Happy Hanukah (to those that celebrate)!  Today is also my 12 year anniversary with Yannick.  I know I’m not supposed to count it now that we’re married, but we we’ve been together almost 3x as long as we’ve been married so “December 1st” will always be a significant date in my head.

The knitting is coming along, it won’t be long before I have something I can show you (or before I start a new project) 🙂

The second knitting good news is more of a good surprise for me than for you…but I’ll share anyways- one of my patterns was chosen to be featured in this week’s Knit Picks email newsletter!

If you get the newsletter, my Felted Poker Coasters are the featured knitting gift “for men”.  🙂

If you don’t get the newsletter, you can see it online here.  There are some good gift ideas for holiday/gift knitting.

And my latest pattern is officially live!  I’ll share it tomorrow with full photos, but in the meantime here’s one last teaser/sneak peek for you:

Got two sets of knitting-related good news today!

First off, my latest Knit Picks pattern will be going live in the next few days! I’m so excited to get this pattern out to you!

Want a sneak peek?

I don’t want to give too much away before the big reveal but…

The second bit of knitting good news will be shared tomorrow…though some of you may find it out before I get a chance to post. Curious yet? 🙂

It’s been a long weekend! We didn’t even do anything that exciting until Sunday when the kids had two (!) birthday parties, but I still can barely remember what I did.
I finalized the design for half of my current KP project, and finished the first duplicate stitch bit (that I showed you last time). I think I’m going to run out of yarn, though. I try to be as conservative as possible when estimating how much I’ll need, but this time I think I fell short. I’ll have to email and ask for more.

I’m typing this from my phone as I lie on the floor in the den, still tangled in the sheets where I slept last night. Saturday night after dinner Yannick’s stomach started to bug him, and he was up all night so he spent the day in bed. I didn’t want to join him until he was feeling better and the sheets were changed, so once the boys were in bed I holed myself up in the den with my knitting and some tea and just kept going until I was too sleepy to knit any longer. Half of our couch (it’s an L shape) is at the Brick being repaired, so I figured it would be more comfy on the heated floor. It’s not bad, actually!

Since I can’t show you my knitting, I’ll share a silly iPhone pic I took about a week ago when I had both boys snuggled in my lap.

Well, after running around all day I ended up with almost all the parts needed for my car, and the oxygen monitor to put on Jakob tonight while he sleeps, so even though I didn’t make it in to work, I still feel quite productive. Plus driving Yannick’s car didn’t suck nearly as much as I’d thought it would.

Here’s a quick sneak peak at my next Knit Picks design:

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Yes, I'm cheating on my love- intarsia- with its cousin: duplicate stitch. And i don't feel guilty at all! I got a decent amount done tonight once the kids were in bed. I'm calling it a night early, though, 'cus a migraine is brewing and I'd like to fall asleep before it comes on.

What a day. Henri has been having some movement problems, and since June we’ve been doing tests to try and find out the cause. Today was another long day at the hospital. I’m really confident with the doctor we now have, though, even though the next few months will require many more tests.

By the time we got home Henri was 2 hours past his nap, and exhausted. I let him sleep then woke him about half an hour before suppertime. He was so sleepy that all he wanted to do was lie in my arms and cuddle…which was actually kinda nice after the rough day we’d had.

Tonight’s guild meeting was a welcome break at the end of a long day. Tanis of Tanis Fiber Arts was there, selling yarn and giving a little lecture on how she started and got where she is. Veronik Avery came back, and brought Robin Melanson, who was nice to meet. In all it was a great evening. That is, until I got home.

Yannick had been spending the night working on my car, cus some lady slammed on her breaks in front of me in the middle of turning a corner, causing me to hit her. We pulled over but it didn’t look like there was damage to either car, and the kids were with me, and when I went to check on them she told me she had to leave and she took off. Well tonight it turns out that there was more damage to my car than I’d thought, and now I have to spend tomorrow driving around in Yannick’s car (which I hate doing) buying all the expensive parts. This sucks.

To end on a more positive note, here’s the latest attempt at the daycare teacher gifts. It’s the Karaoke Mitts (you can find them on Ravelry…I don’t have the link handy). I’m following the patt though I had to go down a needle size as I got gauge with the 4.5mm as called for but the cuff itself was HUGE. I like what I’m getting with the 4mm. Also, instead of doing the mini twists as “k into back of 2nd st then into 1st, then drop both”, I’m doing “k2tog then k 1st st again, then drop both”.

It’s gone! Sent! The pattern that has been my focus for the last two months, and been sitting on one of the back-burners of my brain ever since I did the initial sample is finally going to be published!

I sent it off to Knit Picks today and hopefully within the next few weeks it will be available to you. What a relief!

I’m super proud of how it came out and I can’t wait to share it with you! In the meantime I will be working on another KP sample and getting started on the holiday mitts for the boy’s teachers.

PS this is my first blog post from my iPhone. Anyone know if there’s a way to include photos?

Nevermind- I think I got it. If this works, this is a photo of a side project I’m sneaking in…a swatch for my mom.

I’m so close I can taste it!  I just have a few photos to add in, a few more lines of text, a good proofread or two- and the pattern will be ready to put in the mail on Monday.  I’m so relieved to have it thisclose to being done.  Now I can move on and try to get more cleared off my plate.

After dinner tonight Henri and I did some coloring.  I colored in a page in Jakob’s dinosaur coloring book, then tore it out to give to him when he got home from my mom’s house.

I thought it was cute, and then I turned it around to see what was on the back…

A knitting dinosaur!  I think I’m keeping this one for me!  🙂

Out of nowhere this little memory popped into my head, and I wanted to share it before I forgot it again.

When Maaike and I went to Rhinebeck, the first thing we did on the first day of the festival was to visit the fleece auction.  The next thing after that was to bring the fleece that Maaike bought over to the Zeilinger Wool Co tent to give them the fiber to be processed, and then shipped home to Maaike.

Maaike was chatting with the Zeilinger guy about the fiber, the prep process, shipping to Canada, etc.  Then she asked how they could be sure she’d recieve the fiber from her fleece, and not that of someone else’s.

“We keep ’em seperated,” the Z dude replied.

There was a pause of about 2 seconds, then he, Maaike and I all burst into a spontaneous chant of:

“You gotta keep ’em seperated!  Duh nuh nuh nuh duh nuh nuh nuh duh nuh nuh nuh NUH!”

I can tell you this- I’d been planning this trip for a while.  I thought I had the whole weekend planned…but never did I think I’d be singing along in a random outbreak of Offspring at a sheep and wool festival.