A Boy's Sweater

Well, not just any boy's sweater, my boy's sweater. I cast on while I was in the middle of knitting aforementioned Sockapalooza socks, felt guilty and quit, but now we're back with a vengeance. I tell you, this one is going quickly. Possibly because aforementioned boy has soccer camp this week, which means some extra knitting time while his toddler sister is occupied kicking soccer balls on the sidelines.



This could have been done very quickly, only I got a request from not one, but two males in the household (um, there are ONLY two) to redo the bottom. Seems that 'vents' are not to their style, even though one of the males will decidedly never fit into the sweater. Hmph. And so it's not difficult, I'll just rip out and knit a rolled-edge bottom like the gazillion Wallabies I've knitted for him.

In fact, this sweater is not unlike the Wonderful Wallaby pattern, although it is only for children. But I got tired of knitting that one, after seriously knitting five or six of them. This is knit top-down and has almost no finishing at the end. Love love love Knitting Pure & Simple Patterns!



A small, very personal note about the not-so-small boy (pictured right at a family wedding in mid July) who will live in this sweater in a few short months. He's turning 5 in a few weeks. Just in time to be technically eligible in our state to attend kindergarten. However, we are "redshirting" him and keeping him in preschool for another year. Our reasons are many and it took months and months to make the decision. I am really very sensitive about it; hoping to not make any decisions I will regret in years to come. I really hope this is the right one. Bugger off to the relative to recently told me that redshirting is "trendy"...yeah, that's why we're doing it. Because it's trendy. (insert expletive here)

The Well-Traveled Sock

Why, yes, it has been quite some time since you've heard from me. I'm sad to say it has almost been a month since my last post. And not that I haven't wanted to. Within there we had a trip to the East for a family wedding and fit in one day of family vacation at the NJ shore. I swear I've been knitting nothing else but Sockapalooza Socks since my last post. On my honor. They just seemed to take forever! Here they are, lifelines and all, FO'd just right after I took these photos:



Why yes, they are as eye-searing in real life. And I'm a little worried because I can't get them on my feet. But my sock pal has size 9s and I'm sporting my gargantuan size 11s. So hopefully they will fit her. Not long now! My next project is making some thrifty sock blockers.

So these socks have been in The Midwest, they have flown over much of the East Coast and have landed in Detroit and New Jersey and spent some time in Point Pleasant Beach. I call that a well-traveled sock pair indeed.

So stayed tuned...I can finally post about that other project I had started round about when I was mid-sock, before crunch time set in.

Once Upon A Time

There lived three girls with their parents. These three girls grew up in Ohio (Go Bucks!) and Wisconsin (Go Badgers!) and had a mostly happy upbringing. One weekend, after the girls had families and children of their own, the parents and the oldest and the middle decided to descend upon the youngest and her family, having just moved to a new city, and "help" them with projects around their new house.

This was fun, but kind of odd because two of the sisters had to drive with the parents and spent the weekend without spouses or their children. The two sisters, who spent quite some time in the parents' van, at times felt again like they were 12 years old, bounding out of the van at rest stops without having to lug a diaper bag or think about who might need a snack.

Finally, after working and working one of the days, they got the nursery painted, the spare bathroom painted, shelves installed and curtains sewed. It was a successful weekend. The End.