Why yes, I do have a knitting blog. Right. I knew that. Okay then, maybe I should get some posts written. After all, even though the blogging has ground to a halt, the knitting hasn't (it has slowed but not stopped!)

So where were we? Oh yes, Sheldon. Well he is now in his new home, anxiously waiting for baby to arrive. Meanwhile, I think baby's mommy is glad that she doesn't have to share Sheldon yet. He was received in just the manner we hope our knitted gifts are received.

Remember Henry? Well, I finished Henry (made with Knit Picks Gloss) in early March, with still plenty of winter to go, as it turned out (not that I was worried – winter will come again next year, so the scarf will get used). 

This is a gorgeous scarf. Before blocking, I was concerned that I wasn’t going to be happy with it. The fabric was quite stiff, with little drape, and it was shorter than I had wanted (51”). But the magic of blocking fixed that. It now has much better drape and is 62” long and 7 1/2” wide (I did 6 repeats instead of 7).

The only drawback is that it was incredibly tedious to knit. The only thing that kept me going was the end product, which I really liked the look of. But it was not a fun knit, by any stretch of the imagination. The scarf is knit length wise, so you have 452 stitches on the needle. The pattern is made up of slip 2, k2 the whole length, offset by one each row, to make the herringbone pattern. It was repetitive enough to not be engaging, but easy to screw up, so you had to pay attention. I was glad to see this one come to an end! But the end result was worth it!

I’m not thrilled with the ends of the scarf as given in the pattern. The ends flare, and I think if I were to make it again, I would play around with options for the beginning and end of each row. However, I really don’t see myself making this again – once is enough!

I put details on the cast on and cast off on Ravelry, so if you're interested in those geeky details, check there.

Another thing I've finished recently is a Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Opinionated Knitter. I made this from Nova Yarns Real Jeans, that I bought at Wool n Things a few months back.

This is for yet another colleague who recently had a baby boy. I had hoped to have this finished before he was born, but I didn't quite make the deadline. So I'll go visit next week and take it over.

I used the buttons I bought at the Fabric Flea Market in October.

As with anything designed by Elizabeth Zimmermann, this is a really ingenious pattern, and lots of fun to knit.  

I have one other thing finished, but it's currently blocking, so it will have to wait until next post. But here's a sneak preview:

In non-knitting, but fiber-related news, on Easter weekend I went on a road trip with Paula and her daughter. We headed out to the country to visit Aline and her 5 little new lambs. You can read more about them on Aline's blog, but here are a couple of cute pictures

One of the lambs got rejected by her mother, so Aline (and her kids) have been bottle feeding her. And since she was a bit underweight, and it still pretty cold, she was dressed in a sweater

How cute is that! The only thing cuter was watching her little tail wag as she sucked back the milk. After visiting with the lambs (and their moms and dad), we spent a couple of hours knitting and chatting, and then stopped to do a little yarn shopping on the way home. Thanks Aline and Paula for a lovely day!