The baby sweater is gone!

Gone to it's recipient, of course. Well, it's recipient's mother to be exact. The little guy is yet to be born, though it will be any day now! I don't have a photo for you of the finished project because I finished it in such a hurry. I finished sewing the snaps on during my lunch break today and had to wrap it the minute I got home. To be honest, I would have taken the 5 seconds it takes to photograph it if it weren't for the fact that I thought I'd be bringing it back home with me. Let me explain. At lunch today, while sewing on the snaps, I realized that when I sewed the snaps onto the front flap, the thread I used could (faintly) be seen on the front of the garment. I used some thin, cotton yarn in a VERY similar yellow color to sew them on so it really blended in well. I, of course, was not satisfied but I had no time to do anything else. I thought that I could get some cute buttons and sew them on to the front of the flap to hide the evidence that I sewed something (gasp!) but that wasn't going to happen tonight. So I decided that I would give it and then take it home, finish it, and give it back. A good enough plan but a strange thing happened. Once my gift was opened and oohed and aahed over, I deceded to let go of my (not-so-hidden) inner perfectionist and let it go as is. Chances are, I'm the only one that would ever see the yellow threads in the midst of yellow seed stitch anyway. So, I did not bring it back home and you don't get an "all finished!" picture but I don't want you to go home empty handed.

With the leftover yarn, I knitted up a quick hat for the little one. I used the pattern in the most recent Interweave Knits. "But there isn't a pattern for a baby hat in that issue", you're saying to yourself. You're right, but there is a cute kids hat. It's the wedge hat and I discovered that if I used the cotton classic and size 4 needles (or maybe they were 5's . . .) and knit 6 wedges instead of 7, it would be just right for a newborn. So here it is. The colors are supposed to be added with a knit row, but I didn't want 6 little rows of purl bumps against the newborn's head and I kind of like the stripes I get this way.

I'm also giving you a picture of my experimental finishing technique because in the finished sweater, it looks darn cute. I was afraid that pulling on snaps sewed to the front flaps would cause the stitches to pull out of shape so I found some cute striped ribbon and used fabric glue to attach it to the inside of the flaps. Then I sewed the snaps on and also sewed around the edges of the ribbon so they woudl't pull up at all. It gave the closure more stability and added some unexpected cuteness to the inside of the front flaps! It looked something like this (except yellow knitting, not orange). I tried it on a test swatch to see how the fabric glue would work. The sweater and hat were a hit and I got a "I was hoping this would be something you knitted!" from the new mom-to-be (and the ribbon detail was fully appreciated) and a "This is like something people pay a lot of money for at Baby Gap!" from another attendee. Although I don't ever set out to knit something that looks like a Gap product, I take that as a nice compliment.

I also found a good number of stitches for my mom's socks. It makes some pretty stripes and they's absolutely no pooling but the stripes obscure the cable pattern. It's the rib and cable sock pattern from the Fall 2005 Interweave knits. I though about nixing the cables but I like them, even if you can't really tell they're there. It gives me something interesting to knit (I hate knitting ribbing!) and when the sock is stretched, you can tell there's a pattern. You can see it better in person than in this picture. Happy Saturday night everyone! I'm rejoicing in the fact that this is my last weekend having to work BOTH days! I still have to work tomorrow but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Starting next week, I get Sundays off. Yay!