What do you do when you can't knit?

Answer:

You buy yarn.

And here is what I bought...

The anticipation is building!

No surprise that I ordered from one of my all-time favorite yarn companies: Quince & Co.

This is their Chickadee yarn, a soft, smooth and springy sport-weight yarn (100% American wool). I adore this sweet pale pink shade, called Dogwood. Eventually it will be turned into this:

Miriam Cardigan by Carrie Bostick Hoge

I'm not the only person to benefit from my Quince order. A lucky knitter from my knitting group will be receiving these at our next swap.

Lark (worsted weight) in Frank's Plum and Crocus

And I also couldn't say no to this when I came across it on a Ravelry stash page.

It is Schoppel-Wolle's CrazyZauberball. a whopping 459 yards of fingering weight yarn (wool/nylon blend) in the colorway Flussbett to be transformed into this:

September Circle by Melissa LeBarre

I have been knitting, just very very little and very very slowly. I am about 4-5 inches into my Shadow sweater, which is requiring more attention than I able to give to it right now, so that might be on hold for a few months. Not giving up (I rarely stop a project for more than 2-3 months), just letting it rest while I start a more mindless project in the mean time. 

So the plan is to start the Miriam cardigan for me and also get going on Acacia for Emma (with stash Knit Pick's Comfy Worsted in Serrano Red). And when I need a break from sweater knitting, I will cast on the September Circle.

I have to admit that I foresee happy knitting in my future!

Who says you can't knit with a newborn in the house?

Somehow, and for heaven's sake don't ask me how, I managed to knit SOMETHING while caring for a newborn and toddler in the past couple of weeks. No idea how this happened, but it did... and man does it feel good!

Doing anything with a newborn OR a toddler around is a challenge, let alone both. Here is a picture of me attempting to knit 3 years ago when my now toddler was a newborn. I didn't get very far with this...

...and of course the cat didn't help.

Three years later, here is what I finished the other day.

I think my multitasking skills are improving, wouldn't you agree? Of course it helped that the project was wonderfully simple and repetitive.

The pattern is called Botanical Cowl. It is a slim,  lightweight and drapey cowl with a simple double  eyelet pattern. There are instructions for a short cowl and a long one. I opted to make the long one using Three Irish Girls' McClellan Fingering yarn (stash buster!) in the Waterlilies colorway.

I love this yarn. It is so soft, smooth and an absolute pleasure to knit with. Plus it blocks beautifully and is terrific for lace projects. I last used this yarn to make the Springtime in Philly beret.

Now back to sweater knitting...

Yarn Bowl

Recently, several members of my knitting group took a field trip to Richfield Art Studios to make yarn bowls. My friend, Mary, wrote a great summary of the trip on her blog, Knit to My Lou. Alas, I could not attend the event due to being enormously pregnant at the time... so disappointed.

However, the gang generously arranged for a bowl to made for me anyway! Do I have the best knitting group, or what? So here is the little (or should I say big, because it is so much larger than I expected) beauty that now resides in my home.

The yarn in the bowl is Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter in Button Jar colorway. The pattern that I'm very slowly working on is Shadow.