Start-itis

Or maybe it should be Can't-Start-itis?

I haven't been knitting anything for about a week now. I just can't seem to do it. I do have a few WIPs, but I'm not really interested in them at the moment. I have so many things I WANT to knit, that it seems to be stifling my ability to actually knit anything.

I REALLY want to knit a pair of socks. But I'm reluctant because of sizing issues with my big clod-hoppers.

I NEED to knit F some soakers and shorties. But I have to swatch and do some calculations first, so that's putting me off.

I did think I'd knit some Christmas gifts. Bought the yarn and everything. But the pattern was boring me to tears, and the yarn was not very nice to knit with. So I ripped it.

I have picked up my Sassymetrical a few times, but again, it's not exciting me as the pattern is quite boring, so I get a few rows done and then I lose interest.

I did finish these a few weeks ago.



Pattern is Baby Monkey Socks, and I love it. They were a lot of fun to knit. Of course each time I put them on F she promptly rips them off and tries to eat them.

Maybe I've got knitting burn-out LOL Could be also that we had a joint birthday party for the boys last weekend with 19 kids here and a magic show, which was quite stressful. Well, the lead-up was quite stressful. The party was lots of fun.

Here they are with their cakes.




I made them. L's was supposed to be a dragon, and does look exactly as the picture in the book looks, apart from dragon spikes. Which I think actually MAKE it the dragon, so not sure what it does look like without them. But he liked it and was happy with it so that's the main thing. I think it's pretty obvious what M's is supposed to be LOL He's not actually 3 yet - that will happen next week, but I wasn't throwing two parties so he got to celebrate early. And it took the sting out of L receiving gifts from us, while he got nothing LOL Well, not nothing - he got gifts on the day from friends, but he'll have to wait til next week for gifts from us.

Then we can start thinking about Christmas.

I think he's got the message

We don't smoke. In fact I've never even tried smoking. But both my parents smoke. Well, my Dad did, but it eventually killed him. My mother, she continues to poison herself regardless. Anyway, we've always pointed out to L that smoking isn't good. And he knows Nana smokes. He takes every opportunity to advise her on the dangers of smoking, and of course he does this in a way that only a 5yo could do LOL You know, by telling her SHE'S GOING TO DIE! if she doens't stop smoking. Subtle.

So for reasons I cannot remember at this point, a conversation about smoking ensued in the car yesterday. Of course that conversation turned to Nana. This was L's new suggestion....

L: I know, let's hang a sign on Nana that says...

SMOKING DANGER!!!

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!!!

Me: "Ummm.. I don't think Nana will be too happy with that L", followed by stifled guffaws and pants-wetting in the front seat.

Lucky I was pulling into a parking space and not continuing to drive on the road at this point.

Ahh.. kids LOL

Happy Fluffy Mail Day To Me!

Look what my parcel man delivered for me this morning....



It's the much-coveted (by me at least!) Fairy Bread colourway on Four Bags Full merino!! I need a dancing smilie to pop in here LOL I was so disappointed when I missed out on at least one skein of this at Elissa's last stocking - my hyena skills have really waned lately. I made up for it the next morning with the purchase of something else from her store though!

Wow, I can't believe it! Thanks so much Elissa :) I have no idea what I'll make with it yet, but I have 200gms so will have to have a good think about it. Something for F I'm sure.

Oh, and to my PIF recipient - I haven't forgotten about you :)

I'm not a stalker.... really.

Although you could be forgiven for thinking that I am LOL Especially if you read this blog.

If you don't, well then you should! Kelly makes some beautiful things, and I'm just going to defend myself by saying that I would have found all of the patterns myself eventually, and wanted to knit them anyway. She's just a faster (better) knitter than me and gets there first! LOL And really, why do all the hard work of searching for patterns etc, when I can just surf blogs and ravelry queues and let everyone else do the legwork for me?!

And so here is my Rose of Sharon....




This was so much fun to knit and I really, really, really heart this EcoBamboo. It can be a little bit splitty, and it's quite slippery so I had a hard time keeping it on the nickel knit picks (the Harmony tips gripped it much better), but it is just so lovely to knit with, and the finished objects feel so silky to touch. Even my DH likes touching it! and he usually just calls me a knit-wit and rolls his eyes, when I gush over yarn LOL I've got a bunch more in cherry which I'm going to use for something for myself (stalker alert again - Kelly's already done one of them LOL).

