Good-bye crappy old year that's been....

What am I doing for new years eve? Well...I made a big pot of borsht, and I'm waiting for my sweetie Manimal to get home from buttoning up the house project and then we'll probably eat borsht and go to bed at 9:00. Wheee!

I don't want to put 2008 down too badly because it's been the first year of my baby's life and I wouldn't trade it back for anything, but it's been a roller coaster and I'm not sad to see it go.

New Babies: just as much work as any abstinence only health class teacher ever tried to frighten you celibate by implying that they would be. Anyone want to help me with the grammar there?

And living somewhere that's not really your house, with most of your stuff in storage (I am STILL wearing maternity clothes, and I weigh ten pounds less than I did when I got pregnant, thank you belt) while your partner works 16 hour days trying to build a new house while also working at actual paying jobs. Yeah, that's not been the most fun. Remember the time I invited some people over for dinner and realized that in order to feed them we would need to use every bowl in the house...because we only have 8 bowls...no plates, just 8 bowls.

Did I mention that Manimal broke his collar bone? How about that he had knee surgery? Oh, yeah, at the same time that he had a broken collar bone. Let's not repeat that ever again, ever. If there is anything crankier than a wounded Manimal trying to get around on crutches with a broken collar bone, then you can keep it at your house and I will definately not come and visit you.

How about the fact that Ragnarson seems determined to win the tooth race and has been teething continually since he was about 6 months old? That kid has every single tooth already with the exception of his two year molars. And they all came in fours. This causes him to wake up approximately 6 times a night...boy am I looking forward to the end of that chapter of his development.

So...yeah. If this seems really whiney, I'm sorry, but it's really not. I'm just sort of reflecting back and realizing that the reason I feel like I've been run over by a dump truck is that I just lived through one hell of a year. I'm actually sort of proud of myself for keeping it together (as much as I did, and thankfully Manimal was the only one to witness most of the breakdowns, and he's forgiven me...I think).

Here's to hard times and the surviving of them. I don't usually mark the new year by doing anything more special than throwing away the old calendar and hanging up the new one, but I am really feeling optomistic about 2009. I think optomisim is something I acquired with motherhood, maybe all that good breastfeeding oxytocin. I used to call myself an optomistic pessimist, meaning that I felt like everything was fucked up, but that it was all going to be okay anyway. Lately though I've found myself feeling like things are getting less fucked up, and that maybe, just maybe things are going to be great.

Ragnar...maudlen and dreary, but, you know, in a good way.

The great thing about never posting...

is that when I do finally start, I can make it look like I crank out the cool knits at super speed by picking through all the boring stuff and only trotting out the winners.

Super you say?

One of my oldest (not chronologically, just historically...although come to think about it Rat Girl is the same age as we were when we met...ohmygod, I feel really old...wow) friends had a baby mere months after Ragnarson was born and when I asked her if she wanted a practical baby present, or a ridiculous knitted item, she casually mentioned that her signifigant was a huge superman fan. I considered it a mandate.
The sweater, modeled by Ragnarson, is the "Sue" babysweater, from Elspeth Lavold's "Take Five Collection." I picked that pattern because I had knit it before, and love the way it goes together...of course it only took me about five seconds to realize that I was going to include a button on cape...sewn of course, because knitted 1) would have been really heavy and 2) would have been too close to knitting a baby blanket, and I am philosophically opposed to the knitting of baby blankets.

It was finished embarassingly long ago, but I had to hold on to it because Ragnarson had to learn how to walk so that I could get a good picture of it, and then I had to hang on to it for months longer so that he could borrow it for a last minute Halloween costume, but it has finally winged its way to its new home and been pronounced by the Superman Fan to be the "coolest ever." High praise indeed. Good thing I knit it in a size two because the baby in question is definately closer to being two than he is to being a newborn. I'm going to start knitting his fifth birthday present soon...I think I'll make it for a 40" chest.

Ragnar...better at knitting than gifting on time.

I gotcher knittin' right here...

There are nasty rumors floating around the blogosphere. It's been whispered in some circles that Ragnar doesn't have the knit anymore (not true, the blogosphere cares not if Ragnar knits or doesn't but it makes for a dramatic opening).

Untrue! and to prove it I throw down the (100% washable Merino) gauntlet and say "bring on the pictures of ridiculous hats.
So there! And not only that, but for some unfathomable reason, adult men of my acquaintance have been clamoring to be decked in horns and rivets as well, so not only are there baby vikings running about the place, but full grown old-enough-to-know-better types as well.

Of course, they are happy to walk around in public looking like (ahem) fierce medieval warriors, but they will not condescend to be photographed for posterity, even if posterity is my humble low traffic blog.

I have knit this hat enough times that writing up the pattern for it has become inevitable. There were only two things stopping me. The first being that the whole thing was originally inspired by Chile Con Yarne's Viking Baby Cap. Well not exactly, it was inspired by my adorible...I mean ferocious nephew, but a quick google of the phrase "viking baby cap" brought me straight to Yarne's door. The second was that I've been cribbing the horn portion of the hat from Jen Stafford over the The Dominitrix. If you have her book, or her pattern you can do the same, but you're not going to learn her secrets from me, no no. As a finally-begining-to-publish designer I am suddenly quite sensitive to this whole copywrite thing that people are so anxious about.

However, I have decided that although inspired by, my version has enough variance from the orignial that I can claim it as "my" design, and tonight I polished up my knitting sticks and knit a totally passable "horn" that is all my own, short rows, slipped stitches, the whole shebang.

So watch this space! Sometime soon you to will be able to outfit your family and friends with knitted versions of kitchy viking helmets.

And in the mean time, I finally fixed the flame baby-hat pattern, which had a completely wrong flame chart in it...these things happen when you knit a lot of things with flames in them and completely fail to lable your notes.

And for those of you on Ravelry, I has finally got my own "store." Which has exactly the same stuff that's already posted here, but you know...it's in pdf format and you can save it in your Ravelry library and...and...yeah.

Ragnar...yes this is what I'm doing on christmas eve, SHUT UP.

One of those posts....

Yes, I suck as a blogger.

Yes I haven't updated in a loooong time.

Yes I have many many excuses (plague, broken bones (manimal's not mine), construction) which I will not bore you with here.

Yes, I have another blog which I did update. Go look at my soon to be finished new house.

Yes, I will make hollow, unenforceable promises to blog more regularly, in spite of the fact that we will be moving soon and have no immediate plans to plug in to the world wide waste of time...I wonder how long I'll be able to hold out before I go out and beg, borrow, steal an internet connection.

Yes, instead of content I will post a cute picture of a baby.

Ragnar...pathetic excuse for a blogger.