Birthday knitting goodness

Sunday was DD's birthday party. (Yes, her birthday was last month, but she got monstrously sick the night before her party was originally supposed to take place and we had to postpone.) So I'd been spending a lot of the last week and a half desperately cleaning the house. (By zero hour, it looked great, I was amazed. Except for our bedroom, which was a complete and utter sty, therefore we kept that door firmly CLOSED.) This is relevant to knitting because it explains why I have very little progress to report on since Thursday's entry. When I was not fighting off the cold that I eventually succumbed to, I was frantically trying to make sure that we did not reveal ourselves as the total slobs that we truly are.

The party itself went fabulously, I thought. Many people ignored the 'presents not required' statement in the invitation and brought lovely things for our girl. But our friend Tanya - sweet, craft-enabling Tanya - brought a gift of YARN. And not just any yarn - but a skein hand-dyed by our friend Mel.

Mel, if you're reading this - thank you. It is fantastically vibrant. Also...do you happen to know the fibre content? (I did the geek thing and went through about seven months of your blog archive to try and answer this question myself, but could not find any mention of it.)

The card accompanying this gift implied that I should make something wonderful for DD out of the yarn, but I didn't read the card until later, so my first thought (silly me) was that this was the beginning of my daughter's very own yarn stash.

Dear reader, what do you think? Should the yarn become clothing for DD (which would be the selfish option, since I really would love to knit with the stuff), or stash for DD?

(Maybe I should ask DD herself. Hm...)

In other very cool knitting-related news, my grandmother brought along a gift bag to the party that she gave to me privately afterwards. There were some very cutesy gifts in there that DD loved when she opened it up the next morning, but the crowning glory for me was a cardigan that my grandmother had knitted for me when I was a baby. How freakin' special is that, eh? And when I lifted it out of the bag, it did actually look familiar (mostly because of the buttons). I LOVE IT.

My grandmother knitted for us a fair bit as we were growing up. Mostly, it was mittens, which I'm sure were put in garage sales once we outgrew them. But there were some other things, too. I think she knitted the original outfit for the 'Peggy' doll that is now my daughter's - but this was lost long ago and I had to make a replacement. There was also a dolly blanket with textured squares on it which disappeared at some point in my childhood. So I don't think I had any of my grandmother's knitting in my possession (and was unlikely to get any new stuff since I don't think she knits anymore).

Until now.

When she told me what was in the gift bag, I think my grandmother was rather gratified by my positive reaction. It must have been interesting to see my eyes get that wide. :)

Twizzle cardigan for DD

This project had stalled for the pure and simple reason that I'd lost the pattern. (Yes. Loser.) However, during the process of cleaning the house this weekend, DH found it! (And revealed that it was he who had hidden it away in the first place, thus proving that I'm not such a loser after all, haha.) So, Saturday night after my cold finally got bad enough to stop my relentless cleaning, I ensconced myself on the living room couch with this cardigan and our videotape of Robin Williams Live on Broadway. By the time I went to bed, I had both fronts done and both shoulders bound off together.



Next up: sleeves.

Garden Shawl for MIL

This had to be hidden away during the party so my MIL wouldn't see it. So I found it a home in one of my project bins. But it didn't stay there for long. I fished it out the next morning and brought it to work. Slowly, slowly, it is sloggingly approaching the end. There are three tiers of flowers in the last chart, and I have started on the third. Must. Keep. Slogging.