Lack of detail

(To recap: I'm currently catching up on describing three and a half months of knitting when I didn't blog.)

So after the sock parade at the beginning of the year, I turned to design work.

I made a gorgeous baby gift for an expecting co-worker. Now, the pattern I used is not mine, but the colourwork motif that I substituted in is, so unfortunately I'm not going to show pictures. (Which is a tremendous shame, because it came out awesome and I'm really proud of it.) The pattern was the absolutely adorable Woobie Zebra, by Kris Carlson, whose second volume of "woobie" patterns I really should get around to buying, because they're all so freakin' cute.

Shortly afterwards, I used that same colourwork motif in an accessory that I recently submitted somewhere (fingers crossed!), and then yarn support for two more designs started to arrive. Again, no pictures, no details, but I'll be able to reveal more in the fall when the issues they're being published in come out. As always, I'm ridiculously excited about the prospect of seeing my name in print and sharing my patterns with The World.

The only thing I was working on around this time that I can talk about is a blue fuzzy giraffe toy that I'm hoping to have finished in time for DD3's birthday in mid-late August. I had started it waaaaay back when she was only about four months old, but abandoned it pathetically fast after I'd barely completed the first hoof.

The problem, of course, lies with that adjective "fuzzy". The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly Snowflake DK, which is as deliciously soft and baby toy-appropriate as you would expect a microfibre novelty yarn to be, but is as much of a b***h to work with as you would also expect. I'd forgotten where I'd left off and hadn't taken notes about that, and it was quite impossible to figure out where the heck I was in the pattern just by "reading the knitting" (or in this case, "reading the indistinct fuzz").

Finally, I gave up and ripped out the whole first hoof and started again. I have made significant progress:

(Yes, I know what that looks like! Shut up, okay? It'll look more like giraffe legs later on.)

...but have since put the whole thing back down again. With any luck, I'll be able to work up the chutzpah in the next month or so to start leg #3.

Next time: cabled sweaters, plural!