Edward and Manava

One of the patterns in my pattern eBook, Knitting Like a Professor, is the Manava Baby Cardigan [ravelry].



Manava was an Indian mathematician who lived around 700 B.C. He wrote a famous treatise on geometry. The standing collar on this sweater invokes the collar of what we Westerners like to call the Nehru jacket, after the former prime minister of India. The bold stitch patterns of the jacket, such as the 90 degree angles of the raglan increases meeting up with the garter stitch stripes, invokes old-school geometry. The variety of buttons is just fun. Bust out that button stash.

I put the sweater on Edward and it fits him great. He just didn't want me to put him down. He's a very hold-y baby:



Rear view (and check out all of that blond hair. Where did THAT come from?):



And here's a happy Edward, being held by Mommy:



I guess I could just live on the couch.

Wait, I do that already. Can we say "Mad Men"-reruns?

Adrian and the Goats

Check out this hilarious video of Adrian at the petting zoo last weekend. The baby alpacas were especially sweet. Oh, and the mini-goats. The mini-goats were AWESOME.



Question: Anyone know why Easter seems to equal "petting zoo"?

In our city, we can have chickens, but not goats or any other farm animals. I've been wishing for some mohair goats of my very own, but not until the laws change. Seriously, how can those mini-goats be as annoying as an incessantly barking dog?

F.O.: Edward Arthur Pryal

He came 1 week early, weighed in at 9 pounds and 3 ounces, and arrived with head full of blond hair.

Trains and Sweater Vests

Here's a video we shot of Adrian a couple of days ago.



It features the train table that Michael and I built (okay, he built, and I painted).

It also features Adrian in an argyle sweater vest that Mimi (my momma) bought for him. I'm IN LOVE with sweater vests on my kid.

That's my next pattern--a basic, quick-knit, little-boy sweater vest pattern. I'm going to call it "Roy" or something like that.

Here's why:



We love us some Roy 'round here.

Mohair Frenzy

I love mohair yarn. Love love love.

Whenever I hit a LYS, I always check the odd-balls basket for skeins of mohair. I don't care about color, weight, or anything--I just buy it. It is the ultimate stash yarn because it's so versatile.

Mohair? Versatile?

Yes.

Here's what I've made with mohair over the last few months. Oh crap, I think I mean "over the last year," not months, at this point. Whatever:



From left to right [links are to my Ravelry project pages]:

Pythagoras.
Nimbostratus.
Wisp [modified with Victorian lace trim].
Oread [a version of the Pi Shawl -- instructions here].

And that's just the shawls.

What's your favorite yarn/fiber type? (Don't say Cascade 220. Snore.)

--Katie Rose

Just when I thought...

...that I couldn't get any bigger...

[this is a picture from about a month ago]



...I realize that I'm wrong.

[this is a picture from this morning]



What's amazing is that, from the front, you just don't have an inkling that I'm the circumference of a mid-sized hippopotamus.



Oh, maybe you do.

2.5 weeks to go.

--Katie Rose

Quilts by Mimi

Mimi is what my mother's grandkids call her. Sometimes Adrian gets mixed up and says "Mimimommy" or "Momimimi."

My mom quilts. A lot. My favorites are the ones that tend to not follow rigid patterns, like this one with butterflies on it:



The butterflies came from a print fabric that she cut into pieces. You can't see the quilt stitchery in this photograph, unfortunately, but it's really amazing. This one is about 7" by 5" in size.

But she also made this hilarious quilt using photo-print-fabric (!). These are all pictures from Adrian's first year:



The one in the middle with him in yellow was taken in the NICU while we were packing him up to come home. This one is hanging on the wall in Adrian's room now (soon to be the "boys' room" since they're going to share a bedroom).

4.5 weeks to go!

--Katie Rose