June is busting out all over

So here's the lie of the land:

• June 5 (i.e. TOMORROW, augh!): DH's birthday
• June 21: Father's Day
• June 24:
  1. Baby shower for boss
  2. Last day of school for DD1

This means that I am truly screwed, knitting-wise.

Blanket for baby Blewitt

(Say that five times fast.)

So my boss is pregnant, due in early August, and we're throwing her a party on the 24th of June. This means I need to have my knitted gift ready for her by that date. I got pretty ambitious for this one, choosing to do a blanket and working out a slip stitch design (as part of my ongoing project to put together a book of baby patterns). I chose colours to match the nursery décor; I'm hoping she will completely plotz when she sees it. It took me a while to bend the slip stitch technique to my will (I was immediately disappointed, for example, to discover that you can't do a straight diagonal line in slip stitch; this was very thwarting to my plans straight off the bat), but mid-May I finally got it together enough to do up a swatch that I was really, really pleased with. I bought the yarn, started it up, and went great guns on it. By Tuesday morning I was completely done the slip stitch component in the middle and was ready to do the border.

This all sounds absolutely fantastic, right?

Here's the problem: just a week into working exclusively on this thing, it was pretty damn clear to me that June 24 was totally make-able as a deadline. I was also totally aware that my husband's birthday was coming up almost three weeks sooner than the baby shower. The intelligent thing to do, therefore, was put the blanket project the heck down, and start knitting some freakin' socks!

But did I? Of course not. The creative bug had hit me and I wanted to see how the blanket would work out. In fact, I'm still working on it at the slightest excuse, now that it's about four rows away from completion (aside from the finishing). I love this blanket like crazy and am so proud of the design, but I think it's screwed my husband out of a completed birthday present.

Birthday socks for DH

My LYS had a sale in May, so I took advantage and did a bit of replenishing of my sock yarn supply, which was running abysmally low. One of my purchases was a ball of "On Your Toes", a nice self-striping/self-patterning yarn, in a very masculine blue, beige, grey and white colourway. I bought it with DH's birthday in mind.

However, sidetracked by the baby blanket I couldn't stop obsessing about, I didn't work up the wherewithal to cast on for the socks until THREE DAYS prior to his actual birthday. I am pathetic. I confessed my shame to my older daughter yesterday morning as we were waiting for her school bus. "Don't worry, Mummy!" she told me. "You're a really fast knitter! You can do it!"

She's a great cheerleader, but she really has no idea what she's talking about. :) I only finished the knitting of sock #1 on this morning's train and have barely started sock #2. Note that I said "the knitting". This means I haven't even begun the finishing on the first sock - there are ends all over the inside of that thing. I have my lunch hour, the commute home, and SnB tonight at the LYS to do almost a whole man-size sock. (On 2.5mm needles.) After that is his actual birthday, which we both have off work, and we'll be spending the whole day together before the celebratory party in the evening; there will be no time to work on the socks without his noticing.

So I am doomed. How upset do you think he will be to receive 1.5 socks?

Fortunately, I stopped myself from letting the cat out of the bag this morning. I had just finished adding the project to my notebook on Ravelry when my brain woke up and said, "DUH!!! Your husband is on Ravelry, you idiot!" So I took it off. Dammit, it's great that he knits and everything, but sometimes that does make things more complicated. I hope Casey implements a "secret project" feature soon!

The pattern for these socks, incidentally, is my own: the one I've been using over and over again for socks for quite some time now. I'd love to show you pictures, but I can't do that before the pattern is published. The good news, however, is that I just sent the final photos for the pattern off to Amy at Knitty this weekend, so hopefully you'll be seeing it before the year is out.

Father's Day socks for DH

Of course, even if I do finish up birthday socks for my husband in time, I have to turn right around and panic about another pair of socks for him! Fortunately, the yarn is already in hand; I bought it at the same time as I bought the birthday sock yarn. It's plain beige. Or maybe a beige/white heather. Either way, it's nice; I think it's from OnLine.

I'm going to be using the cabled variation on my sock pattern which I mentioned I was working on back in February. It'll be a good test of my pattern instructions, and will give me another prototype to photograph and send off to Knitty as part of the design proposal.

Hopefully they'll knit up quickly. Because there's one more thing I have to make sure I finish this month...

Ice Queen for DD1's teacher

Recently I came to the awful realisation that the end of the school year is fast approaching. Don't get me wrong, I'm not horrified at the prospect of DD1 not being at school for a few months. (The routine will be almost identical except that on "school days", she'll be at daycare full-day instead of at school and then daycare for the rest of the afternoon. No biggie.) What freaked me right out was that I should really be arranging for a present for her teacher!

You may recall that two Christmases ago, this teacher (right before she went on mat leave) received the Branching Out scarf, made in lavender Zephyr Laceweight Wool-Silk. Well, I have scads of the stuff left over from that, and no idea what kind of gift she'd like if I decided to go out and buy something, so guess what...I'll be knitting for her.

Ice Queen looks just about perfect. It takes 229 yards, which I'm positive I have, and is so gorgeous that I can't imagine anyone not liking it. No beads, though - I don't have the time to choose, buy, or knit with them, and I'm sure it will look lovely without them.

Hopefully I can motor through the pattern pretty quickly.

Wish me luck.