A Valentine!

I got the best present for Valentines Day! A new niece. She was born at 4:04 in the morning after keeping her mommy up since Monday morning with contractions. She was 6#11oz and was 19.5" long and has bright red hair just like my sister. Her name is Alayah Corrin. Don't know where that came from... I haven't even seen pictures yet, and I'm feeling a bit impatient about that... I was supposed to go for the delivery, but naturally it was snowing and by the time she called I probably wouldn't have made it since it's at least a three hour drive. I only had one hour left of my shift at work (couldn't leave early since the ER was slammed) so I would have been lucky not to fall asleep driving too. We were planning on going to visit this weekend, but both of my boys have the stomach flu (there's a rather nasty strain of it in town right now we've seen tons in the ER) I don't really want to chance getting my sister or the baby sick, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

My other sister is scheduled to have a c-section on Monday. She doesn't know what she's having. Maybe it will be a boy. The balance of grandchildren is a little heavy on the girl side. The only boys are my twins, there are three girls now. My poor dad, first three daughters and no sons, then a bunch of girls for grandchildren. He loves Christmas shopping for my boys!

Knitting...I'll probably start on some baby stuff. I can't help it. I'm working on 9-5 socks for the Loopy Ewe KAL. I'm almost finished with the first one and I'm hoping I don't run out of yarn. There's still time to get in on the KAL. If you're on Ravelry search for it in groups and join us! I'm thinking about starting an afghan too. If I can get it done by the 26th... A really good traveling nurse at work is having to leave before her contract is up she has to leave due to a terribly ill mother in law. She's awesome and we'll miss her. She's hoping to be able to come back again, but I still want to do something for her. She's been incredibly kind and caring to everyone the entire time she's been with us, and she's always in a good mood and is tons of fun to work with.

What else am I knitting... I started on a Gathered Pullover from Interweave Knits and a Plain Vanilla Pullover from Knit Picks. Both for myself. I rarely knit anything other than socks for myself, so the sweaters will be a change. I have about two inches of the body done on each of them, I'll probably be knitting them next winter still.

My Loopy Swap partner Ellen got her package yesterday. She loves her Mingus socks and they fit her! I'm always so relieved when my swap partners get their packages and say they like them.

Time to go and do sick kid laundry and hang out the the poor little guys. My daughter doesn't have school today so she's home too- at least she isn't sick yet!

A Bunch Of Stuff

I know it's been a while since I've posted, let alone with pictures. Now I have pictures, well as many as I could take before my camera batteries died. So I've been knitting and signing myself up for more swaps. I can't help it. Plus I added a picture of the sock pattern I sold since it's available now!

Anyone who did HSKS3 should get their little wand wielding fingers over to the HSKS4 site and get signed up for this round. I just sent my information to the Headmistress this morning. Only 100 people get to join- hopefully some of my pals from last time will get in on it again! If you like knitting, swaps, and Harry Potter then this swap is loads of fun and you should join! I'm a Gryffindor again for this one. We're supposed to get house points for linking to the site with the logo/picture you see above. I, however am not cool enough to figure out precisely how one does that. So I posted the picture and links anyway, even though it probably won't count. Sorry Gryffindors!

I sort of improvised the pattern for these little Mary Jane booties for my little sisters baby. She's due in February, but her shower is Saturday. No baby with a knitting aunt can get away without wearing hand knits!

Vine lace hat for my sisters baby, to go with the little booties. Um, the baby is supposed to be a girl by the way...

I finished the blanket for my sisters baby too. It's a feather and fan pattern from a booklet for Encore baby blankets. I used Caron Simply Soft because I like it for babies. I used one strand of off white and two of soft pink held together throughout. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Plus I got it done in time for her shower this Saturday.

A close up detail of the stitch pattern on the blanket.

I started on the blanket for my other little sisters baby yesterday. This one's due in February too. So far so good. Too many babies...

Remember a while back when I said I sold a sock pattern, well here it is. They're called Library Socks and the pattern was written for Cherry Tree Hill. It's not for sale everywhere yet, but here's a link to where it is. I imagine it will be up on Cherry Tree Hills site soon. Maybe it will even be up on the Loopy Ewe since she carries Cherry Tree Hill yarns and patterns. The detail is hard to see in the picture, I think because the yarn is so dark, but it has cables and bobbles and all sorts of fun things to knit into them.

I was going to post pictures of the gift my awesome husband made me for Christmas, but that will have to wait for the camera batteries to charge. Maybe I'll have some finished socks to show you too. I have four pairs on needles, I'm even on the second sock on two pairs! I really have to get knitting on them because I have to knit my Loopy Swap partners gift too. I have the yarn narrowed down to two, but I have no idea what to knit for her. I want to do the perfect thing even though I know that's not going to happen!