The wagon is so easy to fall off of...

They need to put rails on that damned wagon or something, you really have to hold on tight and even then, one little bump and there you are in the middle of the road, watching the wagon drive off without you.

By which you will probably be able to guess that the finish-2-start-1 "suggestion" (as we pirates know, all the rules are really just suggestions) has been suspended due to a knitting emergency. Yes there is such a thing as a knitting emergency! (please to notice new skull stitch markers...thanks no-longer-secret-pal Jennifer).

It was a dark and stormy night...okay it was an unseasonably warm night. It was in fact the night before a friend's baby shower. It was 11 o'clock. We had no baby presents in the house. Sure there were plenty of toys with just a little bit of drool on them, but regifting slightly used baby toys is sort of a shower no-no. Turns out that some Mom's are pretty crazy about their baby's toys, and only like to have pristine, drool free toys...and anyway, toys are a lousey baby shower present anyway, because the baby can't play with them for 3 or 4 months and until then they are just in your way. What you need for a baby shower is something that makes the Mom-to-be, who is very pregnant, and uncomfortable, think "Awwww, baby stuff is cute, it'll be great fun to have a baby." Or at least that's what I assume...at my shower people got me things like flamey legwarmers, and shirts with pithy sayings on them...and this of course made me think "Awwww, there's punk-rock-gothy-evil baby shit in the world, it's gonna be so much fun to have a baby."

By miraculous co-incidence, I had just that afternoon reorganized my stash. It was miraculous, because the baby had taken "a nap." I had heard of naps, but thought that they were a part of baby lore, like the one about how they like their carseats, that didn't apply to mine. My baby sleeps during the day, but he likes to sleep on me, making it impossible to do anything but sit in "the chair" and surf the net (ahem, my Ravelry cue, ahem), and try to knit without waking up the little booger. To me this does not constitute a nap. But on this day, the miraculous day, he had slept in a bed, in another room, and did not start making little squawking baby noises for ONE HOUR AND 45 MINUTES. I'm having a plaque made. So after "I put the baby down for his nap" (just thinking those words makes me feel all trembly) and I went in to the living room, gently closing the bedroom door behind me, I realized that I had no idea what to do with myself. There were chores to be accomplished, of course, but somehow the lure of the "big box of yarn" seemed so much stronger. So I spread the stash all over the living room....it was blissful.

Mmmm, blurry stash photo. We're knit bloggin' now!

With stash freshly sorted, and baby shower in sight, it became obvious that the writ of Finish-thy-projects had to be suspended. What was needed was a quick and easy baby pattern. Hats were out, not only because all my hat appropriate yarns were too itchy for baby, but because I knew that Ginger was knitting baby hats. Which brings us to "The Eleventh Hour Baby Booties."

Nothin' makes you go "Awwww" like itty bitty booties.

The pattern: Saartje's Booties. Which is a free pattern, and you should go knit a pair, or two or three.

The yarn: Tristan, by Louet. Which is linen plyed with merino...quite lovely. I knit Manimal a hat out of it, and the rest of the skein has been languishing in the big blue yarn tub. I probably have enough left over for another pair of emergency booties.

And since this was an emergency project I don't feel that I have violated any "suggestions" or solemn vows or whatever...but here's a question. If you finish a project that you never started, does it count toward finish-2-start-1? And if you finish a pair of somethings, isn't that really finishing two individual somethings, and doesn't that mean that I now get to cast something on? And further more. I frogged a project while I was sorting yarn, so that is in a way finishing something (as in, "you're finished" said the hero to the villain), is it not?

By my count I am one ahead in the finishing department.

Whoo hoo! See ya at the yarn store!

Ragnar...the important thing is that I convince myself that it's true.