Question for moms (and/or dads!) with wee ones. And some other stuff.

Typically, when I knit for wee ones, I try to use only machine washable yarns, to spare the parents the trouble of having to hand wash their baby's clothes - because I'm sure that a pile of hand-washing is exactly what the parents want to have to deal with in their already sleep deprived state. That said, how often to things like coats, blankets, and things not worn close to the skin actually get washed (sparing unexpected encounters with baby sick, etc, of course)? Are their situations where a hand-wash only, pure wool baby item is actually not such a bad thing?

K, with that out of the way, bring on the photos... :)

Rachel and Colin, our friends from Vancouver, came to visit us last week. This was their first visit to New York, and they had a few ideas of things that they wanted to do here. On Thursday night, for example, we went ice skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Great night to do it too - the air was crisp, but still a few degrees above freezing. And because we didn't get there till about 8, it was mostly only adults on the ice. Alas, I have no pics because I forgot my camera, and they chased me off the ice when I went to use my phone. (oops!)

The next night, we headed up the Empire State Building - after first going to dinner at a very fun little restaurant named Supper in the East Village.

In the end, we didn't actually get to the Empire until almost midnight (they're open till 2am). I totally recommend going that late at night! We walked in the front door without being hassled by people selling quick-access tickets, skipped past the rows and rows of velvet ropes marking out potential queuing space, bought the tickets, and walked past even more rows of velvet ropes for even more queuing space, and then got into an otherwise empty elevator. Turns out that lobby has space for 3 hours worth of line-ups! Yes the view is great, but not that great! - might be an interesting place to go on Valentines' Day though - with that many people in the queue, you'd have a pretty good chance of meeting someone interesting! :)

Let me end with one last FO from 2009.

This is the Baby Bunting from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Opinionated Knitter. This is a really fun pattern - you cast on 4o stitches, and then knit fewer and fewer stitches each row until you're left with only 5 stitches on the needles, and a big triangle hanging off the needle. Then you start picking up all those stitches, which causes the piece to turn 90 degrees (or so) (its like doing a short-row heel on a sock, but only on one side). And then you do the same thing 3 more times, so you're left with a big rectangle. Seam it up and voilà, super cute blanket with rounded corners and an big X in the middle from the holes left when you turn your knitting part way along the rows.EZ suggests putting a zipper on the edges (after knitting on a border), but I thought this would make it too big for its 1-month old recipient, so I made these leaves to use as holders for the snaps. And of course it needed some flowers to make it a little more girly! :) More details available on Ravelry.

(and yes, this was knit in hand-wash only wool, but that wasn't the reason behind my question)