Cutest baby sweater EVER!

I made this sweater for my nephew Theron, who is 4 months old. T was a willing model yesterday and since he is 18 months old, I am confident that Theron will get some good use out of this sweater. I think the pattern (I found it by googling zip up the back baby sweater) was well matched to the yarn. I like how the hood came out almost rainbow striped. I was afraid he wouldn't want to wear the sweater or keep the hood on but once I got him in it, he was perfectly content. I can't wait to make more of these. Special thanks to J for sewing in the zipper!

I wish I liked this pattern.

The FO is well worth having but the pattern is a pain in the a**. It's a Fiber Trends pattern and I have no problem with the way it is written. It's just fiddly and you have to pay attention and knitting while holding 2 size 13 needles together is not my idea of fun. If I really put my mind to it, I could probably finish a pair of these over a weekend. I often need to be seperated from the clog that is causing me mental anguish by not cooperating, though, and this pair took 2 months. If I ever conquer my impatience, everyone I love will have a pair of these.

Mom's sweater.

Seamed but obviously not blocked.


Blocking. I'm off to the store to buy buttons!


Finished! Man, what a relief! I have been working on this for a long time. I thought it would be done for Xmas. Ha! It doesn't really matter since my mom is in an RV somewhere in Southern California. Hopefully she'll be swinging through here in the next month or two so I can give this to her. It has some inperfections (see how the yarnovers don't line up so there is one less on the left side?) but I think it's pretty great for a second sweater. I'm definitely not ashamed to give it as a gift, which is what I was afraid of! Now I'm just hoping it fits...

Help!

Get this giant mutant of a slipper off my lap!!!!

Sam and I spent the weekend up at Camp Castlerock (where we got married) and I did a lot of knitting while watching a 007 marathon. I started with Sean Connery in 1962 and hit Octopussy (1983), which I remember seeing in the theater, Goldeneye, with Pierce Brosnan and ended with The World is Not Enough (1999). That was definitely enough Bond for me. I wonder what Ian Flemmings life was like. I think it must have been pretty boring if he ended up writing the same book full of fast cars, hot women, and evil villains over and over again. We'll ignore what it says about my life that I sat and watched four of them in a row! In my defense, it was -8 degrees out so the planned cross-country skiing did not happen. I was a little heart broken when I discovered that I had left my knitting toolkit at home so could not finish up the second slipper or start anything new. Wahhh!
Hopefully, I'll post a photo of the finished clogs soon. Sam is holding mine hostage until I finish his!

You call yourself a knitter?

This was supposed to be the year of the knitted Christmas gift but I failed miserably. I really wanted to finish my mom's Bristow considering I've been working on it for the better part of a year. Sadly, all the parts are done but I have only sewn half of it together. Then I still have to do the button bands. Sometime in mid-December, I decided it was foolish to focus on the sweater since my mom was in an RV somewhere in California and I wasn't going to see her for the Holidays anyway.
I promised Sam a pair of felted clogs many moons ago. The Fiber Trends pattern is fairly quick but you do have to pay attention. This is not my strong suit. Of course I screwed things up. I somehow knit the soles together the wrong way so now the working needle is on the inside and I can't continue on with the bumper. DOH! This was so disheartening that I cast them aside and began a gift for Lili. I figured she's 9 and would care the most about receiving a finished item for X-mas. I cranked out Nautie in 2 days. It is by far the cutest knit yet.
Sam's sisters got gift certificate's for a knitted item of their choice so it looks like I'll be doing my Christmas knitting for a long time to come!

First design.

Okay, I know that a roll brimmed hat is not exactly a challenging project. However, I am proud of myself because this is the first time that I have had an image of what I wanted in my head and I created it in knitted form. And it WAS challenging for me. I really wanted the spiral on the top and couldn't find much about how to do it on the internet. When I finally did, I thought I had the numbers right but I was wrong and I had to mess with the math for a while to get it right. Lucky for me I had chosen a number of stitches somewhat randomly (I did swatch and measure my head but I didn't know how it would affect the decreases later) and it ended up working. Here's a flat photo and then a photo of the top. I tried the self-portrait thing but getting a nice shot of the back of my head was too much to ask.
The yarn is Berrocco Ultra Alpaca color #6205 which was the richest chocolaty brown I could find. The blue is left over from the border of my first sweater. I'm into brown with blue and brown with pink these days so next I'm going to do a brown hat with pink and white argyle. Oooh, more math!

Baby sweater for Theron.

This morning my nephew was born! I'd hoped to get this sweater there before he was born but I tried it on a one year old today and it fit fine so I am not in a hurry. These pictures are old. I am done with the knitting and just need to add the zipper in the back.Pattern: I googled "Zip up the back baby sweater" and found this free pattern. It's what my sister wanted. It's quick and fun. I would definitely do it again.
Yarn: Mexican Wave Acrylic. Yeah, it was a little squeeky to knit but I was so enthralled with the color changes that I didn't mind at all.