all. I brought some to work, I sent visitors home with plastic containers of it, I tried to give some to my neighbor. In the end, not a drop was wasted, but I think my waistline suffered the most for that.



We made banana pudding a lot when I was growing up. Although I think most of the time we cheated and bought a box of instant pudding and then slapped all the pieces together. It really doesn't take long when you do it that way, and obviously still tastes good. But really, making the pudding from scratch just takes a jiff, despite involving a few more ingredients. And it's even better - like, lick-the-pot good.

So last summer I had some banana pudding from a restaurant, but I can't remember the name. They brought in a huge tray to the magazine I was working for, and it was probably better than any other banana pudding I'd had, and it was clear the reason I enjoyed it so much was the liberal use of whipped cream. So when I was hunting for a recipe to make this from scratch, I chose this one because it involves folding that whipped cream right into the pudding before putting everything together. You just gained a pound reading that sentence, didn't you.

Banana Pudding
adapted from recipe found here, which was adapted from recipe found here

For whipped cream:
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I always use Mexican vanilla)
2 teaspoons sugar

For pudding:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups hot milk
3 large egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (yup, Mexican)

1 (12-ounce) box Nilla wafers
5 medium size ripe bananas, peeled and thinly sliced

Mix sugar, flour, and salt in a large heavy saucepan. Gradually stir in the hot milk with a whisk. Cook the mixture over moderate heat while stirring constantly until slightly thickened. Slowly stir approximately 1/4 cup of the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks to bring them up to temp. Next add the yolks to the hot mixture and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture is fully thickened to a custard-like consistency and coats a spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

While you let pudding cool to room temp, whip all ingredients for whipped cream to stiff peaks. Then fold 1/2 cup of the whipped cream into the pudding (oops, in re-reading this, just discovered I folded in 1/2 the whipped cream, rather than 1/2 cup! So just do whatever you like). Line a glass bowl or casserole dish with Nilla wafers, doing your best to get them up the sides. Alternately layer banana slices, pudding, and vanilla wafers, and end up with pudding on top, then spread remaining whipped cream over the top of all of it. Chill as long as you can stand it, then serve.

Share it with friends.

Busy fingers

I'm so close to finishing a gift for a baby shower I'm attending down in Houston this weekend. Just when I think I might be baby-free, another dear friend or loved one gets pregnant. And it's so easy (if a bit time-consuming) to craft something handmade, and it means ever so much to the recipient. At least, we makers of handmade things hope that it does.

I'm making a variation on this blanket for the shower this weekend.



Blankets are easy for these Texas babies, because they can be used nearly year round. Spread it on the floor and set them on top of it in the summer, or tuck it 'round them in the winter while they sleep. Alternatives being hats, booties, sweaters, etc., and no Texas baby is going to get a whole lot of use out of that.

So when a New York friend had a baby this spring, I was all set and determined to make it a little sweater. The winters go on forever there (or at least, it feels that way), so I know it will see some good use.



Its owner is named Luca and he's beautiful and cute as a button. I hope I get to meet him when I go visit my former city this fall. I'd never made anything with this many seams before - it did fry my brain a little. I dragged my feet and even more so when it came to simply sewing on the buttons - the last step. It seems I'd rather have yarn between my fingers than thread.



Although, if that's the case, I may not like my next endeavor as much: embroidery. I've been reading through this book lately, in preparation for starting my first projects.



I really think I'll love it though. It's a new way to make gifts or prettify things around my house. I want to have a whole stash of pillow cases like Alicia (geeze, I link to her blog a lot, don't I? Really though, that is one of my top five Alicia blog posts ever). I also want to make a set of days-of-the-week dishtowels (yeah, probably these) and swap them out for my raggedy, mismatched set. I'm finding that having pretty dishtowels makes kitchen time that much more fun.

Okay, must go watch SYTYCD now. I'm not going to say who I'm rooting for because frankly, I'm a bit torn. But they're all good eggs I think, so am hoping either way I'll be happy with the result.

Get excited

Yay. I whole-heartedly agree. Go forth.



