Eliza's Adventures in Knitting: Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all! Whether you celebrate it as a religious holiday or not, Easter is about new life and new beginnings. So it seems only fitting that my baby boy is especially active this morning--I'm now into my eighth month, and he's going through a growth spurt to get ready to join the world soon.

Baby Update

Pregnancy is definitely not getting any easier for me, though (not that I would call any of it "easy")! I'm well into the waddling phase now, which means I need to take things slowly and pace myself so I can use my limited energy where I really need it. And the carpal tunnel in my wrists is gradually getting worse, so my knitting time is limited (but luckily most baby things are small!). At least the pregnancy part is almost over, right?

My husband and I have finally made some progress with rearranging our house to make room for the baby. I still have my craft room, luckily, but it now has the pull-out couch in there so it can be used as the guest room, too. I managed to move stuff around in there enough to fit the couch in, but I have some serious reorganizing to do when I have a bit of spare energy. Plus, looking through all my yarn and books just makes me want to knit everything NOW, which is not doable even when my wrists are at full strength. I'm fortunate to be able to own and store such a fantastic yarn collection (or stash, if you will), but sometimes it really gets overwhelming with all the potential. Here's the start of our nursery:

With the limited knitting and the forced stash review, I can at least say that I haven't been buying yarn lately. Nothing like coming face to face with all the yarn you already have to quash the desire to acquire every pretty new skein, I guess. I'm a little disappointed, though, that right now is when they've chosen to hold the first LA Yarn Crawl! It's happening next weekend, and I really wish I had the energy and the desire to visit a bunch of the great LYS's around here. I might take just a quick trip down to Needlepoints West, which is in easy walking distance from my house, and if anything I might pick up another ball or two of the fantastically soft cotton yarn I already made some burp cloths out of. Maybe.

Easter Baking

I found this recipe online for Cadbury Creme Cookie Cups awhile back, and I've been dying to make them ever since. So I finally put them together for Easter, and they turned out to be pretty delicious, as I had hoped.

My creme came out a little thicker than it should have (more like frosting, and not runny at all), so next time I should add the powdered sugar more slowly to make sure I don't add too much. And the only bad thing about these is that they're kind of huge, so next time I might try doing them in mini muffin tins instead of full sized ones. Definitely a fun recipe to make, though!

Also, for Easter breakfast this morning, I made (for the second time) Make-Ahead Blueberry French Toast. This recipe is great cause you put it together the day before and let it sit in the fridge overnight, then in the morning you just have to spread the streusel topping and bake it in the oven while you relax before breakfast. I like mine with maple syrup, instead of the blueberry syrup in the recipe. And I forgot to take a picture this morning, cause I was just that excited about eating this French toast for breakfast!

And the Knitting

And now for the knitting... Since I haven't posted in a few weeks, I actually have a bunch of stuff that I've finished! Like I said, baby stuff is small.

I made two Baby Genius Burp Cloths, one in Jarbo Garn Soft Cotton and one in Super Soft Cotton. I think I prefer the brightly-colored one more.

I also made a Baby Bib 'O Love, also from Jarbo Garn Super Soft Cotton. I do need to locate and sew on a button to really finish it, though. (And in case you're wondering, my BSJ is still waiting for buttons to be sewn on!)

I finished a Tri-Corner Baby Hat (top photo, with a few small modifications from the pattern) and a Swirl Hat (bottom photo) from one skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Syracuse University colors. I love how the different stitch counts and different patterns made the colors stripe completely differently in the two hats.

Here's a hat I made from my own made-up pattern in Rowan Handknit Cotton. Hopefully I can write up the pattern and post it here soon. It looks kind of small, but with the ribbing it stretches a ton.

This baby will have no shortage of hats, that's for sure! I made a couple of Aviatrix Baby Hats about two years ago when one of my nephews was born, and my brother sent them back to me, since both of his boys have now outgrown them.

I have another hat or two that I really want to finish up here, but I've realized that what I need more for this baby are socks and booties, so I need to work on some of those next. Since baby feet are so small, I get to make good use of all my sock yarn leftovers from adult-sized pairs of socks. I'm also currently working on a pair of Baby Brights Tights in SWTC Tofutsies: