Sock Monkey

I've got a FO to report and a new project too (with significant progress!)

Well, it's an unseamed FO. I finished the knitting portion of the baby sweater for a friend's new baby (due in January). I picked up some white buttons for it, deciding to go pretty gender-ambiguous (or Classic) so that they could use it for any subsequent kids and I could finish it whether or not they found out the gender. The catch is, that I forgot how little confidence I have in my seaming. And this darn pale yellow is really hard to see where the edges of the stitches are. It's garter stitch and the ridges are poorly defined. I'm thinking about seaming it in a contrast color (orange?). I guess I could always "trace" the orange seam with yarn from the project. It was a neat pattern, though, in that it was all knit in one piece, in the flat. So the seams are going to run from the wrist to the end of the side seam at the waist.


The second project to report is a Christmas present! It's a sock for my BIL. It's the green merino Creme Brulee from Melissa. It's super-soft and on size 4 needles one of those theraputic stockinette in the round quick knits. I cast on yesterday, went for a goodly car ride to go pick up the monkey from camp (well from the bus drop point in Ocoee - camp was in Georgia). I turned the heel this morning and now I'm contemplating how much longer to make the 3x1 rib before changing to 1x1 rib for the cuff. I used one of the toe's from Wendy's Knitty article (Have used it quite a bit lately, it's my favorite so far) and the Judy's heel (I love this one too - I love the fill-in-the-blanks from a table format, I love the charts, I love that the pattern works)


The sock for DH is at work. The heel is turned and the ankle is 3x1 rib. I'm at the point on that one where I'm starting to wonder how long to make it. I think I'l have to bring it home this week for a fitting. DH seemed a little something that I was working on a sock for someone else, as though I had cast aside his.

Friday I hit Little Knits for yarn for another baby sweater (I know 3 January babies! 1 quilt, 2 sweaters, 9 receiving blankets, 3 hats). I got some Cascade 220 Superwash in cream and orange (I really like the orange, but the cream in case I chicken out) (and also some sock yarn, another set of sock needles, and some Cascade Pastaza) What I would like to find is a pattern (or measurements and a game plan) for a seamless (or nearly seamless) top down or bottom up little baby sized sweater. It seems like all of the patterns I'm seeing in the baby patterns I have are seamed, and none of the "formula" books (Ann Budd, Joy of Knitting Companion) have formulas/dimensions for very small people's sweaters. I saw this very pretty one at Grumperina's (she does make it look easy, and described the basic algorithm in a subsequent blog entry) and may just wing it, using some long-sleeve onesies that I picked up for freezer-papering as a size guide.