Caution

My recently-turned-three-year-old nephew Calvin is awesome. He loves trains and cars and trucks and books and guns and Monkey George and any game you can play with a dodo (ball). He talks up a storm and chases his big sister and finds ways to keep his baby sister from screaming. It was so incredible to see him over Thanksgiving, since the last time Mom and I had seen him was a year and a half ago... half of his lifetime! He's (obviously) SO different now and it was a blast to get to know him again.

These all seem fairly common characteristics of a three-year-old boy, but something you might not know about Calvin is that he has a bit of... spirit. I'm fairly certain that everyone who has ever met him has been witness to that stubborn, fire-y streak, so I thought it only fair that his third birthday sweater be a warning to all.



And if that's not enough (you know some people have trouble heeding vague warning signs...), the back reads:


And Calvin loved it. He wore it a lot while we were there, and I hope he's still enjoying it. It's his "chicken" sweater. He calls lots of things "chicken", and that's a lot easier (and let's face it, more fun) than saying "construction". Here he is on Sunday morning rocking his sister's carseat so she'd stay happy right before we headed to church:


(Please note that Hallie is still wearing her February baby sweater and Saartje's booties. The west-coast Higgins's seem to be an often happily be-knitted family.)

Calvin's sweater is the Knitting Pure & Simple top-down raglan for kids, and I designed the colorwork after seeing a caution tape scarf in CRAFT magazine a while back. I used Berroco Comfort Worsted yarn and size 9 needles. I refuse to admit that it took me until 12:30am the night before our flight left to finish it.

-----

Maggie and Calvin both got new socks a few weeks before Thanksgiving, too (so much for Valentine's socks).

Maggie's are the Handsome Devil pattern, using two different balls of Cascade fixation. I had seen someone else do these colors on the Six Sox Knitalong, and had to try it myself, only Maggie-sized.

Calvin's are Charlie's Dragon Socks from Cat Bordhi's New Directions for Sock Knitters book. First of all, let me tell you how much I love this book. I LOVE this book! I can't wait to experiment with more of the patterns and sock chickens. Umm, sock constructions. It's so much fun! And you can completely customize your socks for anyone with the super helpful charts.

Why dragon socks? Because you can unbutton and unfurl the dragon tails and let them fly out behind you as you scamper about your business, that's why. I used Opal Handpainted yarn double-stranded for the main color, and a reddish brown Trekking yarn for the tail spikes.

Heehee. :)

My nephew's feet amuse me.

P.S. If you aren't yet convinced that I am completely smitten with my nephew, please note that these are all the tails I had to weave in times TWO dragon tails. Love love love...