Early Hours

There’s a little boy smiling at me from his place on the foam tile alphabet on the floor. I’m lucky that he is such a little charmer at 0500 hrs in the morning. It helps me get out of bed. Seeing as I’m getting up for him anyway, the fact that Iain is smiling when he wakes me up makes the whole process a lot more bearable.

Knitting has come to a grinding halt. I’m hopping on the Yarnhog bandwagon and announcing that I am not knitting any gifts for Christmas. What a great idea - I love Yarnhog! My joining the crowd is more of an affirmation as I was not really planning on knitting anything for anyone for Christmas this year. A number of years ago, Patty would be found up in the week hours of Christmas morning working frantically away at home-made presents. A few less years ago, however, I decided to stop that nasty tradition. Now, I look at my list and decide who will get the handmade gift this year, if anyone. I try and keep it to one handmade present a year. Yes, at this rate I’ll be 116 before everyone on my list gets anything home-made from me. That’s okay as I’ve long planned to live until I’m 116 anyways ;).

Despite my lack of current knitting, I would like to pull back the curtains to reveal my mystery FO. What’s it been – two years since I starting talking about my mystery WIP? Well, it has arrived at its final home. The recipient was one of my DH's Aunt J’s grand-nieces (there are two). I thought it would be nice for them to each have a sweater from their great-aunt’s stash which I inherited – almost like having a sweater from Great Aunt J herself. I hope to start on another sweater for grand-niece number two in 2008.

Until I get a photo of the sweater being modelled on a real person, you will have to make do with these shots. I took these photos in October (yes, I’m am hard up for current knitting content) and still had to meet anyone that it would fit locally who could model it for me.

Despite how long it took me to knit, I really enjoyed this project. The knitting was fun and I learned a great deal (e.g. how to knit a ruffled edge, perfecting my mattress stitch, three needle bind off, etc). The pattern is from Sirdar’s Kids in Denim book. I used Patons Astra’s Ultra Blue from my inherited yarn stash. I had to purchase two other balls of yarn – the pink (Patons Astra’s Hot Pink) as well as a non-lot matching Ultra Blue to finish the button bands and collar (including the ruffled collar). The new lot was a lot ‘shinier’ than the original colour and I didn’t like it as much. Despite my initial reservations when I saw this yarn, I think it is perfect for a child’s sweater and ended up really falling in love with the colour.


How is everybody doing out there? I haven’t been able to conduct my usual blog perusing in many weeks so my apologies for my lack of comments on your blogs. Now that our house is almost back in order, DH is away most of the week AND we’re hosting around 30 of his work colleagues here for an Open House on the 16th. Therefore, this will likely be another week marked by a lack of blogging and reading. Bear with me – tis the season after all!