where did January go?

I blinked and my maternity leave was over. I blinked and it was Thanksgiving. I blinked and my baby boy was turning five. I blinked and it's Valentine's Day.

Clearly my blinking is causing some sort of warp in the space-time continuum. If I end up on the battle bridge of the Enterprise D I'll make sure to ask Jean-Luc to play poker.

I have been a busy knitting bee, though. One pair of clogs for M, still drying after being felted on Monday night. (Our laundry room is really cold. I should probably bring them upstairs before they a) mildew or b) freeze or c) both. Ew.) A baby hat for our friends' new sweetie, Miss Josephine. A pair of fingerless mitts, adapted from the ill-fated socks I started the day M and I spent in the hospital.

(He is fine, by the way. He had pericarditis, an infection in the lining around his heart, which sounds scary, and can be dangerous, but in his case just required a few days of rest and a few weeks of taking it easy. He seems to be on the mend, now.)

I realized after 3 inches of slipstitch ribbing on the size 1 needles that the Magic Stripes really should have been knitted with at least size 2s. The ribbing was much too stiff to make a comfortable sock. So I checked around ravelry for a pattern for fingerless mitts and kept going, switching to the size 2s for the hand and finger ribbing. We'll see how they turn out--I fear I put the thumb too high, suitable only for the freakishly huge-handed. We'll see.

Next up: I am working on the design for a top-down raglan for M in Cascade 220 with a celtic cable. I am attempting to chart the cable myself based on the design of our wedding rings. (Thank goodness our library has Aran Knitting.) He wants a very simple design, so it's going to be brown with blue accents at neck, cuffs, and hem, and the cable is going to run down one arm only. Minimalistic.

And we found out we're getting a hefty tax refund, probably due to my not working last year, and last weekend we went computer shopping...dare we enter the 21st century?