Spotted on 20x200 today. Design by Matt Jones benefiting Creative Commons.

Album of the week this week is Blind Pilot. It's one I've been poking at for the last couple of months but only just got into it full throttle now (Andrew, Neko, and others have been postponing).

This morning on NPR, I heard that a good bit of the album was written in Astoria, Oregon, which made me think immediately of the post Alicia wrote all about Astoria, and how mystical and lovely and eerily evocative it is. Suddenly the album made perfect sense. Enjoy! And I'll get back to doing research on boring stuff I no longer care about. Yaaaay...?

Stuffed up

Happy spring! Well okay, still a couple weeks away or so. You wouldn't know, it's so warm here in Dallas. Just look at the hedges outside my building!



Look at all that happy new growth coming in! To celebrate the arrival of spring, I would like to has these, pls. Kthx.



Hrm, what else is new? I'm back from Chicago. I have a cold (brought back from Chicago). While there, I observed the one-year anniversary of my departure from New York. I've been gone a year. How sad. Luckily I was able to comfort myself by being in, well, Chicago. While I was standing on a train platform in the freezing cold, I could easily blur my eyes and pretend I was looking out over Astoria. Indeed I could.

Despite being a cold, cloudy, miserable several days weather-wise, I liked the windy city v. much. Just like New York but a good bit friendlier. And the hot dogs, oh, the hot dogs. In fact, they could have themselves a new citizen, but there's this whole winter problem that I wouldn't be able to handle. Winters up there are much worse than the ones in New York, and I could barely handle those. So they should really look into fixing that. Set the whole city up in a bubble half the year or something.

Oh, did you see I finally finished my Santa Lucia dolls? From the kit I bought from Alicia nearly a year and a half ago? Aren't they fine?



They're meant for the holiday season, but I work slow. I wish I had more time to make things like that. It was loads of fun. Especially painting their little faces. I hadn't picked up a paint brush, save to paint a wall or piece of furniture, since my high school art class days. Not too bad I think. Although the mouths on a few of them are a little shaky. Do you remember Phil Hartman on SNL dressed up as the German cross-dresser on the dating game show, with red lipstick smeared all over his face? I feel like that's a little of what happened here. They are girls though. Maybe they're not experts with the lipstick just yet.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm due to go blow my nose for the 983492837th time today.

When crafts attack

When crafts attack your coffee table, it might end up looking a bit like this.



Don't be afraid. The carnage is not as bad as it looks. Also you can click on the photo to get a breakdown of what all is going on there. It's a lot. I'm proud to say that today my coffee table is much improved, if not totally clear of the stuff. I did a big clean-up yesterday--mostly focused on cleaning the floors but everything got a little bit of tidying up. I love hardwoods, but damn, when it comes time to clean 'em, it's a pain. Swiffer to the rescue.

Now that all the holiday gifts are done, and baby gifts are almost done (next one's due in April, so I've got a short break), I was so very happy to bust out my ripple blanket again. I fully expected it to take a long time, so I don't rush it, and I set it aside when I need to. I love how it's always there, waiting in the wings for when I return. Plus it keeps my lap warm while I work. CJ loves it too.



I took that photo in Austin back when I was about to stop working on it for awhile, so it hasn't grown much since then. Just a few rows.. No rush, it seems to say.

This week at work has been keeping me so very busy. I hope that works in my favor when the layoffs come. If they come. When they come. Do we get to say "if" anymore in magazines? I still think one layoff per recession per person should be enough, and I've already gotten mine, so if I get another one, it just means the universe is out to get me.

Didn't have much time to browse the blogs, but I did get terribly addicted to this song. I think I'm a year behind on the Bon Iver bandwagon fun-times, but it is a lovely album, and "Flume" in particular, and it suits this time of year so much. Also it doesn't make much sense lyrics-wise, which I take no issue with, so long as the sound of the words and the music work together well. I think this is the primary idea behind Mr. Bird as well, which Paste magazine clearly didn't get.

