Babies, Babies, Part II

H's shower is Sunday. I finished the baby sweater for her:
and a baby hat: I have one and a half booties done. This is the one. Not the half. I love both the hat and the sweater, but I don't love the booties. I think I am going to see if I can find a different pattern to make for her. I used Lion Brand's Baby's First and although the yarn splits sometimes, in general, I really liked working with it. It's part acrylic and part cotton, totally machine-washable, and it's bulky, so it knits up quickly. I think I must knit really tightly, because I knit the sweater on size 10s, which it calls for when you use dk or light worsted yarn, and this is definitely bulky. I wish I didn't knit so tightly because I like the way things look when the knit is smaller.

Overpackaging, anyone?

And we wonder why we have so much landfill. I bought these big balls of yarn at Amazing Savings a few weeks ago. The yarn is very much like the old "Trellis" which I think has been discontinued, but which I loved using for a shawl. So when I saw these, I pounced on them. I was thinking "320 yards isn't *that* much - there must be something in the middle." Oh, was I right. There was a HUGE styrofoam ball in the middle. These pictures are in reverse order and I can't seem to get them flipped around right now, but what you have (bottom to top) is 1) the box of yarn, 2) the big styrofoam ball from the middle, 3) the wound ball of yarn and 4) the wound ball of yarn next to the original box.

Argh. If I didn't love this yarn so much and if it were still available from whatever company made Trellis, I would have returned these all right away. But I'll still be annoyed by it...

Babies, Babies, Babies

So two of my friends are having babies. I wasn't really expecting baby showers. One is Jewish, and Jews don't traditionally do baby showers (I was especially surprised because L is particularly superstitious, but I guess gifts trump superstition for her), and H lives abroad and I figured she wouldn't be able to come back for a shower. Wrong on both accounts. So one is June 19 and one is June 27. I'm making the Cotton Candy Jacket from the Better Homes and Gardens Hip Knits book because it is the easiest sweater ever. And it's downright adorable. It's all made in one piece and then you just seam up the sides. I do think that the arms need to be a little longer than they call for in the pattern, and the hood needs to be much smaller. So I'll modify. But the good thing is that I'm almost done with the first sweater. I just have to make myself finish it before I start the second one, because I'm really ready to be done with the first.

Someday, I'll think about these things in advance and have lots of baby sweaters made ahead of time like most smart people do...

This is the sweater:

And this is the close up of the super-cute button: