Madeline!

Does anyone else out there think this pattern is as cute as I do? It's called "Something New for Madeline" and it's from the Winter 01/02 issue of Interweave Knits. I have had the pattern for a while and I'm absolutely chomping at the bit to make it for my neice, Savannah who, by the way, is currently 3 months old and cannot yet speak never mind read Madeline books. Who knows if she'll even be interested in Madeline? Does it matter really? Undoubtedly, I'll knit this for her anyway.

Speaking of Savannah, I did a marathon shopping trip with my mom yesterday, and ended up buying a store-bought 100% cotton sweater for her for Christmas. I know, I should hang my head in shame, but the way she's growing lately, I just can't bear to spend the time making her a sweater only to see her in it once before she's too big for it. So, here it is. I thought it was precious, even if I did buy it at Mervyn's (she's even growing too fast for a store-bought sweater from Nordstrom).

So, where's the knitting? Hmmm, where is that darn knitting? Well, did I mention my shopping trip? So, not much to show you, but here are some ugly photos of Birch, if you're interested.

This is my rather unsuccessful attempt to uncurl my Inox needles (and J says they don't curl...ha!). So basically you can't see anything, but I will tell you that this is 1 ball of kidsilk haze. The entire shawl is only supposed to take 3 balls, so I guess I'm 33% done. It only got me through 5 repeats, but that makes sense because the same amount of yarn should get me through the next 10 repeats (1/2 as many stitches) and the last ball of yarn should get me through 15 repeats (1/2 as many stitches again), getting me to a total of 30. Slow but steady wins the race. Here's a closer pic of the motif. I couldn't get a good photo on a light background, so I draped it over my leg, hence the feeling you're getting that you're looking at it through a keyhole. Lace always looks crappy before blocking so it looks like knotted green linguini that's been sitting in the pasta pot overnight.

Hope everyone's holiday knitting is going well. I myself am doing a little bit of cramming, BUT, I did felt the catbed last night! It's drying at my parents' condo, but I'll have a pics in a couple of days. It's soooo cute, even if it's too big. My cats are rather "generously proportioned" (at least that's how the vet put it), so it should be OK. Toodles!