And another month goes by...

Golly - I hadn't realised it was over a month since I blogged AGAIN. Where did April go? When I began this blog I was a stay at home full time mother, and despite the demands of playgroup, kindergarten, housework and children I had so much free time on my hands. Two of my friends who are stay at home mothers have recently started blogs and I think it's an interesting way of staying sane when your most of your daily conversations tend to only be with people under four foot high.

Now, of course, I'm working full time, and blogging slides down the list of things to do. Add to which, my darling Katie has discovered the fine art of emotional blackmail: she stands in front of me with her five year old fists on her hips and says "What's more important? Your girls or your [knitting, computer, book, bath, etc]?" She's good! It works every time.

Despite that I have been knitting (mostly in the car when I should be working). But I have no finished objects to show because I'm just playing - having finally conquered the evil dpns, I decided that I was brave enough to have a go at magic loop knitting.

Well, for heaven's sake. Why did no-one ever tell me how easy and fun this was? All those YEARS I wasted coming to terms with dpns (okay, maybe not years but it sure felt like it) and I needn't have bothered. So I've been starting socks with different cast-ons and whizzing through a few rounds and then frogging them and starting again with a different cast-on, and so on and so on. Just because it's such fun!

So far I have two odd socks finished (both toe-up) and half a mitten (cuff down) and I'm planning another sock. I realise I should be doing the second socks but what the hell... life's too short and I'm thinking of this as a learning exercise rather than a serious sock production line.

In between the magic looping, I'm very slowly working on a lace shawl in that bamboo that's been lurking around for a while now. It's slow because I daren't take it to work with me (my car is such a tip that my knitting tends to get tangled around the junk) and I can't do it when the girls are awake because I wind up going "Shut up shut up shut up shut up I'm counting" which is not great attentive parenting, and leads to the whole hands on hips thing.

I do have one finished object - belatedly. Turns out that the baby's name is James (glad I hadn't totally lost my mind - did I mention that I'd had a serious moment of panic and decided he might be called something else?) and it fits (more or less). I rushed the seaming and it's pretty dodgy but I figure it's not an heirloom - it's a jumper that'll be worn and sicked on and dribbled on and have playdough rubbed into (you all know) so what the hell.. (Also, and this probably doesn't need reiterating, I'm very lazy.)



Now I have to go and prepare for a day of being the willing slave to my two bossy britches - I'm hanging onto the thought that you don't get strong, assertive, confident young women by having quiet, obedient, docile children - and I do want stroppy young women!