Here's a choice snippet from their review:
"You might start by looking up the word radiolarian. The dictionary says it’s a protozoan. So you look up protozoan and learn that it’s a eukaryote. Before you know it you’re looking up organelle and cytoplasm and eventually end up with the word cell—you’re pretty sure that radiolarian isn’t a fancy way of saying cell, but you’re kind of pissed off that a lyric sent you on such a goose chase, plus, now you feel stupid and don’t even care what the word means anymore."

Dude. Why are you even stopping to look up the words anyway? I'm not against looking up words. I'm all for expanding the vocabulary. But if you gotta understand every word out of his mouth to enjoy the music, then Andrew Bird's just not for you. Do yourself a favor, put down the dictionary, and just listen, mmmkay? Geeze. These music reviewers today.

Oh, and also, today is this beautiful girl's birthday (seen here with her mom).



She's 8!! WTF, when did that happen? Oh my gosh, so big. Pls stop growing. Also, am sorry prezzie from your aunt is late. Should be arriving any day now I hope.

Farewell Mr. Potter

Did anyone else make this connection?




Surely I wasn't the only one. Or maybe I've just seen It's a Wonderful Life too many times. Yeah, maybe that's it.

My other takeaway from the inauguration fun times (aside from the fact that the whole day felt like the opening sequence to Sesame Street), is this groovy scarf that some muckety-muck was wearing on TV.



Isn't it cute? Sorta like a ripple blanket except long and narrow. And I like how it's striped but then there's a little surprise color at the end. Maybe I'll make one for next winter (tho in different colors). My one new scarf for the year. Because I have about 98273498 scarves already. Although this one is also in the running. But they're so different... Maybe I'll do both.

Yup, work on Tuesday was weird, hard to concentrate, and full of never-ending little thrills. Like hearing "President Obama" for the first time (and pretty much every time since). I feel like I'm living in some sort of alternate universe, like on 24 (except without all the carnage and torture, etc.). It still feels that otherworldly and surprising and unexpected. As if suddenly all your expectations were met. How often does that happen?

Plus, the man can bust a move. So if nothing else, we can be proud of him for that.



Is that a butt-bump he's doing there? God bless 'im.

As for my beloved friends and family who are perhaps not as excited about this as I am (not that you're not excited about a black president - we get it, you're not racist), I'm going to say this, and then we'll just agree to disagree and let it be. I hope, I really do, that you never feel half as alienated as I have at times during the past 6 or so years (the first two weren't that bad I guess). I hope you never feel as though a great portion of the country hates you and is out to take away your rights and those of your friends, and I hope your leader who you put your faith in never condescends to you and disappoints you at nearly every turn. All ribbing aside: it's a terrible feeling. Truly. So, I hope you never feel that. Because despite our opposing viewpoints, I do love you guys - you crazy, conservatives you! (Smooch!)

Oh, and before I go, I just want to say how excited I was to find out I won this book in the Holiday Kal-Cal this year! This was my first holidays to be a "crocheter/knitter" and I had lots of plans to make handmade gifts for friends and family. The Kal-Cal (that's knit-a-long-crochet-a-long for you yarn newbs) was a great way to keep track of those plans and share the results. I'll definitely do it again next year!

A few of the things I made for the holidays:



A crochet shawl for mom (pattern from here).



An LSU scarf for Mary Laura (though they had a crap-ass season, but there's always next year).



A washcloth for my sister-in-law (part of a set of four).

If you're on Ravelry (and you're into that sorta thing - that being all things yarn), I'm mandat on there. Making gifts by hand rocks. Speaking of, I better get back to that baby hat, ASAP. The babies, they just keep-a-comin'!

Flashback Fridays

These days, it's all washcloths, all the time. My sister-in-law is getting a stack from me as a joint Christmas/birthday present. My knitting skills are improving!



I got the pattern here - my SIL grew up in Louisiana. I've also made one with an "A" on it (for her name) and one with an apple, and plan to make one with hearts on it, and also one with an elephant, since she's currently living in Africa. Gotta hurry tho, Christmas is coming!

I used to love this movie as a kid. Seventies Disney at its best:



I think CJ needs a collar like that, don't you? Jake the cat from The Cat From Outer Space was such a badass.



