Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring?

Here is what the first day of Spring brought to the Pacific Northwest:
Don't be fooled by the flowering trees, the picture is fuzzy for a reason (other than my poor photography skills): SLEET.While it only sleeted briefly, the remainder of the day was unseasonably cold and very rainy. *sigh* I guess we need to cherish the nice weather we had on Saturday a bit longer...

In non-weather related news, here is the latest update on the Baby Wrap Sweater:
That's right, all knitted up and ready for blocking, seaming and finishing. The pattern calls for twisted ties to be added to the sweater as a means of closure but while the pattern is really specific as to placement of the ties, it gives no instructions what-so-ever as to how the twisted ties themselves are to be manufactured. I'm mulling two alternatives: a) using a ribbon as a tie and b) picking up three stitches on each side and making i-cord ties. I'll let you know what I decide.

In the meantime I am working on the lavender baby bonnet for Pooh Bear. I am on the last pattern repeat before I begin shaping the back so I think I might have a pictorial update for that later in the week. I intend to make the matching socks that are part of the bonnet pattern but even after that I think I will have a ball of yarn leftover so I am seriously contemplating making the Amelie Dress from Natural Knits for Babies & Mothers to match the bonnet, using the bonnet color as the contrast band on the dress. Eh, who am I kidding? I'm going to make it, I just have to pick a main color, buy the yarn and cast on.

I've decided for the sake of brevity that I am going to give my Albatross updates in a format that pays homage to Helen Fielding from now on. It will only take one line of space and will be easy to skip over for those of you bored by my endlessly going on about the blanket that won't end. So here is today's update:

Albatross rows knit since last post: 7, p. (poor)
In the future, I'll have the update at the top of the post a la Bridget Jones. I will post pictures at Critical junctures (halfway and the end). But other than that, I'll try to keep it short. Note, that I said try- we all know I am not above whining on and on if so moved (sorry).

Hmmm... I need to figure out what to do next, now that the wrap sweater is (mostly) done. The logical thing would be to immediately cast on for the matching hat or booties but I'm not sure. Maybe I need something totally new? Or maybe I could cast on for the hat and something new?

One last thing, had I known that Moonstruck chocolate was about to be embroiled in a lawsuit with a local coffee company I might not have blogged about them the other day. Or I might have... the chocolate is damned good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That wrap baby sweater is SUPER cute. What pattern is it?

Twisted cords are simple to make (if you have instructions). You generally take a piece of yarn 4x as long as you want the tie to be, fold it in half over a pencil or similar (so you're holding 2 ends in one hand and a pencil with the yarn over it in the other) and twist either side until the yarn gets so twisted it easily doubles up on itself when you release tension between your two hands. Seth enjoys the twisted cord and it's very helpful to have someone to hold one end and help twist. I've seen demos where a drill has been used to hurry up the twisting but haven't tried it.

Oh and both Seth and I got very wet riding our bikes home today. Sigh.