This the cover of his debut album, "Cut Some Bitches."But you tried to do things on this list, self. Not very hard, but you tried. Here's the final tally:

30 things to do while I'm 30

1. Finish the wedding quilt.
2. Sew the grey and pink fleece coat.
3. Design and knit my Weasley sweater.
4. Finish my Bayerische socks.
5. Knit a sweater for Justin.
6. Knit 20% of my yarn stash, including any new additions.
7. Spin 30% of my fiber stash, including any new additions.
8. Read all of the Anne of Green Gables books.
9. Bedroom makeover.
10. Knit a sweater from my handspun yarn. (Still needs buttons, but they are in my possession.)
11. Finish the first draft of my story.
12. Complete and submit the first level of the Master Knitter's program.
13. Sew something out of knit fabric.
14. Paint the upstairs/downstairs hallway and stairwell. (We opted to redo the basement and office, as well as my old office and our bedroom. I get a pass.)
15. Teach myself Trigonometry.
16. Knit all of the sock architectures in Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Knitters.
17. Finish big orange blanket.
18. Make macaroons.
19. Learn double-knitting.
20. Knit 5,000 yards of fingering-weight yarn.
21. Read all of the Sherlock Holmes books.
22. Go on a "babymoon" with Justin.
23. Teach Gracie some manners.
24. Relearn geometry.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

My favorite part of this list is the fact that I couldn't even think of six things that I very well knew I wouldn't finish.

I'm working on next year's list. I enjoy a yearly spectacular failure, apparently.

But I did manage to finish something for the holidays. The last stitches were put in on Christmas Eve morning, ready for Santa to fill them:

New stockings! (The dog sleeping in the sun is not new, nor is her stocking. Don't give me any grief about not making her a stocking, because her stocking is 10x more awesome than ours, and it was passed down to her from my childhood golden, Maggie, who was the greatest dog on Earth, godresthersoul.)

Henry and I picked up this fabric at Jo-Ann's back in October. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I went completely off grid with these bad boys, and I'm proud of say that with the exception of initially putting the lining together backwards, everything went pretty smoothly. Justin did have to help me draw the stocking shape because I kept ending up with a letter J. (Side note: file folders make very nice pattern pieces.)

Construction is very basic. I cut two stocking shapes out of leftover batting, then sewed my pieces directly on one at a time. Trimmed to make it pretty, did some decorative machine stitching, then sewed the two outside pieces together. Then I did the embroidery (chain stitch for some dimension and oomph), followed by the lining. And of course I lined them - what do you think we are, hobos?

I love them. And for the first time in history, I'm sad Christmas is over because we had to put them away. I will always remember this Christmas for being the one where we finally had awesome homemade stockings, even though Santa only put chapstick in mine. Neither Henry nor Gracie had anything in theirs, but Justin made out like a bandit. We'll be revisiting our priorities next Christmas.

My reflection on 2011: I pushed a human the size of a (small) watermelon out of my boy-howdy. I also threw up some vegetable lasagna. Other parts were nice, though.

On to more important things. Henry got some nice stuff for Christmas, but his favorite gift by far was his toes. Look! So wee!

Toes are delightful. He likes his toes, he likes your toes. He likes them in the air, he likes standing on them, he likes them near his mouth. He enjoy socks on and he enjoys socks off. Toes can keep him busy like nothing else. And when you take his socks off for him? Magical.

So while I could wax on about how I barely knit a stitch in 2011 and my sewing was lackluster as well, I'll instead tell you that I grew a FREAKING HUMAN and it might just be the best thing I've ever done. Even if we are, apparently, raising a hobo.

4 1/2 months, playing with CarterAlso, you are a thug. The very cutest thug in the world, but still, a thug.

Hat knit out of Berroco Vintage Chunky, my new favorite yarn. That is one tired little elf(As for the hat: cast on 64 on an appropriate needle, k2p2 until the cows come home, then decrease four times per row every other row until you have a nice little point. I tried to make a pom-pon, but that was a hot mess. The hat fit his very small 16" head, but will expand up to 18" or 19".)

So I wasn't really paying attention when my mom started yammering about this new art form and a person who teaches it in Kansas City. She signed us up for a private lesson two weeks after Henry was born, and I slowly and surely started feeling like me again.

Zentangle is essentially drawing repetitive patterns one line at a time. It's kind of like doodling, but with shading and nice supplies. Official Zentangles are done on 3.5" x 3.5" high quality paper with a Micron pen and a pencil. I still use the drawing implements, but now I tangle in a moleskin notebook.

Listen, I'll be the first to tell you that I can't draw. But tangles are broken down into simple repetitive steps. Even I can do this.

For me, the best part about tangling is that even when my day is crazy and I can't make it downstairs to sew, or I don't have time to sit down with a sock, I can usually find a few minutes to tangle. (To be honest, it's been awhile because all of a sudden this child sleeps and I have time to play again.) I use my notebook as a kind of journal that helps me remember what was going on while I was drawing.

Tangling has also made me look at my quilting in a new way, and I know a lot of tanglers are also quilters. I feel more comfortable trying to come up with quilting designs that are specific to my pieced top.

I'm going to try to share my tangles in a more timely fashion (and try to keep up with my blogging, too). Are there any other tanglers out there?

Somebody also hadn't slept all day and was really, really tired. And so he screamed. And whined and screamed and whined and then passed out. But our little bald-headed friend was adorable, and his costume cost a whopping $3 (for the Rit dye).

He was much, much more photogenic on the actual day of Halloween:

That's his presidential portrait.

And that is the reason-why-Mommy-is-glad-she-works-at-home portrait. I could kiss and snuggle this kid all day. And sometimes I do.

