Oh, it's been a busy week here. I don't know where the time goes. Amelia is a busy lady these days! Not too interested in napping today. I personally would like nothing better than for someone to zip me into a polar-fleece sleepsack, turn out the lights, and beg me to sleep for two hours in the middle of the day. But. The weather has been cold and cloudy and I am secretly glad — I so much want to finish my indoor chores before the nice weather comes for good. Once it comes, we'll be busy in a different way. An outside, woods-and-water, flower-field way. Out of the house. That's my plan.
I made broken up lasagna noodles with chicken and mushroom ragu from this recipe last night and it was very good. I added a big blob of whole-milk ricotta cheese to mine and I really recommend that. Andy is not down with ricotta. For me, I would say it's in my top-five favorite foods. Along with tapioca pudding, avocados, asparagus, and . . . maybe . . . fish tacos. Or sour-cream apple pie. It has to be whole-milk ricotta, though. The part-skim stuff tastes, to me, like a completely different kind of cheese.
I'm working on the bunny shirt and pants pattern, and the knitting patterns. The yarn is Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight, and it's what I am using to design all of the bunny knits (and, eventually, bunny crochets). I've ordered yarn balls so that we can carry this yarn in my web shop. If you got in on the first round of kits, this is the yarn that was in the kit (and it will be in the second round). It's my new favorite yarn. I looked at a lot of different yarns before deciding what to use. I like this one because it's 100% wool, comes in a really nice palette (though I have to say they could use a few more pinks/peaches, in my opinion), has a slight halo, but knits up to have a very matte sort of look to it, which is exactly what I wanted. Rustic. I don't like shiny yarns. After blocking, it's actually really soft but still holds its shape very well. I think we'll have about fifteen colors in the shop. My plan is to make everything available — kits, patterns, yarn, new size #18 needles (which I use for threading the elastic around the neck of the peasant dress) — all at the same time. Not sure yet exactly when that will be but I will keep you posted. Our dress fabric still hasn't come in yet. Greta's pulling floss right now and is about halfway done, and Martha's winding yarn. If these kits don't sell, I'll be making Amelia and myself entire wardrobes made entirely of five Liberty prints and sport-weight-wool. Which I think I could get on board with, but still. Don't leave me.
Isn't that little animal ABCs poster so adorable? Andy's mom got it for me for my birthday from this Etsy shop. Her friend also Brenda made that darling pink hooded sweater that Amelia is wearing. It finally fits her perfectly and . . . oh my dear me . . . how adorable are babies in hoodies????? (***The pattern is here [though she modified it to include the garter button band] and the yarn is Plymouth Encore. Thank you Brenda!!!)
Which also reminds me: The Maggie knits are a dress, a raglan, sweater, and the garter hoodie. Bunny in a hoodie. Now I'm typing with one hand or I would link to the photos I've posted in the past months of the prototypes. As it is I feel fairly accomplished today just spelling prototypes out (now twice, and added parentheses! and spelled parentheses!) with one finger. Some days that feels like miracle enough!
***Have you ever seen a dog look at anyone with more deliberate skepticism than this, by the way? She's like, "Yah, yer nuts." I know. (She's teaching it to the baby.)
***Forgot to say, I'll also have those tiny buttons that are on the little shirt in the shop. I think we're getting ten different colors of those, too.
