Category: Knitting

Fourth Time’s the Charm!

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I schedule my crafts.  Honestly.  I sit down at the beginning of a new year and brainstorm all the things I’d like to make, keeping new babies, weddings, and the like in mind, and then I schedule my time and projects accordingly.  I’ve found that this approach allows me to finish the things that are important to me, and still allow me a little wiggle room if I finish things quicker than I had planned upon.
As you can imagine, I loaded my craft schedule pretty heavily with quilts this year.  January through May was consumed with work on the Storybook Hexagon Quilt because I wanted to be able to present it to my dear friend Rachel when her long sought daughter was born in June.  (Oh, what fun that was!  I still smile when I recall her shocked face when it was pulled from the gift bag.  That was a good day.)
And then I scheduled the summer for working on Junebug and Monkeyboy’s quilts for their bedroom, which I had planned to redecorate over summer break.  Alas, this was not to be because of the whole “let’s move to Australia” thing, but I did get a good start on their quilts.  Monkeyboy’s quilt parts have stayed behind in America; and, because Junebug is a little stinker and changed her mind about her quilt pattern at the last minute, I’ve brought along the pieces for her quilt because it’s all done by hand.  As I could not bring my sewing machine with me, having that big handwork project is rather perfect.
When I was sitting down with  my spreadsheet in January, figuring out what projects to plug into what weeks, the last halfof the year just would not schedule out.  I’d try to apply my brain to the task, but seemed to be thinking my way through a hazy cloud.  (This should have been my first clue that something out of the ordinary was brewing for our family this year…)  I wanted to do some cute Halloween crafts, begin a gorgeous Christmas quilt, maybe make a few new-baby items to stash away for when I’m inevitably surprised by one of my siblings having a new baby and I somehow missed the five months of announcements on Facebook.  But nope, nothing felt right in the September through December time slot.
I stewed on the predicament for days.  I don’t like leaving empty space in my schedule.  I know, from previous experience, that empty spaces in my schedule means zero progress on my projects.  I’m not a fan of that.
And then, a few nights later, as I was in that twilight doze right before true sleep, it came to me:  The Peacock Feathers Stole.
Perfection.  A big block of time, unencumbered with any other projects to distract me, all set aside to finally tackle and conquer this unconquerable project that has kicked my heinie three times already in the past five years.  I will knit this pattern.
And I am.  Finally:
I started working on it a week before we left the States.  My previous three attempts have never seen me progress beyond row eight, but here I am today, proudly waving  ROW 108.  I’ve never gotten even halfway through Chart #1, and here I am, firmly entrenched in Chart #6!  (Chart #6 is long.  I’ll be here for about another month…ugh.)
The secret to my success this time:  Going ridiculously slow.  This time around, I’ve scheduled myself for only five days a week, and a maximum of four rows a day.  (That’s just two charted rows, as each row is purled on the backside, easy peasy…except for those sneaky double yarn-overs that require a little concentration on the return row.)  This “only twenty rows a week” schedule boasts March 2015 as the earliest possible completion date, compared to my earlier efforts that would churn this out in two or three months.  But you know what?  It’s working, and that’s all that matters.
It’s for my granny.  When I was really starting to get a feel for more advanced knitting, we did a little online window shopping of pretty knitted things and I showed her this pattern because I thought she’d like it.  She most certainly did like it, and the proud little knitter in my heart saluted and opened my mouth to offer to make it for her.  Unsurprisingly, she accepted the offer, and I made myself busy with procuring the supplies.  Unknown to myself at the time, I was pregnant with Monkeyboy, a fact that would become known to me a day before I received the pattern and yarn in the mail, because I was suddenly so nauseated and tired that the only thing I could be was pregnant. 
Barely able to move, and super sick all day long sounds like a perfect time to hunker down and do some soothing knitting, right?  Wrong.
Because the thing about this pattern is that it’s intense.  It’s a ton of symbols, which don’t really scare me, but whoa, those pages are pretty black with ink, and it’s got funky little spots where you have to actually reposition your stitch markers in order to work the stitches correctly and then put the stitch marker to the other side of the stitch.  It’s not cool.  It kicks my butt.  Add the nausea on top of that, and yeah, Try #1 didn’t last long.
Try #2, after Monkeyboy had arrived, lasted a week.  My sleep-deprived brain couldn’t handle it.
Try #3 was destroyed by my adventuresome lad four different times in the first two days.  My nerves couldn’t take it, and I decided that I was not in a chapter of my life that could handle advanced lace knitting.
And here we are, with Try #4, and it’s going very, very well.  The Boy no longer chews on yarn, removes needles from projects, or grabs projects out of my hands and runs off through the house laughing like a maniac with yarn trailing behind him.  (All important factors to successful knitting.)  I have months upon months scheduled, thereby eliminating any due date stress.  There are no newborns or growing-into-newborns in my future, and I get my eight hours of sleep almost every night.  Perfection.