I like yarny blankets. I even made spending money during college crocheting blankets for people in the dorm. But knitting a blanket takes a lot longer, and it has the potential to become the world's biggest slog.

I initially wanted to make this in the exact same colors:

Used with permission. Thanks, Heather!

There's something about that aqua that just hits me square in the heart. I want to live in that aqua. But I have a lot of yarn, and I know better than to go adding 2000 yards to my stash willy-nilly. So I researched appropriate yarns (that particular yarn isn't readily available in the US) and settled on Berroco Vintage. Almost all of the colors were represented, and it'd be good to have a washable blanket. Still not sure I should shell out $70 for the blanket of my dreams, I consulted Justin.

His advice? "You have a lot of yarn. Let's go shopping in your stash."

So we did. My blanket will look nothing like the beautiful one above, but that's okay. Almost all of the yarn in this blanket is leftover from various sweaters or toys, so there are nice memories to go along with it. Unfortunately, this won't make a huge dent in my stash count, as I don't count leftover yarn as stash (unless there's enough to make something else).

I've been working on this on and off for a few weeks, and here's what I have so far:

I'd like to say that I'll take pictures every few weeks to keep you updated, but we all know that won't happen. I'll do my best, though. And, no, that red is not quite so neon in real life. (Phew.)

We went to seven weddings in 2010. The last wedding was probably the most romantic wedding I've ever attended, including my own. It was outside of Austin on a family farm. The bride and groom (one of our dearest friends) were married under an enormous oak tree, and we played lawn games, ate delicious food, and danced the night away under the stars. I can't remember a better night. The wedding was so romantic, in fact, that we came home and immediately got pregnant.

I don't make quilts for everyone, but Paul is, well, Paul -- a wonderfully smart, kind, hilarious, and stylish guy. Justin, Paul and I all met on the first day in our dorm freshman year, and Paul and I were close friends before Justin would even hold my hand. The boys were inseperable throughout college. I've never seen Paul as happy as he is with Allison, and I wanted to give them a really special wedding gift.

So I bought 16 colors of Kona Cotton and got down to business in August 2010. Their wedding was going to be in November - no sweat! I'd mail it off before we left town! But then life got in the way, and it takes a really long time to cut 560 rectangles and then sew them together (not to mention all the pressing - oh, the pressing!). So August turned into December and all of a sudden I was pregnant. Then I lost my mind.

Pregnancy brain is a strange thing. I was fine with math, but hell if I could remember where I put things, or how big I had originally intended this quilt to be. I just kept counting my pieces and recalculating every time I sat down to work on it (which wasn't often, thanks to the little Bean growing inside of me). Sizes ranged from a small throw (those were dark days) to almost King. In February, I had almost all of my pieces together when I discovered five missing colors. I cut more rectangles, recalculated, and promptly lost my notes. We were working on the house all spring, and my studio moved to the basement in June. I had the baby three weeks early in July. At that point, I hadn't even pieced all the strips together yet.

This quilt was finally finished on October 12, 2011. I took it to Guild the next night for show and tell, and then spent three weeks trying to a) find a box big enough for it and b) figure out how to get this enormous box and a baby and his stroller to the UPS store. Last Monday, I managed to get there five minutes before they closed and waved a relieved goodbye.

So without further adieu, I present to you: The Babymaker.

(For the record: It turned out just shy of Queen-sized, 20 blocks x 14 blocks. The pattern is "Plain Spoken" from Modern Quilt Workshop.)

I love this quilt. It was a pain to put together (I love Kona Cotton, but man, does it ever fray), and I wish it hadn't taken me so long. But it's a lot like a marriage. You have all of these pieces that don't seem to go together, and the only thing that gets you through the dark times (small throw? Really?) is blind faith that everything will turn out right in the end. And boy howdy, did it ever.

I get tired just thinking about it.

So OF COURSE I took a fabric dyeing class. Let's just add another hobby on top of everything else!

No, really. Let's.

Kim is an artist, a teacher at the Kansas City Art Institute, and a member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. I've always loved her work, and I was so pumped when announced she'd be teaching her dyeing methods. We met at her studio and played with colors for a few hours.

The fabric on the left was low-immersion dyed, meaning hardly any water was used. I poured sour yellow and a lot of blood red on the fabric and then slapped it around a bit. I was intending the blood red to actually be a purple, but I didn't use enough blue. I love how it turned out, though. It's like fire, and you can see the yellow peeking through a few places.

The green was completely immersion dyed, using lots of water. It's more solid than the red because of the water level, but I didn't stir it around very much so it's still slightly mottled.

My favorite part was doing color gradiations, which is what Kim is known for:

I was so pleased with how these turned out. I used mixing blue and yellow in different concentrations to get all of the colors above. The process was so easy and fun, and I want to do it again and again and again.

Dyeing cotton was so much easier than dyeing wool. First off, there's no heat involved. None! If you want really solid colors, you need to stir constantly for 30 minutes, but I love the swirls made by doing very little work at all. That's my kind of hobby.

Then we bought some Wubbanubs and that doesn't happen so much anymore. (For the record, we have the Brown Puppy, aptly named Pokey, and a red dragon named Norbert. Norbert's wings are apparently delicious.)

Henry's three months old now and he gets more delightful every day. He smiles, he laughs, and he talks to himself in bed. He thinks Grandpa B is hysterical and he smiles so big when his daddy comes home every night. Gracie cheers him up when he's crying, and Grandma B tells good stories. Mommy's his favorite, though. I will never, ever get tired of that.

I now understand why people have more than one kid. I am totally on that bandwagon. Just give me another year or so.