Back into the swing of things

Well, I'm back. It's been a sad week so far. My grandfather was an absolutely wonderful man. One of those people who never seems to have a hard word to say about anyone. One of those people who makes friends everywhere he goes, who loves all his family so deeply and cherishes every moment he spends with them. A true gentleman. And so, even though it is not a tragedy when a man who has lived a full, wonderful and well-loved life dies at the long-lived age of almost 91, it feels like a tragedy to me. And judging from the reactions of my family, I ain't the only one who feels this way. However, I'm moving on. It doesn't hurt that I have this wonderful little girl at home who appears to be made primarily of giggles. :)

Thank you Aven, for your very kind words of sympathy.

Knitting, however, has not stopped.

Big Brother is watching you

Last Thursday, I added stats to my blog. I was interested in seeing just how many people were showing up here and where they were linking from, so I signed up with StatCounter. This service provides really nifty information, although they can only archive data from the last 100 visitors. However, I'm only getting 100 visitors every several days, so this is not so much of a problem. In fact, having conclusive proof that I do get visitors is very cool indeed. Hello, visitors! :) Welcome, welcome.

Back to knitting

In the comments, Aven echoed my sentiment about my camcorder's still-image-taking capabilities. "Yay for pictures!" indeed! Unfortunately, I don't have too many new photos today. I do have more pictures sitting in my camcorder than are posted here today, but I haven't had the time to transfer them over to my computer. Stay tuned.

In other commenting news, you coulda knocked me over with a feather - I got a comment from Stephanie, the Yarn Harlot herself, who loves the ribbing on my grandfather's slipover. Coolness! As I've mentioned before, I think Stephanie writes a truly kick-heinie blog, so for her to have read mine and liked one of my projects was a fine moment indeed. Actually, I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that for a few nanoseconds I came over all sycophantly with the hysterical screaming a la Beatles fans (inside my head, of course...don't want to wake the baby or scare the beejeezus out of the husband) and the "Omigawd the YARN HARLOT read MY blog I'm soooo not worthy, blah blah blah", etc., before my sense of reality and proportion came back. Ahem. I'm fine now.

Hillhead slipover for Grandpa

I got this far before I put the knitting down and went over to my grandfather's bed to be with him as he breathed his last:

Doesn't it look awesome? I love this pattern. The day before he died he was unable to talk and almost complete immobile, but you could see in his eyes that someone was still there. So, I told him about the slipover. I showed him the picture from the book of the completed garment. I showed him how much I'd done so far. His eyes went really big. I think he was very impressed. And I think he really liked it. It is really too bad I couldn't have finished it sooner. It would have been an honour for me if he could have been buried in it - it was a perfect match for his suit. However, I can only do so much. Sadly, his death has really taken the mickey out of me for wanting to continue the slipover right now, but I'm sure I'll get back to it since it's such a damn good knit. Plus, my uncle would also look great in the finished product, and he's been so awesome taking care of my grandparents this whole time - perhaps having this slipover would be a comfort to him.

Self-designed poncho for baby Ashthorn

Knitting is complete! The poncho is done and the ends have been woven in. I just have to block it. It looks quite good.

United Way argyle cardigan for Jack Rosatelli

Wonderful news - the baby was born on the 7th. With any luck, I will have the cardigan completed by the time my co-worker gets back to work. (This is my hope, anyway.) Lots of work has been done on this - the back and right front are completed. I'm now about to start working on the left front.

Secret Garden cardigan for Madison

No progress, but I did take a picture. I know I'm just going to frog this and re-start the thing in a bigger size, but I wanted to record how lovely it is before I did that: