Workin' On It

A while ago I was commissioned by a lady at work to make a special sweater for her first grandson who is due later this summer. The baby's father is a big Notre Dame fan so a special chart was devised, and this is the result:

All three items are from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, one of the first knitting books I ever bought, about five years ago. The sweater pattern is probably the one pattern that I've knit more than any other. I just keep adding things like stripes or Notre Dame intarsia in order to keep it exciting.

The yarn is Butterfly mercerized cotton. I used about a skein and a half of the navy, and half of a skein of the gold. I modified the sweater by adding a row of single crochet around the end of each sleeve, and then instead of sewing a ribbon tie at the neck, I made a crochet chain about 9 inches long, made a row of single crochet around the neck, then continued with another 9 inch crochet chain on the other side. I figured that would be easier than trying to find matching ribbon.

The hat is knit with two strands of the yarn held together with a US 8 circular needle. The sweater and booties were both knit single stranded with a US 5 needle.

The best part about having this set complete is that now I'm down to only 17 projects that need to be completed by the end of November. I'm trying to work out the list in the side bar to keep track of those projects.

The next BIG project that has to be completed is my niece's birthday sweater. Her birthday is August 25, so my goal is to have the sweater finished by August 18, in order to have time to wrap it up and mail it to Washington. That's not much time. Her pattern calls for 575 yards of yarn, and each ball has 81 yards. I figure as long as I knit up a minimum of two balls each week, I should be able to finish on time. I finished the first ball of the week this evening! Unfortunately, this isn't the only project I need to be working on. I'm making progress, though!