Ignore the bulge at the bottom that is the point where the mannequin stops and the sweater has nothing to tug at.

Aunt Carrie-carrie-bo-berry,
you wanted to see my cute little face in my new sweater. I can’t wait to meet you and kiss you like I am kissing daddy above. You will like me much better than Fred. I am much better behaved and I am not interested in chasing kitties.

Now the knitting:

So I spent the day doing good pursuits but got in a good 5 hours or so of knitting. I know that I listened to about 8 hours of knitting podcasts and started and finished a ball of yarn on Sahara today. I am loving this knit. It is going so fast. I started it on Thursday night and knit on it some on Friday, Sunday and Tuesday. I am an increase away from starting the hem. Churchable is kind enough to be winding up the trim yarn which is the Blue Moon Bling. I am going to swatch it tomorrow so that I can get the right gauge.

The sock above is the one I started at the beginning of the month. I barely worked on them and they are almost done. The yarn is so yummy. It is Blue Moon Sock Candy. The stitch pattern I am using is very tight and best suited to this stretchy yarn. I like the fit, but I don’t like the bind off I did. I need to try a few more. I will do that on the other sock.

Saturday was life suckingly busy. I headed a women’s tea at our church and churchable helped out at the boy scout garage sale. Both these events are held every year for each of our groups and they require coordination. I became president of the group that holds the women’s tea in January. I did not realize how much time and energy this event takes. This year we had each table be decorated by different ladies in the church. Each table was amazing. The above tables were the winning tables. I barely got any knitting done.

Sunday was the usual business plus a church meeting. At least I was able to knit during both church and the information meeting. I have progressed greatly on Sahara. It is going way faster than I expected which is good because time is moving faster than I expected.

On Monday I realized that the little girl had outgrown her sock sweaters that I made for her. She finally needed a real sweater. So in between all the hiking, I whipped up a cute little dog sweater from scratch with colorwork.

All the baby projects are a result of 4 women in my life having babies.

The first one was born at the beginning of April the week before Easter. The baby was born 3 weeks early so I had not even started the present. And as a result did not blog about the item, so imagine the baby booties you see today in bright pink and you have the idea.

The second baby will be born at the end of next month. I cast on over a week ago and finished it three days later. It missed FO Friday (It was not finished) and WIP Wednesday (because it was finished). I made a EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. This little number was so fast and so cute. I really wanted funky little buttons but we don’t have many options here in Longview. I also knit my standard baby booties.

Pattern: EZ Baby Surprise Jacket from Knitting Workshop
Yarn: Nature Spun sport weight (100% wool) – cream and cranberry fog
Needles: US 5 Crystal Palace Circular
Mods: I made 3 button holes instead of 5.

The third child is to be born to a missionary family that is leaving before the baby is born. The little boy will join 3 other siblings. I hope he thrives well. I picked one project and tried many yarns and finally picked one but realized that I would probably run out of yarn and I was hating the pattern. Plus the gauge was going crazy. So I picked something that would be quick. This project was why there was no WIP Wednesday. I started it and ripped it out by Wednesday. The parts are done and blocked now thus the finishing is all that is left. It took me about a day a piece. I was happy to see that my tension is still good in stranded knitting. I knit with yarn in each hand when I do stranded knitting. It was the way I learned since my first project was a fair isle hat on dpns. (my tension was horrible back then but that was ten years ago).

Pattern: Baby Moccasins in Vogue Knitting Baby Knits Two on the go!
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky (85% Wool / 15% Mohair) in Brown
Needles: US 10 Brittany dpns
Mods: None. These take 2 hours or less so why change them.

The fourth baby is to be born in September so I have a little more time, but I found the most perfect color yarn that goes with the families love of a favorite team. You need to raise up the fans early right. She reads this blog so I may or may not post the little surprise for her until after it is gifted. I have already made up booties for her back when she told me that she was expecting.

This weekend was my second anniversary with churchable. He took me up to the Kitsap Peninsula so that we could veg out. First part of the trip was to stop at Linda’s Knit n Stitch which was at Madrona. She had the most Koigu that I had ever seen at Madrona and had been told by her that she had exclusive rights to Mariner, UW, Seahawks and WSU Lorna’s Laces colors. Churchable is a Mariner’s fan and graduated from UW so I promised him socks from one of these color lines. At first he was going to go for UW, but upon seeing the colors he choice the Mariner’s color.

Then we headed to the Bed & Breakfast Bird’s Eye View, which had a great view. It had a great balcony to veg out on. Churchable caught up on his mag reading and I knit happily away on my baby vest. This is the first B & B that we have both liked and want to return to for future times.

After I finish the baby vest, I will be starting Sahara with my Blue Moon Bling.

I commented on Monday on the Sexy Knitters Club when I posted about my Rusted Root that I wanted to make the Sahara with some Blue Moon Bling (aka Lupe). I bought the beautiful shade of Saratoga in Lupe (100% Nylon Boucle) knowing that I would use it for Sahara. I really had no thought of what I wanted to use for the main yarn. I wanted something solid colored that would make my bling pop. My first thoughts were Silky Wool but I eventually decided on another Elsebeth Lavold yarn Cotton Patine in color 05 damson. My reasoning came after holding up several different colors of Silky Wool and not finding a match. I swatched last night and came up with gauge with US 7 which was the recommended size on the ball band.

I have been working a little bit on my husband’s second sock. I have 2 1/2 inches of the 10 1/2 inch sole. It is always slow going on his socks. I just realized it might be that I don’t like the feel of the yarn and thus it is not enjoyable to knit with. Oh well that just means I have to destash some lovely yarn or make it into baby items. I am entirely tempted to rip out the needles and forget this second sock existed but churchable loves the colors so I am going to finish. Honey I want you to know this sock is truly a labor of love.

Next up I have Blue Moon Sock Candy (96% Cotton, 4% Elite) in Borage. I lovely the deep green color. This cotton is so squishy and soft that this sock is flying off my needles. I am already 4 inches into the sock from the tip of the toes. I am so glad that I bought enough to make two pairs of socks.

The last project that I cast on for is the EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. I am working this in Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport in cream and cranberry fog. I am enjoying changing colors every other row. I will have to see how this works out when I come to the large sections of short rows.

Our church is having a baby boom. I wanted to start on another project that is for a baby boy that is needed sooner than the EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. I swatched with the yarn that I brought and realized they were too thin and totally unsuitable for a baby. The yarn was scratchy and tough. I must confess I just grabbed enough yarn from the box marked Sport weight that was in little boy colors and ran out the door.

Updated with pics on 5/4/07