Maggie is 16 weeks old!

Miss Maggie is 16 weeks old today! She is getting so talkative it is very fun.  She has long, grand conversations with herself daily. She's pretty loud sometimes but I guess she has to keep up with her brothers so she has to be loud. She is very close to rolling over but hasn't quite managed to get off her side yet. She keeps getting her arm in the way.  We took her swimming for the first time on Monday which was going really well until Xander threw up in the pool! He had swim class and then we all got in the pool and I think he just swallowed too much water because right afterwards he was running around the locker room and hasn't been sick again.  What a way to clear the pool! Anyway, Maggie really seemed to enjoy herself after the initial shock of the water.  She was very content just floating away in my arms. Of course since I had brought a regular disposable instead of a swim diaper she had that as extra floatation. The boys have swim classes on Mondays so I am hoping we can all go again frequently this winter and she will be well acclimated in time to start mommy and me classes when she is six months old.

So I am not big into New Year's Resolutions but I do tend to get a little distracted in my knitting so I thought I would make a list of knitting goals for this year. I make no guarantees that I will finish everything on this rather ambitious list but I thought it was worth setting out a good year's worth of knitting. With that being said I still didn't include a few more "mundane" project like at least one more baby gift and Maggie will need a pair of medium longies and a skirty. So here is my ambitious list:

1: practice practice practice so I can get faster
2: Be more adventurous with cables, here is my goal piece
3: Finish Maggie's blanket (Before she goes to kindergarten)
4: Knit my boys and my husband each a sweater- campfire pattern I think
5: try color work, starting with a Sweet Bunting for Maggie
6: Knit myself a sweater or a shawl
7: Finish my hundredth project on ravelry , I'm almost there!
8. Knit a few project from Spud and Chloe at the farm. Ideally for the boys birthdays.
9. Finish Francois.
10. Dye my own yarn.

So in order to get started on my goals I have been working on Maggie's Sweet Bunting.  I had actually cast in on around Christmas but it got put down for awhile in favor of knitting baby gifts so I picked it back up again and have knit the bodice to the underarm join and have just casted on the first sleeve.  This is the first time I have constructed a sweater this way so hopefully it will go well.  I got the yarn and pattern in a kit at the New England Fiber Festival last November and so far I am really liking both.  The yarn is wonderfully soft and is coming out subtly striped which was a welcome surprise.

Also at the NEFF we saw Gail Callahan do a demonstration on dyeing. Xander was fascinated with all the color mixing and I have always wanted to try my hand at dyeing.  I have actually seen Gail many times before at Webs, where she works and didn't realize who she was. I spend way too much time (and money =)) at Webs but when it is almost as close as LYS it is very tempting! For Christmas my mom got me Gail's book Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece and I have just started reading it.  I want to try some dyeing with Xander since he seemed so interested in it and we have tons of roving from the sheep.  I'm a little worried about cleaning the kitchen after dyeing with a four year old but if we use food coloring we should be ok, right?

That's enough ambition for now.  Come yarn along with us at Ginny's Place.