Progress

So, I’m almost finished with the first Baby Sophisticate. Basically I need to add buttons and figure out what (if any) embellishments I’d like to add. It looks good, I think,

although the border pulls up a little in the front. I hate picking up stitches. Grr. On the bright side, I should have enough yarn to make a second one!

Anyway, instead of jumping right into the same sweater in the same yarn and the same size, I decided to make something a little larger. (You know. If you make all these sweaters and hats in newborn or 0-3 month size, then you have a ton of stuff at first, then one day they’ve got nothing.)

I picked Sue’s No-Holes Hexagon Sweater and woo-hoo! It’s fast. I’m using mods laid out by another Raveller to eliminate the increase holes, used worsted weight and an H hook for something more jackety, and added two rounds just to the front/back/bottom so the sleeves wouldn’t get too wide. I think I’ll add some cuffs to the sleeves, too, for a little more length, but I haven’t decided what to do about the collar yet.

Or how I’m going to close it. That’s a really bad picture of the color, too - it’s Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Chestnut Heather, and it’s a gorgeous shade of gold-flecked brownish burgundy. Very rich, but masculine. These houses down here are so different from the ones back home - sunlight is aggressively kept out with blinds and curtains, the windows are small and high, with deep eaves shading them as much as possible. All of my photos have a fluorescent tint.

Soo, in between cranking out baby things, I’m going to try and take a break to make something I promised to Max this spring…and if I can pull it off, it’ll be awesome!

A Real, Honest-to-Goodness Blog Post

Hey! I’m knitting something! (No! Really!)

You see, up to this point all I’ve made for the twins is one sweater and one hat apiece. This is clearly insufficient for a pair of babies who are going to spend the first week of their lives in a fanatically air-conditioned environment and then immediately transition into a real winter (complete with mounds and mounds of snow). I really only made Max and Charlie one sweater each - I mean, we were living in Texas - and that was kind of just to do it. These little guys are going to need what I can make for them. (And that makes it so much more fun, doesn’t it?)

Now, this (these? I am making two of them) sweater is very special. In my frantic, last minute stash diving - trying to decide which yarn would do me the most good to pack in our limited space, what projects I would use them for, etc - I uncovered a long-buried wool cache. More than two years ago, if I recall, I went into a Jo-Ann’s to find that a lot of their house yarns were on clearance. To my delight, this included the soft, gorgeous, 100% wool and generally quite pricey Tesoro. I bought every ball they had (for the low, low price of $2.35 apiece) and tucked it away to use for baby things. Well, as you know, a lot has happened between then and now, and so the yarn hasn’t so much as seen the light of day for a long time.

At any rate, in this stash I discovered five balls of blue (and one of yellow, to use for contrast or extra yardage) and decided that now was the time for them to be put to use. Sadly, the Tesoro has now long been discontinued, so there’s not much chance of getting more…that means that I have 2.5 balls of blue to use for each sweater, plus another half-ball of yellow in case I run out and need to do the edgings in contrasting colors. I’ve done a lot of calculations, and I think it will be doable.  The pattern is Baby Sophisticate, available free and really quite cute. Now, I don’t think I have the buttons I want to use for these (although I did remember to bring buttons!) but that’s okay. Just today we stumbled across what appears to be the arts and crafts store on a nearby base, and it is HUGE. We couldn’t go today, but I am so psyched to visit next week. The seductive image my mind is painting me, of a large selection of American yarn, has me extremely hopeful that I’ll find something interesting there.

Oh, Hi!

Things have been incredibly hectic over the last few weeks, but I’m writing to you now from the other side of our plane trip. That’s right, we’re down here by the hospital in muggy sunny Okinawa! So, while I haven’t been able to muster much energy or interesting content for the blog this last month, I now have time. Lots and lots of time.

Also (interestingly) I think I’ll be able to work on some projects! I had anticipated not really doing much knitting or crocheting down here since the hot and sticky weather drains me of any desire to cover my lap with wool, but the cottage we’re staying in requires us to keep the air conditioning on all the time to prevent the growth of mold. Let me just say that 21C is a lot cooler than you’d think. We’re going to be glad when our trunks show up and we can pull out the sweatshirts we packed for the trip back home.

Anyway - here we are! Now we just have to wait a few weeks for the twins to get here.