OpArt

I got an email over the weekend that stopped me dead in my tracks. My big brother and his wife are having their first baby!

You're probably thinking to yourself, what's the big deal? People have babies all the time. What's she got her knickers all bunched up about?

You're absolutely right to think that. My extended family is all about the babies lately. Two of my nephews have added to their families this year and one of my nieces is expecting right around the same time as my brother. We're lousy with little ones in this family.

But, for some reason this one seems extra special. I guess it's because it came out of left field. No one ever thought he was going to have kids. He didn't marry until he was 50 and they always said that kids weren't in the plans. But babies don't always play by the rulebook do they?

So, more baby knitting for me. Since I've made several sweaters lately, I decided to do a blanket this time around. After a couple of false starts, I've settled on OpArt from Knitty.

Next up was color. Just about the time I was heading over to the broken bags shelf, I found Emily rummaging around in there. She pulled out skeins of Shepherd Worsted in Courage and Douglas Fir and exclaimed how pretty they looked together. She was right. And they're perfect for this project because we don't know the gender of the baby.

This isn't the greatest representation of the colors. They are both deeper and richer, particularly the Douglas Fir. But, it'll give you an idea of where I'm headed.

I cast on last night during NCIS (Mark Harmon!) and after a couple of false starts got a reasonable amount finished. This is one of those projects that you start in the center with just 4 stitches and work your way in ever larger circles where the last round has 888 stitches. I am trying to make sure that I don't get too smug and feel like I'm cruising right along when I know darn well that those later rows are going to sneak up and kick me.