Yarn Along - March Washcloth & Starting Them Young

Ginny's Yarn Along is a great place to see lots of knitting and reading ideas.  I'm joining again this week.  Thank goodness for the Yarn Along; it seems to be the only time I blog recently.

I found the March washcloth.  Niece K had stuffed all the knitted things from the coffee table into the toy purse they were playing with when she visited.  Makes perfect sense, but it took me a while to discover.  This washcloth is knit out of a cranberry color of Nashua Creative Focus Cotton (CFCT033), and the pattern is Box Stitch (March 7th on my perpetual calendar).

I've been reading Annie and the Swiss Cheese Scarf by Alana Dakos (of Never Not Knitting fame) a lot recently.  It's a sweet little book about a little girl learning to knit.  Lil One got the deluxe version of this book for Christmas (includes paper dolls and a jigsaw puzzle), and in the past week or so has completely fallen in love with it.  We read it several times a day and Lil One has started knitting her own blue scarf -- well, she's sat through two rows of 15 stitches with her hands on the needles, which I find impressive for a 2-and-a-half year old.  She's also incorporating phrases from the book into her speech.  She'll look at me and proclaim, "Mommy, you're a knitter!" or grab and hug the nearest random knitted thing and declare, "I love your knitting SO MUCH."  While I know this won't last, I'm pretty thrilled.

Yarn Along - First 2013 Stocking

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again.  Check out lots of knitting and reading at her blog.

I'm getting started on the first of the Christmas Stockings for 2013.  I'll have three or four to do, so I'd like to have the first one done by the end of March.  Deep in the tangle of intarsia, but moving along well.

I've finished the March washcloth, but can't find it now.  When Niece K was over for an afternoon this week, she played with some of the knitted things that had been living on the coffee table.  I have no idea where they got to in the course of that.  They are around somewhere, but I haven't been able to find them yet.

For reading, I'm still on Turn of the Screw via Craftlit.  It's a very interesting story.  I'm not at all accustomed to having a narrator quite this unreliable.

Yarn Along - Bunny & Mystery

I'm participating in Ginny's Yarn Along again this week.  Check it out to see lots of good ideas for knitting (and crochet) and reading.

I keep hoping that the recent bout of finish-it-up-itis I've experienced with knitting will spill over into my reading.  I have lots of almost-finished books laying around.  No luck so far though; not a lot of reading has been going on in the past few weeks.

The husband and I did recently finish an audiobook -- Evil Under the Sun A Hercule Poirot mystery by Agatha Christie.  I love Poirot, and this book was read by David Suchet, the actor who played Poirot on the TV show.  I think eventually we'll listen to every unabridged Poirot book read by Suchet.  Very good.

The project pictured above is the body and head of a bunny I'm knitting for Niece K's second birthday.  This is the second project I'm making out of the itty-bitty toys book by Susan B. Anderson.  I remain very pleased with this book.  Yesterday I bought yarn for my third project out of it.   Lil One keeps trying to run off with the parts of this project, too, so I'll have to make something for her soon!

My sister-in-law asked if I could make Niece K some leg warmers, so I improvised some based on the pair I made for Lil One last year.  These will also be part of her birthday present.  Here they are pretending to be adult arm warmers.

I've turned these in to the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House Cup to meet the assignment in History of Magic -- craft something FABULOUS to wear to a record company soiree.  We're researching Quibbler articles you see, and never mind.  It really doesn't matter; they just count for points somehow.