Last night I completed the knitting of the Hemlock Ring Blanket. It's hard to believe that this wrinkled lump is going to transform into a lovely blanket. She's blocking as we speak but it may be a day or two before she's dry and ready for a real photo shoot. Anyway, this is knit with Cascade Ecological Wool in color 8049. I used maybe a skein and half. Also I used the extented chart from the yahoo group KAL and did a few extra rows, through row 102 to be exact. I am planning to gift this to my mother for Christmas. And that completes the holiday knitting. More correctly this year I decided to knit one gift and it is done. 

Sunday we dropped H off at school for her second year of college. I was not nearly as stressed as last year about leaving her. This year she's living with 6 friends in a 3 bedroom on campus apartment. She decided not to play field hockey which was a little disappointing for us but she says she wants more time for studying and doing other things. It sounds like she may have things together a bit better this year.

Of course I didn't have much time to dwell on the stress of sending H back to school. In just over a week I have to send N off to kindergarten. I am stressing on that full time but trying to act all calm and cool for his sake. I better find something to cast on so he doesn't see my hands shaking. 

Someone gave me a little poke today to post some photos on Ravelry so since I was taking them I guilted myself into writing a blog post too. I have been a horribly lazy blogger this summer. Hopefully in the fall when my life begins to approach normal I will be posting regularly. Famous last words I know.

Here we have N in his Wonderful Wallaby. I knit the size 8 in Lion Brand Woolease. It's a fun pattern to knit and very wearable. I changed one thing about the pattern. Instead of knitting the ribbing in 1X1 rib, I used 2X2 rib. I just like the way it looks. There was no other reason. As you can see N is very happy with his new sweater. Also as you can see I'll be knitting him another sweater in a couple of months. I swear he grows faster the minute I cast on a sweater for him. There are a couple of things I'll do differently next time. First I'm adding 3 inches to the length of whatever sleeve size I'm doing. The sleeves would easily fold up and then fit longer. N seems to outgrow sleeves first. Also I think he'd like it better if I knit it in a cotton/acrylic blend like Lion Brand Cottonease. In the less than 5 minutes it took to get a photo where he wasn't making a horrid face, he complained of being itchy. Let's hope that was because of the weather and not the sweater.

On Saturday we ventured west to Webs where I picked up some yarn. I had a number of yarns on my list to look at but I had only one to buy, Cascade Eco Wool for a Hemlock Ring Blanket. Don't worry I brought more than one kind of yarn home with me. I cast on the Hemlock Ring Blanket Sunday night and have been knitting furiously ever since. The pattern is addictive. I love knitting this yarn on size 10 needles. It seems so quick compared to the fingering weight and size 1s I've been using for the socks I'm knitting. I've got the whole thing squashed on a 29 inch needle so sadly you can't see the whole thing. 

Yesterday when I was in the shower I was composing a blog entry in my head. I had a very cute title and a whole story to go along with it. I also had a really excellent photo to go along with it and I can promise you it wasn't to be taken on an unmade bed. Unfortunately the whole day got away from me so you get this lousy picture and a boring post to go with it.

Late last week I went through the stash. I dug deep and looked at what was there. Among other things I found the Wonderful Wallaby I had started for N ages ago. When I held it up I knew there was no way it would fit him so I ripped it out and began again. It is working up much quicker than I remembered the last one going. It's a size 8. N just keeps growing and I'm hoping this will last through the fall. The yarn is Lion Brand Woolease. Not a favorite of mine but when you know you are going to have to knit another sweater in a few short months there is no point in using the best yarn.