Beautiful peacock perfection.  I love it.

What I’ve Been Working On, Aside from Packing

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Hello dear ones.

I fell victim to a little pre-moving anxiety last week, as showcased by last week’s post.  This week I’m in a far better frame of mind, now that we have visas, plane tickets and hotel reservations for all phases of the big trip.  THANK YOU so much for your “fast visas” prayers–it normally takes at least two weeks to get visas, ours came in less than a week.  Prayer works, period.  Thank you so much.

So yes, this is really going to happen!  I’ve waited for some email to arrive all this time saying, “Sorry, we changed our minds,” and it never materialized.  I’ve now re-focused that worry onto more productive areas, and we’re moving along at a snail’s pace in regards to packing, cleaning, and tying up loose ends.  (FYI–kind of a pain in the neck to get six months’ worth of prescriptions filled at once!)  As evidenced by this darling photo, our luggage arrived yesterday, and the kids found the event rather impressive.  I had a mini heart attack when I opened my door and found it partially blocked by the boxes, but I recovered quickly.  God bless our UPS delivery man…we’ve put him to work these past few weeks!

One of the nice things about all this prep is that I’m having to do a lot of waiting in random offices and other places, which grants me extra time to work on Junebug’s “Star Spangled Diamonds” quilt.  I’ve completed ten full diamond units, which means I’m about 1/7 done with the piecing.

It looks like I started working on this on May 20, so I’ve averaging five a month.  At that rate I should finish piecing this up in August 2015.  Hmm.  Oh well, the time will pass anyway, and I’d like to have a gorgeous quilt mostly pieced next August, rather than nothing.  Then there will be assembly, quilting, binding…I don’t see this particular quilt reaching its finish until January 2016 or thereabouts.  But it will be BEAUTIFUL and totally worth the time.

My knitting mojo has been returning, thank goodness, and I’ve put a little work into a few projects, and started THE project, my “unicorn” project that has kicked my butt three times over the past five years.  I’m going to take it easy, only allow myself a certain number of rows per week, and if it sticks this time, I should finish it up in March.  It’s a teeny little strip of knitting at the moment, so I’ll wait for something more impressive to show you a picture of in the coming weeks.  (I get a little jealous of the full-time crafters sometimes…a full workday to work on creative pursuits?  It’s almost enough to make me think about sending the kids to school…oh, how fun that would be!)

And then there’s the packing, of course.  Always.  🙂

By this time two weeks from now, we should be on the other side of the world.  That is weird to say.

Linking Up:

The Yarn is My Proxy

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I’m trying to be a good little auntie.

I have a weird sibling situation that I finally came to a conclusion upon last year about how I’m going to treat all my present, former, and kind-of siblings:  I’m just gonna love them all.  More love always wins, right?

One of my sisters had a baby last week, and there’s nothing like the actual birth of a baby to really light the fire under one’s rear end to finish the crafties intended for said baby.  She had a little boy, and he is beautiful.

I’ve been working on this layette since October.  The plan was to finish it all before Christmas and then ship it so it’d be there before the birth, but…yeah.  Whatever, it’s finished, and it’s heading to the post office in the next couple of days to make its way to the chilly, chilly Canadian town that boasts one more beautiful baby boy as of last week.