And I just have one word for this colourway (Macadamia, btw) - CREAMY! Oh my, I just wanted to get myself a big bag of chocolate-coated macadamias and devour them while I was knitting this! I'm not sure if this was the intent of the colourway, but if it was then it worked! I've got about a ball and a half of it left, so I'll have to find something I can knit for F that will match the hat.

In other knitting news, I've been knitting up some more dishcloths. Great instant-gratification projects and useful too. Although they still aren't making me love doing the dishes any more than I did before.

Boo!

Happy Halloween (for those of you who celebrate it of course). We don't really, but with DH being from the good ol' USofA and all, I think he kind of misses it. Esp now that the boys are getting to the ages where he'd normally be dressing them up and taking them out trick or treating. We do get a few trick or treaters around here, but sadly most of them don't even make the effort to dress up, they just come around with bags and expect lollies. Anyone not dressed up this year is getting nothing from this house!

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. L's school has a casual day today, and being Halloween they decided to have an "All Things Scary" theme. L originally wanted to be a pirate, and knowing his penchant for dressing up (he doesn't have one) and the fact that the pirate costume we do have, (a) he's refused to wear for the original purpose we bought it for back when we bought it, (b) is slightly feminine IMO and (c) probably likely to not even make it past the first morning bell, or even be put on at all, I decided to talk him into something else.

This is what I came up with:







I knit the spiders with some left-over yarn, drew on the spiderwebs with some fabric dye sticks, then sewed the spiders on to the tee last night. It looks pretty cool if I do say so myself. L was very excited. First thing he said this morning was "Where's my special t-shirt?" LOL

Some little &*&^%$ at school came up and told L that his tee wasn't that scary (in a not very nice manner :( ) but luckily L didn't seem too phased by it and one of the other mums standing near by assured him that it was quite scary LOL A couple of the kids turned up with quite scary, gruesome looking masks on, which IMO was a bit much - werewolves, some weird squid-like thing, and zombie type masks - which scared L's best friend (Batman) so much that he was standing in the corner hiding his face in his hat, and then when they tried to take a class photo, L wouldn't get in it and ended up in tears because of the scary masks! Hopefully he'll be ok for the rest of the day and we won't have nightmares tonight.

Have to make another tee today for M, who was a bit put-out this morning to discover that I hadn't made one for him.

One fish, Two fish....

These were super-quick and a lot of fun to make. I cast the navy one on at around 10pm last night (right after I finished the other one) and this morning just finished off the head and put on the eye. I'll be making more of these as gifts I think. so cute!




And my first ever dishcloth - Chinese Waves. This only took two days to finish. Really easy pattern and it's already been put to use in the kitchen. DH seems to like it - but don't think it's going to get either of us to be more enthusiastic about the dishes LOL





I must say I know what people mean now when they say knitting with cotton hurts their hands :( mine are feeling quite sore, so I'll be taking a break from knitting (at least for the rest of today!) to let them rest, and probably leave more knitting with cotton for a bit. But I was quite eager to get all of these completed so it's probably just my own fault for doing too much at once.

Put a fruit tingle on the tip of your tongue...

...cause the tingle-ingle-ingle is a lot of fun!

I'm calling this "Fruit Tingle Juliette" because it's colours match those deliciuos little morsels almost perfectly (I only had an orange one here for the photo, no yellow, but the pink and green are a perfect match!).

I used the Dyelicious Soaker Club yarn from Yarn Collective. It's gorgeous - the yarn, the colourway, the pattern. I LOVE it!!! I made the large size, even though Miss F is not quite 6 months old and it fits! Not too big, but still plenty of room to grow into it. Which is good because I don't think I could wait to put this on her and show her off in it :) No action shots yet cause she's sleeping and we have to dash out shortly, but will put some up soon.

Yarny goodness

A few things that have winged their way to my door recently.

First up some more EcoBamboo in Cherry from The Yarn Cafe. Something for me planned with this.



Then some Shimmer Sock yarn, also from TYC, in "Kiwifruit". This is lovely IRL. Need to find a pattern quicksmart for this one!



Next a Yarn Collective sock club installment - October I think?



And finally some 10ply cotton - Peaches n Cream - from The Wool Shack, which I plan to make discloths with.




DH hasn't noticed any of these LOL

Button, button, who's got the button?

