Very little sleep.

Things are a bit different around here now. I don't have as much time for knitting, that's for sure. But my daughter is incredible, so my lack of knitting time pales in comparison. Someone who had a little more time to get the needles moving is my mum. My parents visited the last couple of weeks, so that they could meet their granddaughter. I took them to Romni on Queen, and my mum had me pick out a pattern and some yarn to go with it. Then she made it. You can't see it so easily in the picture, but she made a beautiful blanket in stocking stitch with garter stitch edging, and a garter stitch heart in the middle. The heart and the top and bottom borders also have a bobble pattern. What you definately can't see is the matching cardigan that goes with it. The pattern is SIRDAR cardigan and blanket, and they're knitted in SIRDAR Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK. We went for the cream for the blanket, and the teal for the cardigan. They came out stunning. The yarn is beautiful too.

As you can see, Adelaide does sleep sometimes (although far less than I would have thought), and I do still have my Subway journey to and from work, so there is a little knitting time for me. Although my productivity has certainly slowed, I've had time to finish Beth's Fetching fingerless gloves (more on those soon), and start my Dashing fingerless gloves (more on those soon too). I've also completed my Long Lost Whitby Hat. If you remember, I told you the story of this hat. I had bought it in Whitby, North Yorkshire, when I was 13. I wore it everywhere. Never have I found a hat that I wore so consistently, and managed not to lose for so long. Nor have I ever owned another hat that my mother hated so much. In this picture (excuse the poor quality, it's scanned and blown up rather larger than the original), you can see that it became very dishevelled looking.
Nontheless, when I finally lost it in the move to Canada last year, I was distraught. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had no way of replacing this precious hat. Perhaps this is why I took up knitting. I have knit enough hats now to have a fair idea of their construction, so I started drawing up plans to reconstruct my favourite piece of headgear.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it means something to me, and I rather like it. If you fancy making one, you can have a look at the pattern here. I don't like the Google document format it's in, but I can't think of anywhere to store the PDF version online at the moment. All suggestions are welcome, as are comments on my hat. Let me know what you think.
Right, I'm off to try and catch as much sleep as I can before my adorable little bundle of joy wakes up crying.

Knit together in her mother's womb.

Well, as you can see, I don't have much time for knitting at the moment. I was nearly done the left hand of Beth's Fetching fingerless gloves, with only the thumb to finish, when she called me from the bedroom and asked if we could start timing her contractions yet.
As we predicted, we drove to the hospital in a CRAZY snowstorm. Beth did an incredible job, and at 3:26pm on Wednesday, our beautiful little girl, Adelaide Selah Hardy came out to meet us. She stayed with mom in hospital on the first night, and yesterday they declared that both mother and baby were doing fine, so we brought our amazing little package home.
I'm sure that the knitting will commence again at some point soon. Little Adelaide needs lots of lovely hand knits. But for now, I have a diaper to change...

Hats, Hats, Hats.

I don't know why I like knitting hats so much. I think it's a combination of things. Hats are fairly quick to make, so there's instant gratification. They also make excellent gifts, because everybody needs a hat in this cold snowy weather.
So, I've been knitting lots of them recently. I followed a few patterns, and then got bored with that, so I started designing my own. At first I just changed little details like colours, size, and width of ribbing. Then I got more adventurous, and worked out my own decreases too.
I made Bethany a hat in a fantastic star stitch. I called it the Milky Way hat, because it spirals round her head. It turned out a little longer than I first imagined, but Beth likes it.
Then I cast on to make a hat for my brother in law. Brett is a big Sheffield Wednesday fan, and makes it out to games as often as he can. Sitting in the Kop can get very chilly on a northern English afternoon or evening, so I figured I'd make him something to keep his head warm.
I started off with some ribbing, then switched to intarsia to put in the blue and white stripes. I designed my decrease to look less visible, and then stitched it down the back. I finished it off with a pompom for that traditional look. I'm rather pleased with it.

I haven't yet knitted a hat in the round. I've been trying to get hold of the double pointed needles in the size I need for that, and for some reason I can't find them anywhere. But once I have them, I'll give that a go.
My next hat project is one that has some personal meaning to me. 13 years ago, I visited Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast. There, I went into the old town, the location of a good portion of Bram Stoker's Dracula. In one of the shops, I found the most fantastic hat. It was clearly hand-knit, and I loved it. It was cream, light blue, dark blue and brown, with a dishevelled looking pompom on the top.
Somehow I managed to keep it for the longest time, and it was always my favourite hat. But then, about a year ago, I lost it in the move to Canada. It was a very sad moment for me. So I'm going to make a new one. It won't have the charm of the old one, but it's a start.
I scanned in a photograph of me wearing the old one, and then zoomed in to get a better idea of what it looked like. Then I set about writing up the pattern. I'll post the pattern and pictures here when I've made it.

But I have some other things to do first. Though the winter has a firm hold on us now, it's not going to last much longer, and I want to knit my first pair of fingerless gloves before it gets too warm. Maybe the Long Lost Whitby Hat will have to stay lost for a little while longer.