Welcome 2009!

I took these pictures on New Year's Eve with the intentions of posting something on New Year's Eve. Yeah, it has been that busy around here. Ever since we got back, I have been on a mission to clean and organize the house. And I got to catch up on my blog reading.2008? What can I say. It went by in a blur. I had Melody on January 14, 2008 and then my life was consumed by her. I really don't remember much. I think I began to resurface when she hit 6 months and the colic went away. People say that you will forget the hardships of taking care of a newborn infant, but I still remember the colicky phase. 2008 was the Year of Melody. (Can you see her teeth? She now has been on a major teeth growth spurt. 4 on top and 3 on the bottom.) So, her FIRST birthday is coming up. Too soon, in fact! I am so unprepared because the holidays kept me really busy. My sister, Jo, will be coming from Boston to attend Melody's birthday party and she will be helping me plan the party. I don't know what I would do without my sister. She has a talent for organizing and planning parties. I sent her a frantic email 2 days ago, and she calmly emailed me back with what we need to decide on first. If you give her a party theme, she will seek out wonderful party decorations and she is a bargain hunter, too. My baby shower was a bird theme and she made the invitations herself.In these pictures, she is wearing a hand knit vest from her grandmother, my MIL. Her grandmother knit her two vests and one cardigan with a matching scarf for Christmas.I couldn't forget about the fur-babies while I was taking photos of Melody on New Year's Eve. Both the dogs rang in the New Year with us when we watched the ball drop in Times Square on the television. I was so glad to be home that night because it was freezing outside. DH has been very busy at work and just wanted to stay home and relax.
I was surprised to see this photo when I uploaded the pictures from my computer. Not sure what I did, but this was not edited at all. It made me laugh. It's like I took a picture of Caesar's aura.

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I still have pictures to take of the projects I finished in 2008. I am slowly entering them in on my Ravelry page and I am trying to take some photos when I have a few spare moments.I call this the Baby Winter Set.
These booties were made with the leftover yarn from the baby shrug. There was barely any yarn leftover to seam up the booties, so it was a close call. The Winter Bootees pattern is from She's Crafty. I bought the the pdf pattern for Issue 2.For the shrug, I made the 6-9 month size and it came out huge. She won't be able to wear it for a while. It looks like it can fit a 2 year old. But Melody is on the petite size.It is knit all in one piece, but there is seaming involved. Lots of mattress stitch. And for the seaming to look nice, you have to be able to mattress stitch in the different directions the knitting changes from the body to the sleeves. Then there is the ardous task of picking up the stitches to make the ribbing for the cuffs, lower back edging and front edging. I felt that this shrug required a lot of finishing, but I am happy with the results.
I thought about embellishing it with some simple embroidered flowers, but decided to leave it plain. I think it's good to have a simple plain shrug that is versatile with her other clothes.

Pattern: Baby Shrug (free pattern from HERE), but it's also in the book, Simply Baby.
Needle: US 8 / 5.0 mm and US 9 / 5.5 mm
Yarn: 2 balls of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solid in color: Linen #99
The leftover yarn was enough to make the Winter Bootees.