These Boots Were Made For Walking... on the Moon.

The blanket is still blocking. Actually, it's probably not blocking so much as sitting, pinned all to hell, on the futon upstairs.
Wanted to show you the booties in progress. I no longer remember how or why I came across this pattern (that's the magic of Ravelry, isn't it?), but I fell in love with how it looks. Don't they just look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or maybe the original Star Trek?
I'm making them out of the same yarn as the Leaf Blanket, but I think it's really too thick for them. I'm using size 1 needles, as the pattern suggests, and it's a struggle. My shoulders turned into extremely tense earrings during the first one, and I haven't tackled much of the second yet. Though really, the reason I haven't done the second one yet is because the Harry Potter books I ordered arrived and I realized that I needed to re-read the fifth one immediately or some sort of vortex of hell would swallow me up.
Anyway, the first bootie is so cute I could cry, but there were some difficulties. I found the instructions for how to shape the top of the shoe a bit odd, and then doing joining again in the round for the leg part left a small hole. Worst, though, is that I stupidly, stupidly did not do a looser bind off at the top. The pattern says 22 rows after the eyelet row, which seems weirdly tall - I only did 20 and it was very long. With a regular bind off, it tightened considerably, and while I don't know much about babies, my limited experience tells me they all have chubby little legs rather than twigs. I folded it over as in the picture, and here's hoping it fits without cutting off the circulation in her ankles. And then, how in the heck did it get all arched like that, and why are the top ribby things so much larger than the bottom?

Tonight I will try to make myself practice a crochet border and see about starting the actual border on the actual blanket.

Oh, and I do have the answer to one question I raised last time - that day's lunch was a typically bizarre combination of two dinner rolls, sauceless spaghetti with bacon bits and pieces of spinach, half a hard-boiled egg in some sort of meat shell, and fruit-and-yogurt salad. Ah, Japan, how I shall miss you. I'll have to try much harder to get my daily dose of weirdness back in the States.

Baby Blanket Blocking

Hagadaga! All right!The Leaf Blanket knitting is done. That bad boy is blocking in my apartment as we speak (type/read/whatever).

These pictures are terrible, and for that I am sorry. It's been raining for the past two days here, making picture lighting non-existent, and the only surface on which I could block this thing is white (and yes, it is a futon). So you can't see it well, but just use your imagination, that's what it's for. Alternately, wait until it's finished-finished, and you'll get a better picture (hopefully).Why yes, yes, I did pin the hell out of it. I'm nervous how it will turn out once I un-pin it and start the crochet border, because the yarn is mostly acrylic and acrylic doesn't block well, right? Making it not an ideal choice for lace projects. But there is wool in the yarn, and when I got it wet to block it there was a reassuringly wet-wool smell, so maybe that will help. Who knows?Now I have to figure out how to make a nice border. I had planned to do it in the same yellow yarn I used for the cabled baby blankets last year, but when I actually held up that yarn to this blanket, it was clear that would never do. Again, bad lighting = no picture, but since the blanket yarn is a cream in the slightly yellow range (you can't tell here, but I promise it's true), it looked atrocious with the rich butter yellow (sort of neon under florescent light) of the Fantasy yarn. A word popped in to my head immediately upon seeing it, and that was poisonous. Very apt.

I do have a skein of the Fantasy in pink, which I could do since the kid is a girl, but I detest that kind of gender-based color coding. The blanket took less yarn than I thought, and I have one skein of the Hamanaka left over. But is that enough? Am I going to get a tiny bit of border, run out, and then be forced to re-do or find my way back to Kumamoto to buy more? Is the border even going to work with my pathetic crochet skills? Will it take six years and inhuman patience? Will I finish and send it this month? Will Sheila and baby like it? What's for lunch today? What do you think birds think about when they fly? Are we alone in the universe?

The answers to these, and many others, probably not on this blog.

Edited for poor diction.

Travel Planning!

Here's where I'll be in just over three weeks:
Even knowing that the baby has arrived and time is short, I haven't really knit anything in the past couple of days.

First, there was drama. Now, I'm a little too old for drama, but I basically live in the equivalent of Melrose Place for the foreigners of Yatsushiro. Except with less sex. As far as I know. Anyway, there was drama and that involved coffee and gossip sessions, and I got distracted. Bad Tracy.

Second, my books on Beijing and China arrived. Yea! At the end of this month, I will be leaving to spend eight days in Beijing, but all I've got booked so far is the flight, the first two nights at a hostel, and my visa. So there is a lot to research and plan. I got the Lonely Planet guide to Beijing city, and Fodor's China. They both seem pretty good so far, and I got them both slightly used but in excellent condition from BetterWorld Books, who sent them promptly. I love that site.

Originally I had hoped to have the Prepster done by that trip. Now I think I'll be lucky to have sent off the Leaf Blanket.

In either case, however, I will be in China at the end of the month. How rad is that?

Introducing Mary Kathleen

It happened! Here she is, Sheila's new baby:

How the heck do I rotate this?

Mary Kathleen, born February 15th. She was early but apparently hefty - eight pounds. Not exactly in Big Fat Baby Tracy range, but hefty. Isn't she cute? Well, as cute as a wrinkled red ball of baby can be, I guess. This does confirm my belief that newborns all look a bit like aliens, but she's a precious alien, anyway.

Naturally, what with a newborn, a two-year-old, and a large extended family, it took a while for the news to reach me. Yes, that crushed me just a little, but it's one of the consequences of moving across the world. Her first child is my godson, and I've seen him once, at his baptism - two-and-a-half years ago. Bleah. Five more months, I keep telling myself, five more months.

If you want more cute baby-ness, another friend's wee one is now teething. That's Ben, my friend Trish's son. He looks adorable, but I'm awfully glad I'm not having to deal with teething noises. Shudder. Trish is nice enough to be my first blog follower, even though I suspect that with a teething child, a husband, a doctoral thesis, and no interest in knitting that I'm aware of, she doesn't read much of my whining about needle sizes.

Also, this means that the blanket is two more weeks overdue than I thought. Yurk!

I Bought Yarn! Yippee!

I bought the yarn for the Prepster! Yea!Terribly excited. Isn't grey and pink a nice combo? I found this yarn at Tokai Craft Heart, the neat little craft shop inside the Youme Town. It's Wister Araeru Merino 100, an obviously wool yarn that's worsted weight - I think (Ravelry agrees). That's the same as what the pattern calls for, and just to be sure I took some bits of yarn to the store with me, including the clearly too thin Diaepoca.
There's only 78 meters to the skein, so I bought seven of the main color and three of the contrast color. I also bought the other needle I needed - Japan size 6, which is 3.9 mm. The pattern calls for a US size 5, which is 3.75 mm, and US size 7, 4.5 mm. The Japan size 8 is in fact 4.5 mm, but I was concerned about the difference in the Jpn 6 vs. US 5, so I also bought a Jpn 9, which is 4.8 mm (in case you're wondering, a Jpn 7 is 4.2 mm). In any case, I now have a range of needle size choices, which is good because I am finally concerned about gauge. I knit tightly, and I'm going to convert this pattern to a circular one piece rather than two pieces on straight needles, so I think I'll need choices. I have a feeling I'll be starting several times.Of course, I won't be starting at all any time soon, because there is still the leaf blanket to get through, and I am way behind, and for all I know, Sheila is having the baby right now. So today is for laundry and knitting. Perhaps if I am very good, I will allow myself to swatch tonight. But only if I am very, very good.

3/2 Edited for links.