Busy weekend

Whew, I had a busy weekend. Saturday night we went to Daisy's last birthday party. Last in that she doesn't plan on acknowledging further birthdays (although I imagine she will accept gifts on the day that was her birthday?). Then yesterday I went to Paula's baby shower, and proudly presented her with this:

This is the Baby Bobbi Bear from Blue Sky Alpaca, in organic cotton. It's SO soft and cuddly! I'm really happy with it, and I hope that Paula (and her baby, of course) enjoys it. As you might recall, I had a lot of trouble understanding this pattern just reading it, although when I finally just started doing what it said without over thinking it things were just fine. So, in the end I'm happy with the pattern and could see myself making another one.

Project Specs: Baby Bobbi Bear

Yarn/pattern: Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, 1.5 skeins, sand

Needles: Size 9 bamboo DPNs, and several large stitch holders

Time: Longer than necessary due to severe procrastination and pattern confusion. Probably about two weeks or less of actual effort.

Comments: See above. No real complaints. I could be happier with my face embroidery, but that's hardly the patterns fault. I was in a rush but I think it looks okay. And it gave me an excuse to head to the embroidery floss stash, which is substantial since I was really into making friendship bracelets and doing cross-stitch back in the day.

Now I have to start something else (yes, there are already current projects...if we don't talk about them maybe they'll go away). My lunchtime knitting group, the Fiberphiles, has decided to have an informal lace knitalong, so that we're all kind of knitting the same type of thing at the same time. Too date I think Rachel is the only one who has started a new project (which is the same as what I'm making - her's will turn out better and be done months earlier since I'm knitting above my skillz, (and I never finish anything) so the choice may have been ill-advised). Daisy is making some lacy socks, so that counts, and I think Jennifer is also making a lace shawl, but I'm not sure where it stands. Although I'm not big on lace shawls because I think I'm really not old enough to wear them and I never know what I would do with a purse with one (I feel the same way about ponchos), I feel rectangular ones are really scarves (stoles), and I love scarves, so Rachel and I are making this. Sorry that's a PDF, if you go here and scroll down to the free patterns you can see a small photo. I'm using this yarn:

The yarn is 100% kid mohair from Australia that I got at a fiber festival this spring. It's unbelievably soft and doesn't have too much of a halo, so it should be ideal for the lace. Don't hold your breath on seeing progress with this. I'm just swatching!