I’m making this for Susan’s baby-to-be. S/he will be born in the winter, so this can help to keep him/her bundled up and warm.

10/4 - Okay, I’m changing yarns. The colours look lovely together, but the Claudia’s is WAY too variegated for this project. I did the first lace panel and couldn’t see any of the detail of it at all. I dug through the stash and have decided to put away the Koigu (sniffle), use the Claudia’s for the edging, and use Shibui for the body.
Take 2!

10/15 - Done done done! Tomorrow will be button-shopping day at the horrible-LYS-that-shan’t-be-named because they have the best button collection I’ve ever seen anywhere! This is perfect because tomorrow is the baby shower (bebeh!!!). I’m really pleased with how this turned out, it’s blocking right now. It would have been DAYS ago except that I was trying to do this tricksy thing of running the Claudia’s along the lace raglan panels for an extra colour pop. It did NOT go well at all, I kept ripping back and trying to arrange them in a different way and each time, it just looked distracted and sloppy. I’m sure that there is a way to accomplish it, I just couldn’t figure out how. The only part of making this that was frustrating was attaching the sleeves to the body, and she even says in the pattern that she knows it’s difficult. I’m just not a fan of that technique because it completely stretches out the stitches on the body that are under the arm and you have to fix that when you sew the sleeves up. I would have been better off using the nice grafting technique that Ysolda uses on Little Birds, I suppose, and I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

In terms of yarn, this used the WHOLE skein of Shibui. The WHOLE thing. Right up to the last little bit. I actually ran short as I was doing the last row by about 6 stitches and had to use a bit of the green part of the Claudia’s. It worked out just fine, but definitely keep that in mind if you work up this sweater.

Sewing on the buttons with the help of this tip from Bonnie :o)

Here’s a little tip I like with buttons, especially for babies since some people worry about babies being able to pull them off. I make a little sandwich with my outside button, the button band and then a plain shirt button and sew through all three layers really well. It takes the stress off the knit fabric (when you pull on the button) because of the shirt button support on the backside.

Definitely a brilliant way to do buttons - oh, and when I went to the horrid yarn shop today, they ignored me all the way up to the point where I slapped down the buttons in front of the woman at the counter and said, “I’m all set to pay.” Seriously, how does this place stay in business?