Have a spiffy weekend kids. I'm off to buy a camera - merry Christmas to meeee!

Celebriteh

So I was (discreetly) catching up on some blogs today at work and got such a pleasant surprise, if a bit late. A photo of CJ won an honorable mention spot in Erika's dog photo contest! Yeah, I know, CJ's a cat, but cats were allowed to enter too. And CJ was the only cat to make the cut. He rocks!! I was so proud.

There were soooo many cute entrants. She put together a slide show of all of them - it went on forever, just one adorable dog and puppy photo after another, with a kitty thrown in here and there. I really am excited that my boy was in that top tier. What a bad ass. He's being very modest about it, of course. He gets some Greenies tonight fo sho.

Oh, and here's the picture. I didn't have to think twice of which one to send. I love this photo of him.



So one thing I'll say about Erika, other than that I love her blog, is that she's a huge proponent of adopting rescue/shelter animals, as am I. In fact, I recently bought this stamp to just put on the back of whatever's going into the mail these days.



It's from my new favorite etsy stamp store. You know me and the stamps. RubberHedgehog's area of expertise is animals. (They've also got a non-etsy store.) So of course you know what kind of stamp I was looking for that brought me to their shop. Uh huh, hello Christmas cards!!



I'd been trying to find a polar bear stamp and knew this one was it. Also purchased, for my sweet 7-year-old niece, is this adorable bookplate stamp.



It's going into her Christmas present, along with some Ramona books. I hope she loves them as much as I did. I also bought a hot pink ink pad for her. Nothing but the best for my pretty girl.

One last tidbit here before I go - what can you say about this photo? What can you not say? Just look at them.



1. I love the dress. Poor Laura's there in this frumpy brown thing and there's Michelle, a vision in perfectly tailored red. FYI it was made by her go-to girl, Chicago designer Maria Pinto.
2. This image says volumes about the years to come, doesn't it? The Obamas are just so young and modern and elegant and fresh and everything that the weary Bushes are not. Change is good. Change is so good.

I love it when...

...I hear strains of the national anthem coming from the other room. It means we're kicking some ass. RAWK.

This thing is part of what's keeping me sane.



It's my first knitting project ever. A scarf. Coming along nicely, no? I'm alternating between this and a crochet project that I'm not at liberty to discuss here. Yeah, so we'll just leave it at that.

I also watched The Outsiders last night. You ever seen that movie? So good. And so many handsome boys who have become even more handsome men... Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, and that kook Tom Cruise. I also busted out my old videotape of Speed. Are we noticing a trend here? Hey, if it works, it works.

I'm also waiting for Netflix to deliver disc 2 of season 1 of Mad Men. Sometimes Netflix gets my movie and turns it around in like a day and sometimes it takes forever. And, you know, I've got time to kill these days. When you don't have cable, your TV watching options are limited. --Oh.. just looked at their site - they're having issues this week. Well I guess that makes two of us.



Today I stopped into this huge estate sale to test out that buying and selling things theory (picture above wasn't taken there, but it works). I didn't find anything, but I did come out majorly depressed. As if I'm not already. But no really, this was truly the saddest. Scrapbooks from the 40s full of pictures of high school friends, ribbons and newspaper clippings all labeled with handwritten notes. Football game programs preserved and placed in plastic sleeves. Carefully compiled photo albums dating back to the 20s. Piles of discarded old family photos and portraits. Stacks of hand-written recipes and other favorites clipped out of newspapers and shoved into boxes. Just a whole mess of things that I couldn't believe were marked with price tags and up for the taking.

Maybe I'm too nostalgic, but I would give anything to have items like that from my grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. (A-E, that stash you have is such a treasure.) It just broke my heart. The whole mess of it did. I thought of buying up one of the scrapbooks, or one of the stacks - but they were just ridiculously expensive. Like $100. And for what? You're really going to put a price on memories at that point, when you've already decided they're not of any value to the family anymore (and aren't those the people they should be most valuable to)? Just doesn't make any sense. Oh well. Whole thing reminded me of when Alicia found those letters at the estate sale, and shared them with us. I think they sorta got to her too.

