Down To The Wire

Since moving to Boston four years ago, I've met a lot of great friends, and now two of these friends are having a baby! This has been a big year for everyone. Heck a big semester more like it! When I was in Germany this past fall, two couples got engaged AND married while I was gone. Plus, in one month we will welcome what will probably be one of the smartest little boys in Cambridge, if he's anything like his parents.

Before I moved to Boston, I lived in Dallas for two years, which despite the heat, was a great experience. In Dallas, it took me about a year before I started making close friends. Then when I finally got to the point where I had really strong friendships, I had to up and leave. While I don't regret living Dallas to move to Boston, I do wish I could have stayed just a little longer.

But again, I'm so happy to be in Boston, and I am enjoying being in one place for a while. It's amazing to look back over the past four years and see just how much we've all grown. I know eventually we'll all go our separate ways. In fact, many of us are already starting to move farther out of Boston. I'm just glad that we get to celebrate some big milestones this year!

[FO] - Baby Genius Burp Cloths

Plus with big celebration comes big knitting projects, so I'm excited about that too.  The Gloucester Baby Blanket went on hiatus this weekend as I wanted to make some burping pads for the new baby. We had a big dinner last night as a baby shower, and I wanted to give the expecting couple something hand knitted. This dinner was planned only a few days ahead of time, so I needed to knit something fast.

Three Baby Genius Burp Cloths

I've had this Lily Sugar'n Cream Stripes around forever, but never knew what to make with it. I like the idea of the striped colors, but when I did a swatch, I just didn't like how abrupt the color change was. In an attempt to go cold sheep and eliminate most of my yarn stash, I perused projects on ravelry made with the same yarn. That's when I found this project. She used two colorways of the striped yarn, denim and lime, and I loved the finished look. Using the two colors really broke up the striping, making the color changes more gradual and less harsh.

I only had the lime colorway, but I did also have solid white. So with these colors in hand, I casted on some Baby Genius Burp Cloths on Friday night. Now, the only bummer about this pattern is that it's not available online. Luckily, the Brookline Public Library has a vast collection of knitting books, including the book where the pattern is from, Mason-Dixon Knitting.

The impressive collection of knitting books at the Brookline Public Library!

The pattern itself is very easy being only a two row repeat. Nevertheless, it took me a while to knit. It was one of those patterns were I had to constantly look at my work in order to know what stitch to make. I spent most of the weekend up until the last night working on these three burp cloths. I wasn't sure if I would even have time to finish the third...

Despite being a simple pattern, it required a lot of attention while knitting.

Despite my doubts, I managed to finish all three in time! I took every chance I could to knit, even during a Boston College hockey game on Friday night and a long walk through the garden on Sunday night (aka during several episodes of The Wire).

Last home game of the season for the Boston College hockey team. Go Eagles!

For the rest of week, I will focus on finishing the Gloucester Baby Blanket. I hate letting projects hibernate for too long. Here's to hoping it'll be an FO in the next post!