Climbing out from under a pile of sick

British readers may see the "sick" in the title and get a completely different (but not altogether inaccurate) image, and I am sorry for it. But I'm sorrier for me, who lived through the whole thing.

Anyway. People have been sick at my house, and I am just now emerging and realizing that, huh, this place is absolutely trashed. So I need to get on that.

But before I do, I want to brag about some knitting projects I've wrapped up recently. Now that they have all reached their recipients, I can go ahead and post them:

This hat (Star Crossed Slouchy Beret) was commissioned by my sister-in-law. I made it for her birthday and liked it so much that I turned around and made a red one for Spitfire.

And then a gray one for myself out of some yarn leftover from another project.

Mine was finished just in the nick of time, because what with all the illness and the shrieking, snotty baby, plunking this thing on my head to cover my rat's nest of hair as I wrenched myself out the door was about all the hygiene I could manage. You are welcome, library coworkers and patrons. And grocery store people.

This little beauty is for my new niece, who arrived last week in the wilds of Alaska. I loved the pattern but am quite ticked off about the yarn (Ella Rae Superwash Classic--grrrr), which is supposed to be machine washable (remember my words about making machine-washable stuff for babies?). Some posters on Ravelry are saying that even though they followed the care instructions they ended up with felted Barbie jackets instead of precious baby cardigans. So I had to include a little note about that in the card. ("Hey, here you go, have fun hand-washing this since it's not like you have anything else going on!")

Still. It's pretty, I think, and will look so sweet with a long-sleeved onesie. Will be making more of these, but with different yarn.

And since it felt so very nice to make something for myself, I'm just going to go crazy and do it again. Here's what I'm working on:

I included Elliphantom's Herringbone Mittens in my Favorite Free Knitting Patterns post, and now I'm giving them a go. Because it involves techniques I've never used before, I've had to rip out my work like three four times now and start over. You may recall that this is my super smart way of learning new things. Am maybe starting to get the hang of it now, but who knows if they'll be done before it's warm outside. And every time I get frustrated by how tedious the process seems, I cast my eyes longingly to this image in my "knitting" board on Pinterest:

Diana at Pink Chalk Studio's version of the Vite Cowl

Mmmm . . . isn't that gorgeous? Just one skein of bulky yarn and you're there . . .