Since this is my knitting blog, I won't gush too much about the baby or motherhood. But I will say that it's been a fantastic experience so far and I think I've been learning a lot. Not just about how to change a diaper or get a baby's arm thru a onesie, but I've learned a lot about selflessness, patience, and the ability to love someone more and more every day, even when you think you can't possibly love them any more already.
Enough of the mushy stuff. Check out this Christmas stocking I'm working on for the baby. It's my first expereince with Fair Isle. It wasn't as difficult as I thought, but I'm sure that I'm not knitting with two colors as efficiently as possible. For the snowflake and diamond (which is soon to be argyle) portions, I just kept twisting and switching the strands, which did result in a lot of twisted lead yarn (I didn't use bobbins). Next time I'll likely try to carry both colors in my left hand.
So the baby's name will be "duplicate stitched" on the top white band, and green stripes will be added to the diamonds to create the argyle pattern. Is duplicate stitching cheating? I don't care, considering the Fair Isle was enough of a challenge for me this time around!
The pattern came from the Mason Dixon series of books. The pattern calls for knitting the stocking with 2 circular needles, but I just used DPNs. So I had to re-arrange the instructions for the heel gusset. It all worked out. I'll be working on the toe tonight. I basically knit for 30 min or so every other night after the baby goes to bed. So I should be done with this stocking... by Christmas. ;)
