Peer Pressure

I never felt pressured to use drugs, steal, cut school. The only "peer pressure" I felt was to keep my grades up. But that was nothing compared to the baby boom that is happening around me. I'm not sure if it's just specific to my circle, or more generalized to the broad world, but I can count more than 20 people who have had or are having babies this year! Craziness!

I've been working on a few small projects for these small people that are popping up, including this crocheted blanket which I mailed off to my friend Kathleen.



Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy Worsted
Pattern: Improvised (ravelry project page)

My crochet skills were a bit rusty, which resulted in a bit of gauge wonkiness for the first few inches of the blanket (see lower edge curving out in pic below), but hopefully baby won't notice! The pattern was improvised--simple and quick. The yarn seems like it will be a great baby yarn--soft, easy care. I hope that it holds up to multiple washes.



I've got another knit/crochet blanket or two in the works, plus this quilt that I'm making for my niece's 1st birthday. The pattern was adapted from something I saw online, and I'm working on free-motion quilting the top. I'm still climbing the FMQ learning curve, but things are going better and better.



I've also been working on some smaller items, most recently a baby surprise jacket and pebble vest that are each lacking buttons.



yarn: Schoppel-Wolle Crazy Zauberball
pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket (ravelry page)



yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed
pattern: Pebble (ravelry page)

Love the quick gratification of baby garments, especially these two, which don't look bigger than newborn size--seriously, they're so small! Now to find the best buttons for each, and perhaps to make coordinating booties/hats so that I'll have gifts all ready when I need them. :)

Self-fulfilling prophesy

Ugh. Of course! I wake up on my fake sick day actually feeling sick! Of course!! Grr. But I've loaded up on sudafed, claritin and advil, so hopefully I'll feel better by tomorrow morning when I'm off to Boston. I'm wondering if this is a trick of the mind. Last night the roommies were watching the House episode where House and Cuddy are on an airplane from Singapore and one person is actually sick and a bunch of others think they get sick but actually it's just mass hysteria, the mind making the body sick. Or it could be that I got such an butt-kicking at work yesterday that my immune system took a hit and one of those myriad germs crawling around the hospital got to me. Ugh. I just want to curl up in a ball.

But instead I'm knitting! Plugging away at my baby surprise jacket. I'm having a blast with garter stitch. I'm using some yarn that I dyed an odd purple-red-pink mix a while back.

But I did something on this project that I don't think I've ever done before: I dropped a stitch! This has happened before. But what hasn't happen: I didn't notice it until many many many inches later! Ugh. And the dropped stitch happened in the first inch of the project, which means it happened late at night when I was only half conscious, cruising away unthinkingly on garter stitch. I'm annoyed. Not sure what to do about it, either. I don't want to leave a big gap in the cast on edge. For now, I've just put a safey pin through the loose stitches in question. I'll deal with it when my head is less cloudy.

If I can get myself together enough to get out of the apartment, I'm going to go see the movie The Class. I'll let you know how it is. :)