Me. I've got quite a few now. Spotlight was having a 20% off everything sale so I popped in yesterday. Disappointingly it looked like they may have actually cleared their yarn shelves before the sale began, as there were A LOT of completely empty shelves in the yarn section. And if they didn't clear them, then they certainly didn't make an effort to restock them. So I got no yarn suitable for my plans for Christmas knitting. But I did console myself with a big bag of novelty buttons. Not sure what I'll do with them just yet. Some will be useful for garments, but others will probably just be good for embellishments, or for the boys to use to create things I suppose. M certainly likes them anyway. And there was a small kerfuffle over the bag when L got home from school yesterday. Small things huh.

And in knitting news.... I have cast on one of these (sorry, no non-Rav link, but it's a soaker with a skirt attached for anyone not on Rav). Going pretty quickly so far, but the main colour I'm using for the body is pooling. Undecided if I'm ok with this or not. And then not sure really what to do about it if I'm not. Yep, all the big issues around here!

Sprout

Done.



Only took me just over a month of knitting mostly in the evenings. If I could have sat down for longer stretches I might have finished sooner. Oh, and I did have to frog it back a little after splitting for the arms because it was looking a little big. Glad I did, because I'd say it is probably still a little larger than it could have been and still fitted well. But I wasn't sure and it does actually fit comfortably so I'm happy with it for now. I'd like to make another one, or something very similar (with a bit more interest in the body maybe) a bit smaller.

And I'm proud to say that this is my very first finished adult object! Not including adult-sized socks of course. Which I don't count as an adult sized garment.

I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, which was the wrong gauge (hence it being a little big due to upsizing a bit too much), and I love the way it's knitted up. I've had lots of comments on it IRL so that's great too :) It's supposed to have 6 buttons (there is one in the pic) but it actually only has two on it atm. I wanted to wear it so searched desperately through the little stash of buttons in the sewing kit and came up with two that were the right size and the same! This button stash is made up of spare buttons that come with garments, so I was stoked to find two that matched, but disappointed that I didn't have 4 more of them because I think they work quite well. Oh well, off to Spotlight to find 6 matching ones today.

Ooh, and I've just noticed I match the wall in the background LOL

I'm still here

I think I've just lost my blogging mojo. Taking pics, resizing, uploading. It all takes too long. It's been school holidays here (almost over) so time has been even less available.

I've nearly finished Sprout. Just the front button bands to do and then to find the buttons. No pic of that yet though.

I did finish this not so long ago....





It's a test knit of a baby shrug. I used Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed in Taffeta, which I had in the stash from the CPH that I'm yet to finish. I used one of the balls from the wrong dyelot, so it's not as pretty a purple as the CPH will be, but it still looks and feels so nice. It's a bit big for F right now - she's not quite old enough for the size I knit, but it should fit her great next year when the weather starts to cool. As long as we don't get heatwaves in March like we did this year!

And some time ago I made this....



Which is way too small for F and never got worn. I think it probably came out newborn size. It's actually an adult hat that I tried to resize down without success :( actually it was going ok until I decided to decrease a little early. So anyway, now I'm waiting for someone to have a newborn (girl) so I can gift it LOL It's a pattern I got from Ravelry. But I can't be bothered with links right now.

And here's a pic of F. She did this to herself by the way. I don't generally cover my babies up with blankets and watch them try to escape LOL But of course I did have to run for the camera before DH rescued her. She wasn't distressed at all. Just couldn't work out where everyone went LOL

Reflections

Today is 15 years since my Dad passed away. I'm not sure why I'm actually remembering that this year, as the day usually passes me by without a thought, until some time after and I realise that I missed it again. Which is odd really, since I remember the events of that day like they happened yesterday, which says something about significant life events I guess, since I find it hard to recall what I did 10 minutes ago most days, let alone what happened on a day 15 years ago LOL Anyway, so I find myself here reflecting on what has happened in those 15 years and wondering whether I'd be where I am right now if he hadn't passed. I don't think so. And I'm very happy with where I've ended up. And that's not to say that it was a good thing at all, but the cliches about death making you more aware of your mortality, etc, etc. Just means that I probably wouldn't have made some decisions that have led me to where I am today if that event hadn't occurred when it did.

And we have an extremely gloomy day weather-wise today to go with what could be a gloomy day in general, so I'm pleased to report that some spring cheer arrived this morning to make the day brighter....



The September installment of the Yarn Collective Soaker Club. I love it. The picture isn't that great, but it's lovely pinks and greens, with a matching green skein and I plan to make a skirty/soaker type thing for F with it.

