Well, nothing like finishing your gift 12 hours and five minutes before the baby shower starts. Yikes! After a strong start last week, the baby sweater took a bit of a dip over the weekend. Saturday I was busy having a birthday party and didn't touch it, although I did get quite a bit of Rachel's sock done. Sunday, I wasn't in a very knitty mood due to some bad news about my grandma, and then I went for yet another birthday dinner with my in-laws, where again, good sock progress was made but the baby sweater continued to be ignored.

When I got home on Sunday night, I buckled down and knit 90% of the first sleeve while watching the Amazing Race. I finished the first sleeve off tonight before dinner, and then started the second one before heading out to Stitch n Bitch.

Of course, because I'm an idiot, I left the book at home, so I had to trust my memory (always dangerous) and do frequent comparing between the two sleeves. I got home just after the main increases finished to discover that I was actually right, which was quite encouraging. I finished up the sleeve around 10:45 or so and then began to seam.

For such a teeny sweater, seaming was surpringly time consuming. The good news is, although the yarn is kind of a bitch to seam with (yeah, I know, use a smooth matching yarn - didn't have any, and did I mention the twelve hours to spare thing?), it is also very forgiving to seam with.

I wove in the eleventy million ends (damn intarsia!), and with 12 hours and five minutes to spare (aka at 1:25am), I finished.



Of course, I immediately got out Mr. Bear for a modeling session. His shortcomings as a non-baby-proportioned bear were quite obvious, but you get the idea.





Pattern: Sweetheart Pullover from Knitting for Baby.
Yarn: KP Crayon in red and yellow. I didn't use very much yarn - maybe two balls total?
Needles: Addi Turbo Lace Needles, sizes 4 and 6
Started: March 7, 2007
Finished: March 12, 2007 (ok, technically it's the 13th, but whatever.)
Modifications: I changed the intarsia on the front from a heart to a flower. I think I could have done a better job with the charting of the flower, but I still like it better than the heart. Lessons definitely learned for next time, if there ever is a next time with intarsia. Don't hold your breath.
I also modified the neck. I really didn't like the fairly constrictive neckline of the original pattern, so I just picked up stitches around the edge and knit a few rows of stockinette. It rolls in the same way as the original neckline, just several inches further down so it will hopefully be easier to stuff the baby into.

This is my second sweater of the year. I'm a member of the Sweater a Month Knitalong for 2007, and although I'm not optimistic that I'll actually make twelve sweaters this year, this does get me technically caught up again. If I can finish Rogue by the end of the month, which I really want to, there might be hope yet! I've got the yarn ready for my next baby sweater, and between that and the Central Park Hoodie maybe I can knit another two sweaters by May. I'm not so convinced that the summer is going to be sweater knitting weather, though. Maybe I'll sub in a few shawls.

Labels: Baby sweater

The weather here is absolutely insane right now. It is warm and sunny every day. People are wandering around in tshirts. I saw a guy in shorts the other day, but in typical Edmonton fashion, he was also wearing a toque. (Quite sensible, actually.) Considering it's the ninth of March, it's actually a bit alarming, but it is really, really hard to feel bad about global warming when you're sitting on a patio on your coffee break knitting in your short sleeves.

The downside, of course, is the snow is melting like crazy. I swear there's a puddle across from work that has tides and an ecosystem. There is a lot of splooshing. Jamie drove home with his window down the other day and actually got his hair wet.

Anyway, as I said, I spent my coffee break out on our balcony at work, which is gorgeous and a serious advantage to this branch. I have been knitting nothing but the baby sweater for the last two days, and as a result I'm finished the front and the back, the shoulders have been seamed, and the collar has been picked up and knit on. I changed the collar around a bit, because the pattern called for almost a mock turtleneck, and who wants to stuff a baby into a turtleneck? Nobody.



Unfortunately, Mr. Bear's fuzzy neck somewhat obscures that, but I am confident that the baby won't be pink and furry. The intarsia is a little more even than it appears here - this is taken at a funny angle.

You get a better view of the flower in this shot, with special guest star Count Numbear!



He came to visit with Mr. Bear. I didn't knit his sweater vest, unfortunately, but I am very fond of him and his little glasses. He used to belong to my grandma, and she gave him to me when she moved to Victoria.

Mr. Bear also went for a visit.



(Jamie is watching tv with some intensity.)

Before the baby sweater frenzy, I actually made really good progress on Rogue. Of course, now it's freaking 14 degrees every day and I'm going to finish a wool sweater, but it's Alberta, so I'm sure I'll need it again before too long.

I finished the hood, and once I got to the top, the pattern gave me the option of either a three needle bind off or a kitchener stitch. Since I've never done 3 needle bind off before, I figured I'd give that a whirl. Finished it off, went looking at other pictures, and realised that the kitchener totally looked better. So I painstakingly pulled out all the bind off and went looking for information on the kitchener.

Somebody has posted a cheat sheet for the hood graft specifically on Rogue, which was awesome. (Did I bookmark it? I did not.) It took two tries, but I think it looks waaaay better now. Not that you can see it in these photos. (I'm not very on the ball tonight with the photos.)



Which brings the sum total of Rogue to this:



Oh, and this:



Not bad. Once the baby sweater is done, it's full Rogue ahead!

Labels: Baby sweater, Rogue

Last Friday, I received my fabulous socks from snowdrop, my Knitty sock exchange pal! She'd sent me a photo of some yarn choices, I told her I liked the pink ones (I know, who am I and when did I start liking pink? I don't know. I have, like, five pink shirts now. I'm not sure when this happened.) and that I'd liked a pair of socks she had up on her blog a while back, and that was it. I was much more nervous and sent her several dozen progress photos and nagged for feedback, but clearly snowdrop is much better at not needing hand holding.

They are FABULOUS. Look!



They fit like a glove, look great, feel wonderful, and are a very cheerful shade of pink. I wore them all day Sunday and kept admiring my feet. And forcing everyone around me to admire my feet.



Even my mother was impressed! (She thought it was weird that I was knitting socks for somebody else.)



Very unhelpfully, I can't remember what yarn it was (I have the tag at home), I don't know what pattern it was, and I don't know what needles snowdrop used to knit them! All I know is they are awesome. Thanks, snowdrop!



In other news, I had a date wrong. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, as the new date is next week instead of next month like I thought. So it's not like I missed anything, right?

Yeah. Too bad that's the date of a mat leave starting, which means the baby sweater I thought I had a month for? I have six days. Luckily, I had the pattern (Sweetheart Pullover from Knitting for Baby, but with an intarsia flower instead of a heart, because I don't think the mother-to-be is much of a heart person) and the yarn (KP Crayon, my current favourite baby yarn), so I cast on yesterday for the front, figuring I'd get through the intarsia since it would be the most time consuming section.

Man, I HATE intarsia! It's so fiddly, and there are ends everywhere, and...bleah. Too bad it looks so damn cute. I'm about halfway through the flower, I think, but I now only have three bobbins (hee, I wrote "boobins" the first time) instead of the six I started with, so it's going much faster. I'm hoping to knock the front off tonight, cast on for the back, finish that by Saturday, and do the sleeves on Sunday which leaves Monday night for seaming. I'll be fine. Babies are small! So are their sweaters! The Crayon is definitely perfect for an April baby - it's nice and lightweight and very fluffy. Hopefully I can post a photo of the finished front tonight. Here's hoping!

Labels: Baby sweater, Intarsia, Sock Pal