I’m not dead.  My blog has seemed far, far away from the bottom of the rabbit hole that sucked me in, but I’m still breathing, and in fact clutching my way back to the surface.

Mostly I blame being slapped upside the head at work lately, but I did take a vacation in there somewhere, so at least part of my absence is due to something good. 

Yes, vacation.  My family’s lake cottage is my favorite place to be.  Usually it’s crazy busy with boats zipping around with skiiers, and usually I’m not up at sunrise, but I managed to grab this shot on the morning we left.  Peace, man.

lake

But.  This is a knitting blog.  There’s no denying I’m way behind here.

Feefers is long since done; will post her FO shortly. 

I don’t have much else to show for my time, knitting-wise.

It’s fair to say I entered a bit of a slump when I finished Fifi, mostly due to a misestimation of the collection of flab I’ve been building. 

Fifi fits like a glove that’s a couple sizes too small after accidentally getting dropped in the hot cycle. 

I saw it coming as I was knitting, but I decided to forge ahead (motivation to work on that spare tire around the waist!).

But basically, my dear Fifi makes me feel like Two-Ton Tessie, so I can’t wear her for a little while unless everything below the boobs is obscured by a suit jacket.  It’s not horrific, just disappointing, because she’s so pretty. 

Photos with me sucking in my gut as much as possible will be posted all too soon.

[Note to self:  my bust size = small; the rest of my abdomen = not small.  Remember this.  Make adjustments.]

So  - my knitting ego took a blow in my apparent inability to judge my own girth, and I downgraded my aspirations from making another summer thing or two to acknowledging I might as well crack into Christmas gifts.  Seriously.  I mean it this time.

And I’m sticking to things like mittens that are hard to screw-up size-wise so as to avoid making someone feel fat.

sock

That said, my remaining WIP is still hanging around like a bad rash.  I’ve spent a random smattering of minutes furthering my efforts to close out the pair of socks that have been on my needles for…oh, a year.  

Those poor Raindrop Lace Socks. 

Maybe they’ll wiggle their way off to make it under the tree in December.

My big ambitious project now is a blanket..but not a real one (I’m done with those for a while).  It’s a 8×10-inch mini-me version for Maizy’s doll called Baby, who, strangely, is approximately the size of a baby. 

maizy

Yes, this means it’s basically an over-grown swatch, but such is the nature of my knitting motivation. 

She requested one a couple of months ago after realizing she got the short end of the gift stick when her baby sister was born. 

The new kid received fresh-off-the-needles knitlove and Maizy got squat from her visiting auntie. 

Not to be duped, she draped said sister’s Summer Baby Blanket around herself and pranced around the living room - nude as a bee - twirling and striking poses for her adoring audience.  She garnered as much attention as possible before putting her clothes back on and shifting into What I Need You To Knit ME mode, starting with a blanket for her Baby.

She rallied for about six other things, too, and I took copious notes, but an 8 by 10-inch swatch is about all I can handle.  Sorry Maiz.

Here’s a photo of my impressive work:

blanket

No Babies in sight, so a pepper grinder filled in as the stunt double.

I’ll rebound, I know.  I think I feel guilty for getting behind on all of my blog-reading, too…all my friends are moving on without me! 

Knitting mojo - I command you to return.

Pretty please.