And this came last week...



The colourway is "Frolic" and it's from The Yarn Cafe (of course!). I plan to make some nice cheerful, springy shorties for F with this one.

And I plan to cast one of these on today. Perfect day to begin something new.

Berry Fuschia Lily

Finished. Well, technically I've finished, but there's something wrong that needs to be fixed. Can you see what it is?






It might not be so obvious in the pics, and if I'm honest, it took me a few days after finishing to actually notice it myself. It's fairly minor so no biggie, but I just have to take care of it before I can really call this "done". Also, I wasn't sure how far the yarn would go, so I finished the skirt of the dress and moved onto the arms to be safe. I've got a bit of yarn left, so I'm going to undo the bottom edging and add on a bit more of the colour to the skirt and make it a bit longer. Just need to find the motivation to do that.

Still plugging away at Sprout. Man, that seems to be taking forever! Reminds me why I've been sticking to baby items lately LOL And I just ordered some more yarn for something else for me. Will see how I go with that one. It's more of the EcoBamboo from The Yarn Cafe, so I'm looking forward to knitting it, but the pattern is quite a boring one.

A few things on the go

Test knit of the 9 month size of the Oriental Lily for Tikki. Love it, it's so cute. It's taking me a long time though, cause I decided to cast on something else halfway through. Oh, and I wasn't sure what to do the contrasting bands with, so I waited for some Fuschia Treliske to come from Elissa from The Yarn Cafe, but in the end I thought it might be too dark and went with natural instead. I'll use the fuschia with some other TYC yarn I have for another Rainbow Dress eventually :)



I'm using BFL in "Berry Fuschia" from TYC. It's lovely :)

It's kind of warming up here a bit though, so I'm hoping that she can wear this before it gets too warm, or that it will fit her when the weather starts to cool down next year. So hard to tell how big she's going to get when she's so big to start with! LOL

And something for me at last. I'm knitting Sprout for myself with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. I had that here to make another item but have moved on from that. Sprout seems like a really cute little cardi and a good replacement for the other thing. My gauge is a bit off, so I went up two sizes. Not really sure how that's going to work out, but it's top-down so I figure I can just increase a bit more if it's looking too small. Time will tell if it will actually fit me LOL



The cotton fleece is lovely to knit with, and I've already found another project for me to knit with it. Just need to come up with the funds!

Oh, and I almost forgot that I've also completed a little Seamless Baby Shrug for F as a test knit too. But I've just realised I completely forgot to photograph it and it's in the room with her asleep right now so will have to wait.

Apologies for all the Rav links for any non-Ravelers.

Boheme

Finger situation still not too good. Throbbing all night :( but closer inspection reveals it's not quite as bad as I thought, despite the blood that came from it! Still painful though and I must say it's quite difficult doing things while trying not to bump the tip of your longest finger! DH did the dishes last night though, which was nice considering he's not well either :) I still have to stack and unpack the dishwasher though.

I started a test knit of the Oriental Lily dress about a week ago, but the pattern calls for (suggests) a contrasting band, which I didn't have, so it's stalled at that point now until the contrasting band arrives in the mail :) So while I was waiting I thought I'd give this pattern a whirl (sorry, no non-Rav link). It's so cute and the 6 month size was a really quick knit.





You can't really tell but I made some errors in the garter stitch bodice - mainly forgetting some increases along the way, but I fudged it ok and got back to the correct number of stitches. That's what you get when you put things down and pick them up several times over the course of a couple of days! I really should just knit those bits in one go so I can get into a rhythm. Of course there's also my dislike of knitting garter stitch, but I'm overcoming that. If I was going to knit it again though, I would probably make the bodice a bit longer, and I might also put a garter stitch border on the front edges. It curls a bit still, even after a light steam blocking. It's much less curly than it was though. And it's extremely cute, so I'll forgive it :) I'm not sure if I'm keeping this one or not. I think it might be a tad small for F (even though she's only not quite 4 months yet!) and was planning to gift it to a baby that was born shortly after F but is probably a bit smaller, but it's so cute I just don't know. And I"m not sure I'm up to another so quickly and I really want F to have one LOL

Just have to decide which buttons to put on now. I saw the cute ones with the hearts on them on Kelly's blog and thought they were lovely. Imagine my surprise when I found them at Spotlight! Especially with Spotlights craptacular reputation in the button department (IMO at least). Actually my recent button haul was at Spotlight and I did quite well! but I digress. Anyway, I couldn't believe I found them (and they had the same in other colours too!) and I saw the cute little apples too. Just not sure what to go with. I'm leaning towards the apples. What do you think?





