I’ve finished a project! Yay! It’s a pretty cute one, too.
It’s actually a double project. A family friend who has a little one the same age as my boy, is expecting a baby girl just about any day now. I had some extra yarn and I love an excuse to make a baby sweater. (Seriously, they’re so fun and fast!) I whipped up a tiny little Flax Light for the little one. (Can I extol the virtues of this pattern again? 1. It’s well-written and free! 2. It comes in literally all the sizes. 3. It’s reversible! One less thing to have to fuss with while getting the little guys dressed.)
I found some matching red yarn in my stash, too. I thought I’d make a red sweater for the big brother! How cute would that be? But it turned out I didn’t have nearly enough for a toddler-sized sweater. Thus, I ended up with a stripey sweater, which, honestly, I like better than if it had been a solid color. It looks like the kind of sweater a little boy wears as he runs around the neighborhood getting into trouble. 
After some whining about weaving in ends, I finished it up, and now the pair are all wrapped up and ready to be delivered.
I know the kids won’t really care about them, but I bet their parents will appreciate them. And I think they turned out super cute!
Have you been working on any gift knitting lately?
I think my favorite part of this sweater is how wearable it is. Who would have thought? A short-sleeved, cropped sweater? Really? Past Allison would have laughed at the idea that I would wear something like this.
I’ve been wearing it over dresses, tank-tops and jeans. And once it cools down (fall’s right around the corner), I think it’ll be cute over long-sleeved tanks or a nice buttondown.
The kid seems like he likes it too. (How cute would a baby one be?!)
And I think I’m liking how these colors are playing together for the most part. There’s still a part of me that’s a little skeptical of the pink-yellow variegated, but I think that’s because it’s just so far outside of the colors I usually pick. And, I am a little concerned about the contrast between the pink and the gray in the big “arrow” section of the yoke. (Though, honestly this picture makes it look pretty nice. It’s a little less clear in real life.)
I’m almost to the end of the yoke, which is both exciting (yay! I’m that much closer to finishing), and a little sad (boo! I’m that much closer to finishing). It’s a fun little project, and with no sleeves and not much body to knit, it’ll be done before I know it.
Glamour shot!
I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. It’s warm and squishy and the colors are freaking gorgeous (and really hard to capture. The black has undertones of green and navy and ash gray, and the yellow is golden with touches of copper. So gorgeous). 
It was actually a really simple pattern (which I have plans of writing up for y’all), just a lot of knitting. I love that kind of pattern- simple enough for anyone to work up, but with a real impact when it’s done. Honestly, the hardest part was finding a space big enough (and away from the baby and the dog) to block the dang thing!
I still had a half-hour left of my show, so I decided to grab some DPNs and get to work on the sleeves. But horror of horrors, apparently I don’t have any US6 DPNs. I’ve got 3 sets of 5’s, 2 sets of 7’s, and just about any other size I could want, but not a 6 in sight. How does this happen? I’ve been knitting for more than two thirds of my life. Why don’t I have any 6’s?
Well, I made it about a half an inch before giving up. Good God, magic loop is annoying. The more power to you, if that’s what works for you. I’m glad there are different techniques for different people, but this one is definitely not for me. I don’t know why, but there is something that just drives me up the wall about wrangling that big old cable, and futzing with moving my stitches back and forth. Maybe there’s some “flow” thing that I’m just not getting, but at least for now, nope. Magic loop is definitely not for me.
On the Needles 