This cute little Ladybird Baby Sweater is a really quick knit in worsted weight yarn. The sweater is worked in the round until the armpits, then the sleeves are knit, then joined to the body. The sweater is then worked back and forth in two-color fair-isle creating the ladybird pattern. After the collar is knit in the contrasting color, stitches are picked up and the button band is worked last. This sweater is similar to the Lizard Swirl Baby Sweater.

I found those cute little ladybird buttons at Michaels. Nathania was nice enough to lend me her daughter Elinor as a model. Thanks, Nathania!

Ravelry link here.

For more photos, check out the flickr photo set here.

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Apparently I spoke too soon when I said I should be able to resume regular blogging. I am in so much pain (low back) that I can’t really handle sitting in a desk chair and my tendonitis is back, so I shouldn’t be typing anyway — I haven’t knit in 2 1/2 weeks (oh, and my sinus infection came back, after a two week reprieve). There are reasons for this, mostly which involve ATA going bankrupt after I checked in for our flight and stayed up half the night packing our SCUBA gear to go to Hawaii 3 weeks ago — a vacation we really needed, make that *I* really needed, after the shittiest year EVER, health-wise. Our luggage went to Hawaii, because we tried to fly standby and didn’t get on the plane. This included our split ergonomic keyboard, so I typed on a regular keyboard at home for 2 days. No big deal, right? Big deal. After dealing with 2 1/2 hours on the phone to every airline that flies to Hawaii from the Bay Area trying to get another flight followed by a long day at the airport followed by our luggage in Honolulu and us at home, we decided we needed to get out of town anyway, so we drove up to my parents’ place, 1,000 miles north. Hence the horrible low back pain from sitting in the car, because I have fibromyagia and don’t function like normal people do. I actually flew home and R drove home by himself (well, not really, with the 3 dogs), because it took me 5 days to recover once we got there to a point where I could stop taking narcotics daily. Now that I’m back at work, the pain has returned full force and then some. I went to my pain clinic doctor this morning and got trigger point steroid injections in my trapezius muscles as planned and also in my low back muscles, but I’m in MORE pain now. And that’s after 4 different kinds of pain meds. The steroids are supposed to kick in 24-48 hours from now. Cross your fingers.

[Added later] There’s some snow mixed in with the rain too, and I don’t mean the literal snow that fell the last 2 days I was at my parents’ (as opposed to the 80 degree balmy weather in Hawaii).  R is forcing me to abide by this “fibromyalgia diet” that has me excluding the following completely from my diet:

• alcohol
• caffeine
• chocolate
• fried foods
• sugar (anything with sugar/corn syrup/sucrose/etc. added is not allowed, natural sugar like honey and fruit is ok)
• wheat
• green bell peppers
• carbonated beverages
• preservatives
• junk food

So, basically, all of my comfort foods are off-limits.  I’m also supposed to avoid high-fat dairy, but I’m still eating a little bit of cheese, staying away from ice cream (it all has sugar anyway), & other forms of cream.  And I’m supposed to avoid salt, but I have low blood pressure, so I don’t see how that can matter too much.  Without salt I can’t eat popcorn, which is really the only comfort food I have left on the list…  R wants me to be on this diet indefinitely, but he said I might be able to add wheat back in slowly a month or two from now if I don’t feel any better.  I’ve been on this diet now for about 4 weeks.  It’s supposed to make me less tired, give me more energy, and maybe help me to be in less pain.  So far, it’s only making me grumpier…

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This headband is great for keeping your hair out of your face on any occasion. It’s a quick one-skein knit using a fun textured lace pattern that’s easy to memorize and mimics the rippling waves of the ocean. You can find the Spring Wave pattern in the Fiber Fiend store here.

I knit two versions of it. For Version A I was looking for something casual, so I used Tahki Stacy Charles Cotton Classic.

My mom loved this one so much I gave it to her AND she requested I knit her another one in yellow! So demanding!

For Version B I was looking for something more formal, so I used Frog Tree Alpaca Sportweight and accented it with glass beads.

Both versions were knit up on US#6/4mm needles with a gauge of 28 sts / 29 rows per 4 inches in wave and shield lace.

Ravelry link here.

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What Margit Means

You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated. You master any and all skills easily. You don’t have to work hard for what you want. You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you’ll knock down anyone who gets in your way!You are usually the best at everything … you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic “Type A” personality.You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You’re always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can’t handle you. You’re very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you’re likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life. You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone. Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don’t appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It’s easy to get you excited… which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don’t stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless – and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You’re most comfortable when you’re far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

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Oh well! Lisa and Cindy said I make their day! Yay!

The rules are as follows: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.”

Here they are in no particular order…

• Pauline – Happy Asian Women Knitting
• Rachel – no-blog-rachel’s blog
• Cindy – SnidKnits
• Kristi (& Cookie when she posts) – Knitters Anonymous
• Mary – Spinnity Knits
• Jeni – The Knitist (especially when she blogs funny stuff about animals)
• Anabel – Knitabel
• Lisa – Twisted Stitches
• Janice – Knit Flix
• Jill – Knit-topia

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Some of you have already heard this story, and I wasn’t there, so you’re hearing it second hand, but here goes… at the Stitches West Fashion Show, when the model came out wearing Corsica, she was wearing it upside down. “UPSIDE DOWN?!?” you say? That’s what I said. Don’t you mean inside out? No, upside down.

Looks like something out of a Teva Durham book to me…

Rick Mondragon, Editor of Knitter’s Magazine and MC of the show, started describing the sweater as a v-neck pullover with a center cable band and cables down the long sleeves…. he looked at the model, wait, that’s a cowl-neck, and looked at the notes, and Nathania whisper-yelled from the back of the room “It’s UPSIDE-DOWN!”, and… he told her to get her butt backstage and put the sweater on right-side up, the whole room in laughs.

She came back out and modeled the sweater right-side up. (Although her smile doesn’t seem quite as large — maybe she liked it better upside down.)

I can’t tell you how many times I heard that story the next day and surprisingly, also how many times people said they really liked the way the sweater looked upside down. Now that I’ve finally seen the photo, I kinda like it too…

In fact, Lisa thinks that I should design a cable-less sweater based on upside-down Corsica. What do you think?

All photos copyright 2008 XRX, Inc., courtesy of “Knitter’s Magazine,” Photos by Alexis Xenakis

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Sorry it’s been so long since I posted. It’s been a rough couple of months. It’s really been a rough year. But, the good news is, I think I might have finally found a migraine preventative that works fairly well. So, hopefully, I’ll be back to regularly scheduled blogging as of now. (Cross your fingers!)

Two big new things are coming up!

First, I am up-sizing Corsica to fit bust sizes 44-46-48-50-52. I will be done before the next big thing…

A TRUNK SHOW at Purlescence Yarns in Sunnyvale May 2-4!

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