Oh, the yarn is Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in apple green (hence the apples LOL). The colour doesn't show up all that well in my poor photo taking skills LOL

Things went a bit pear-shaped

I had a post all typed out this morning, with pics uploaded and all and then somehow it all disappeared :( Shortly after that as I was about to dash out the door to go to kindergym with M, I managed to slice the side tip of my finger off with a stray razor while rummaging through a drawer. Cue blood all over the sink, a slightly panicked me with an upset baby and a toddler almost out the door. Two bandaids later and we did make it to kindergym (after I briefly considered staying home in case I passed out on the drive up there) but now my finger really hurts and so does my whole arm, for that matter :( and I'm too afraid to take the bandaids off to check the situation. I didn't pass out at kinderygym thankfully, and M only managed to crash-tackle two kids this week. So all is good.

But on to FOs. I still have to tie up the July challenge posts. Will be quick cause typing hurts. Suffice to say I didn't quite get there with two of the projects, but they have now been completed and here is one of them....




This is the Eyelet Yoke Cardigan. I love it. It turned out really well. The delays relate to my fear of seaming (which isn't that great on this project but it's passable for a baby item) and not being able to find the right button. As you can see I managed to overcome those two problems and it's now done.

The other project finished was the Omo Scarf. I was going to make it longer but got tired of it so just cast it off where it was. I think it's a nice length as it is. No pics of that yet but will get some up once my finger stops throbbing and I can think clearly again.

Oh, and another sneaky little peak of the secret knitting.....

In the absence of knitting....

Here's a picture of two of my children. I love how happy M looks in this pic! F looks slightly less impressed by the whole thing LOL and yes, I've got a swing *insert shocked gasps* Please be assured that I do frequently carry F around in a mei tai and she spends way more time breastfeeding than she does sitting in the swing LOL Sometimes you need a safe place to put them when you can't be holding them :)



I was trying to angle this towards knitting, or some other craft, but it's not working. There are no knitted items in the photo whatsoever. So this is just gratuitous pictures of my children.

Cheating

So I've had to admit to myself that I am no domestic goddess. Actually, not much of a revelation at all really LOL But for some reason I've always wished I could be. I've decided now that I'm not, and never will be. And I'm proud of it! I mean, who wants to spend their lives making sure their house is clean and tidy in case someone shows up unexpectedly? No one ever shows up unexpectedly around here. And those that do show up at all, know me well enough to know that I'm no domestic goddess :)

So I'm cheating.

Today a lovely lady will be coming to clean my house. Or parts of it at least. I'm flat out just trying to keep up with the volume of washing that goes through here in a week. And not to mention the unexpected things like yesterday, when M suddenly appeared covered head to foot in yoghurt. And then the discovery of the yoghurt smeared all over the floor and chair legs, under the table, where he's recently decided to eat the majority of his meals. Result - quick mop of the floor to make sure the ants don't come in looking for it, and an impromptu bath at 4 in the afternoon for M. And for the record, he wasn't unsupervised as such - I was feeding F - so he helped himself to a snack. And a child lock on the fridge is no help, cause we have one and he can undo it! Nothing like an independent child.

Maybe this will mean more time for knitting during the day? I doubt it because I'm sure I'll still be vacuuming every day and cleaning up yoghurt smears off the window, changing nappies on two children, washing clothes, folding clothes, putting clothes away, making beds, dusting, doing dishes, packing/unpacking dishwasher etc etc.

But maybe I'll also have more time to get my son away from the tv and doing something a bit more constructive. And feeling less guilty about taking the time out to have a bit of fun, while secretly stressing over the state of the bathrooms.


But back to the cleaner.

She'll be here soon, so I need to go clean up LOL

Shhhhhh.....

..... secret knitting.....

Misty Mornings

Here is my latest FO.





I test knit the 6 month sizing of this dress. I love it. Such an easy knit. F fits the 6 month sizing though at only 3.5months! And my gauge was spot on for once LOL I think she's huge. The yarn I used for this is just gorgeous too. It's a BFL/Alpaca blend from TYC and sooooo soft. The colourway is "Misty Morning". I keep rubbing it on my face LOL Must get more.