So, anyway, how obvious is it that Bob Costas wears a toupee?

Re-do

Not long now and I'll be headed for this lovely place.



I'm envisioning this particular spot on a sunny day - with my niece and nephew splashing in the water, and a gaggle of people eating watermelon, burgers and brats. Maybe potato salad too. Whatever. I'll eat it all. I'm bringing my own wine. Yes that white wine. I've already downed several bottles since returning to Austin. Why it was so hard to find in New York, I have no idea. But Central Market has cases of it.



Then later, once it has gotten dark, firecrackers from the dock. I remember a Fourth of July like this when I was young. I was the one splashing around in the water. It rarely came together like that so well. And of course, my grandparents won't be there this time. But I'm looking forward to it. Not so much the long drive, but, you know. Once I get there.

Since I'm leaving Thurs directly from work and since tomorrow night I'm going to the Fleet Foxes show (yes, those Fleet Foxes!!), I'm getting my last entry in now before the weekend. In between paragraphs, toenails get painted. You get the idea.

So I finally re-covered this little footstool I bought in May. It was simply a matter of finding my fabric. Once I did that, it was done that same afternoon. A recommendation from a crafty co-worker led to the wonder that is Ginger's Needlearts - this lovely little quilting and embroidery shop. And instantly I found exactly the fabric I wanted. Just like that.

So here's before:


Here's after:


And here's a closeup of that gorgeous fabric. To say I'm smitten with it would be an understatement. And so much better than the stuff that was on there, which was slightly sticky all over. Ew.



It's that lethal combination of blue, white, and orangey-red for me. I just swoon over it. And that's not burnt orange, mind you. Orangey-red. Like the color I'm putting on my toenails right now (Maybelline calls it "Racy Red"). It's actually a rather patriotic-looking combo, but that's not what I think of when I see it. I just think, "ooh, pretty."

Have a good Fourth everyone!

Crazytown Stampville

I've got a thing for stamps. It started last year, very mild. It's growing. And of course yesterday I stumble on the dangerous combination of Etsy + stamps. This equals a number of cool things, most notably Terbear Collectibles, which boldly proclaims itself the home of "the best custom made rubber stamps on Etsy." I'm in.


Handheld video game, Super Lucky Cat, Sparkling Diamond, Song Bird with Flowers.

This place has so many stamps. If you can think of it, they can make it. And things maybe you wouldn't have thought of too.


Double-Headed Eagle, Crying Kitty Cat, Snob Lady.

I'm toying with the idea of having them make a stamp for me. You get one guess as to what the stamp is an image of. I'm also thinking very seriously of having a stamp made for a friend who will soon be celebrating her birthday. It would be a custom return address stamp. She just bought a house not too long ago, and it's right up her alley (frequents card shops, collects teddy bears, gives gifts often consisting of bookmarks and tiny books full of cat quotes). Spot on.

I'd make one of these for myself, but I am doomed to always be renting and moving from one home to another like a penniless nomad. I'll just continue to collect those freebie return address stickers from places like the ASPCA or Veterans associations or somesuch, which I use freely without donating. Does this make me a bad person?

Okay, back on track here. This past weekend, I pretty much accomplished nothing except wasting huge amounts of valuable time and finishing this pillow. Woo! Were it not for the pillow, I'd be a lot more depressed about the weekend.



Here's the pattern. It was kind of a bear to work on, because you make piece after piece after piece and then after all that work you're left with a pile of pieces. Which you need to block. So not fun.



But when it starts to come together into one whole thing, it's very fulfilling. And sweet. I made a little flower to attach and also stuffed a sachet of dried lavender inside (which was collected off the stems of the fresh ones I bought at the Blanco Lavender Festival a couple weeks ago). So it smells dreamy. All along I was trying to decide who I was going to give this to, but now I just can't help but keep it. I'm too smitten with it to let it go.

By the way, if the yarn looks familiar, that's because it's leftover from the blanket I made for N's baby. Speaking of that blanket, it's owner finally arrived, and she's fabulous.



Hello pretty girl! You're going to be a heartbreaker.