I give myself an F on blogging. It's been, what, months? There's so much to talk about! I've missed you guys! I've missed writing in this blog but there are precious few free hours in my day now and I have to use them with care.
First off, the knitting. I haven't stopped knitting even though I've taken a hiatus from writing about it. Wanna see the latest?
I took a deep breath and dived into my stash. What I came up with was the Colinette Giotto. It's been in the stash for, I dunno, 4 years? I bought 5 skeins in colorway Pietro but after reading about how this yarn stretches ad infinitum, I put it away, scared. Originally I considered the Waterlily Top from Interweave Knits but decided it would need too much intervention. Then I happened upon the Tara Tank in the Yarn Girls Guide to Beyond the Basics. This pattern is simple and would show off the yarn without being a totally boring knit.
I had to go waayyy down on the needle size though. I think the ball band recommends size 10.5 or 11, I used size 8 and 9. I swatched using size 10's and was satisfied with that until I actually started knitting the body. It was very obvious it was going to stretch a lot and I wanted a fitted silhouette. This tank only required 2 skeins of Giotto for the smallest size (32"). I still have 3 skeins left. Maybe I'll make a shrug. Not sure yet, but I'm going to take a break from the yarn. I don't recommend Giotto for beginners or wool lovers. Although this was a pretty fast knit, the yarn slowed me down. My needle tips would get stuck in the ribbon.
On to domestic news.
Karalyn is now a toddler. *sniff* Her baby phase went by so fast. She was walking before she even turned 1 and now she's on her way to 14 months. Our house is a happy mess but I try to remind myself that it's only temporary. We took Karalyn to Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It was a very cool, extremely blustery afternoon. Karalyn ran to the water and promptly fell down. Amazing how much sand can get into little jeans. Like that sweater? One of my knits. It wears like iron - it has gotten a fair amount of abuse. It's only downfall is velcro. Just say No to Velcro, knitters!
I think in my last post I mentioned house hunting. Well, we hunted down 2 homes and put bids on both of them. One of them was a beautiful, huge, brand new bank repo. The other was a gorgeous 9-year old home with an amazing back yard. I'll let you know in my next post which one we decided on.
