Rainbow of Baby Blankets

Three more dear friends recently announced their pregnancies so I expect to make more little blankets in time for a couple hatchlings arriving in late Spring.
Each hand-knit blanket takes about 200 grams of double-knit wool, 18-22 hours of knitting, and a bit of time for planning and finishing (weaving in loose ends, washing, wrapping, mailing…). In addition to soft acrylic yarn, it is made with love.
It is a tough choice between waiting until the gender is discovered to start a blanket project and starting early with a gender-neutral hue combination. The Blue Skies Blanket has different shades of blue with bits of cream and flecks of yellow. The Vanilla Mint Chip Blanket is green and cream for a surprise baby gender. Green or yellow seem to be classic colors for gender surprises. Yellow does seem more feminine and green slightly more masculine, but combining them with each other or with a hue that is not pink or blue might lend further neutrality, girlish grace, or boyish charm. Here are some of the color combinations I have in my sketchbook.

Roll-Your-Own Sushi Night

We’ve been on a sushi kick lately. It started with a friend bringing over homemade sushi and reminded me of the roll-your-own sushi nights I enjoyed as a child. The old skills came right back and we were enjoying delicious sushi for dinner one night, then another and another. No raw fish for us, but cucumber and avocado seem tasty enough.

Cast Off… Trench Scarf

Finished another Christmas gift. Ok, wait this is actually the first of the Christmas knitted presents to be completed, but not the first to be started. I started planning these gifts in April. I love how this turned out and it is a soft, cozy, hand-washable scarf that my sister-in-law will hopefully love.

I Once Was Cool

It occurred to me this week that I say the strangest things – or at least they may seem strange to someone who doesn’t know me. So, of course, I am saying them again in this post as if saying them once wasn’t bad enough. Last month, I encountered an American visiting Cork from Virginia. The first thing out of my mouth was ‘did you happen to bring any Kraft mac & cheese with you?’. Let’s now have a moment of silence for any coolness I once had. My dignity should have crawled under a rock…

Student Night Out

The city seems to be a hot spot with the youth of Cork City on student night. I don’t know how often these occur or what they are meant to celebrate (end of term, special holiday,…), but we had heard that it was coming up then that night it looked like a Saturday night even though it was a Wednesday.