I do have a couple of other things on the go right now too, but no time to take pics of this at the moment. Will get around to it soon.

Today's bounty

I love getting parcels. I especially love when more than one comes on the same day! Although that does mean there likely won't be anymore this week.

I can't believe I managed to take a pic of them all before ripping them open LOL



And only one of them is an actual purchase! The two smaller bags are swapped items - one being a mei tai kindly sent to me by the lovely Donna to try out with Miss F. No pic of that but it's a lovely butterfly print - can't wait to try it out!

And here's a pic of the treasures within....



The pink and the red are Cascade 220 Wool from Yarns Online. The service there is fantastic and I think it's the only place to get Cascade yarns in Australia. Anyway, I can highly recommend buying from there! The pink is for something for me. The red is a secret! shhhh..... The other yarn is some sock yarn I scored in a PIF swap on Nappycino.

And just as I was getting excited about my parcels and about to open them, there was another knock at the door. The delivery guy had found another parcel for me that wasn't on his list! It was like Christmas twice in the space of 10 minutes LOL



No pic of the inside of this one as it's some toys for L and M for Christmas, but as you can see M has claimed the box already. Just have to convince him to give it back to me now so I can hide it! Oh, and if you're wondering what the contents are, it's some toys from this place. I got the wooden toaster set and the wooden fruit. And I can highly recommend purchasing here too - came super-quick in the post and prices are really reasonable in comparison to wooden toys I've seen elsewhere.

As for the July challenge, well I fell off the wagon on the weekend and cast on something new. But then I decided I didn't like it so I ripped it off and cast on something else. Then that was giving me the pip, so I ripped it again and cast on something else. All with the same yarn. Anyway, in the end I'm making a hat for F because it has been bitterly cold here in the mornings and we all have to go out for the school run and she has no woolies to wear :( Not sure what I was thinking though because she seems to dislike hats. But in the spirit of knitting-things-for-my-children-that-they-will-hate-wearing-but-making-them-wear-it-anyway, I am perservering with it. I still haven't seamed the Eyelet Yoke Cardi or finished the Omo Scarf, but I intend to do both by the 31st. Just watch me.

Two more done!

From this.....



to this....



I feel so much better now that this is gone. Had a hard time unravelling the yarn though :( had to cut some bits off, but I'm sure I still have plenty left for a pair of socks. Will put this away until I find a nice pattern for it.

And finished the Rainy Day Socks.



Shortly before finishing I remembered why I hadn't started the second sock. I'd made a heap of mistakes in the first sock - not really noticeable at first glance, but there nonetheless. But it's really ok I think, since the second sock is far from perfect also :( For a start, I knit according to the pattern. That's good, right? Generally I'd say yes, but this time no. Since the mistakes I made in the first sock have caused it to be a whole pattern repeat longer than the second sock (which was knit error free up to the heel part). So the sock is a bit shorter in the leg. No biggie really, but then the toe on the second one looks a bit weird too. Not sure what I did wrong there, and you probably can't see it in the pic, but when they are on they look a bit odd. Also, I think that I have just knit the foot length a bit too short for my feet anyway. And that's another thing I recall thinking when the first sock was done and remembered once I'd done the second one. Oh well. Not sure if I'll actually wear them now, but my mum showed a liking for them on Saturday so maybe I'll give my mismatched, error-riddled socks to her LOL

It feels good to cross them off the list regardless.

And DH and I had a real heart-to-heart about his throw rug over the weekend too. I just haven't been able to feel the love for it at all. Even though I'm knitting something for my dear husband and all. And I worked out the reason. It's something like 256 stitches wide! It takes me 20 minutes to do one row! So I can knit for an hour or so on it and it really looks like minimal progress. I just can't see an end to it. So we both agreed that it was going to the frog pile, and I would make something for him that involves smaller pieces and seaming. Much as I don't like seaming, I like knitting 256 stitches at once even less. Haven't ripped it off the needles yet, but I am feeling a lot free-er with that no longer hanging over my head LOL

So now what's left? Have to seam the Eyelet Yoke Cardi and organise buttons and finish the Omo Scarf. Definitely going to achieve my July goals PLUS I added another frog to the head count. Woohoo! I think that will leave me with my Central Park Hoodie on the needles and that's it. Oh, and I'm going to frog a few other projects that were actually completed because they never fit F :( I'll reuse the yarn and make the same things in a bigger size for next year I hope!