The cardigan is the Little Coffee Bean Cardigan pattern, knit up in Plymouth Yarn’s Jeannee Worsted (51% Cotton, 49% Acrylic).  The buttons are from JoAnn Fabric.  I knit up a matching hat following the Basic Hat Pattern in The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, by Ann Budd.

The blanket is crocheted, as is every blanket I’ve ever made from yarn.  (The idea of knitting a blanket makes me twitch a wee bit.)  The pattern is “Pastel Waves,” from Leisure Arts Our Best Baby Afghans, which I’ve owned for years upon years.  I used good ol’ Red Heart Super Saver for it, despite its baby-melting acrylic content.  I just haven’t reached the point where I can buy that much cotton yarn at once.  That also makes me a bit twitchy.

So I’ll send this off, with much love and many wishes that I could live closer to this new soul.  It’s somewhat heart-breaking to watch all these nieces and nephews grow up, and know that I’m only seeing it in photographs instead of experiencing it in person.  Sigh.  But, perhaps, they’ll be reminded that I care when they snuggle up in a blanket or sweater I’ve made for them.

That’s the hope–that they’ll feel my love and know that I wish I was right there with them.

Happy BIRTHday, Little Baby J.


This post is participating in Small Thing’s “Yarn Along,”
“Anything Goes Monday” at Stitch by Stitch,
and “Sew Cute Tuesday” at Blossom Heart Quilts.

Tweedy Lil’ Pumpkin Hat My First Published Pattern!

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Because it’s October,
Because I have an adorable little nephew who is going to totally rock this hat,
And because I’ve harbored a secret desire to design knitting patterns for almost a decade.

Here it is, my debut pattern, self-published on Ravelry and available to any who wish to partake of its cuteness.

Yes, I’m proud.

Broken down to its bare bones, this is just a simple little hat with cables and a little bit of colorwork on the top.  This particular version was knit with Rowan Felted Tweed DK, which was quite nice to work with.  I prefer DK-weight yarns for kids’ hats because of its lighter weight.  Worsted can so easily get too bulky on wee people, but DK-weight just works so perfectly.

Monkeyboy is modeling the hat, but it has been knit to fit a slightly smaller child, so it’s a tad snug on my boy’s noggin.  I’ll probably knit him one in the 2-4 year size since he was such a fan of wearing it for the pictures.

You can read more about the pattern over on Ravelry, and you can buy the pattern if you’d like.  There’s just something about knitting up little pumpkins this time of year and watching little people run around with stems atop their heads.  Makes me smile so much.

Knitting Cannibalism

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Last week I treated you to a shot of a pumpkin hat-in-progress.  I finished it shortly thereafter, and loved it immensely.  Unfortunately, it was majorly too small for its intended recipient.  What you see is presented to you only as photographic evidence that the too-small first version of this hat did indeed exist in its entirety at some point.

I dutifully cast on for a second try, and I’ve been churning away on Pumpkin Hat #2 ever since.  However, it got serious last night:  I ran out of orange yarn.

I had to decide between buying another skein, or sacrificing the petite version to feed the gluttonous beast that is the\second hat.

I opted to commit Knitting Cannibalism.

 I’m not sorry at all.

I garden for the knitting

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For the first time ever, I have my fall flowers planted before October.  There’s purple and green kale, yellow and purple pansies, and cream, yellow, and orange chrysanthemums.  Our front door doesn’t usually get a lot of foot traffic, but it is this autumn simply because I love to walk by all my flowers.  “No, Brookelets, we’re going in through the front door so Mama can gaze adoringly, yet again, upon the beauty she has planted around our home.  If you gaze adoringly with her, she’ll probably give you hot chocolate and pat you on the head while you drink.”

And what’s the point of having an autumn flower garden if you’re not going to use them as background for knitting pictures?

Who doesn’t look at flowering kale and envision how wonderfully it would pair with pumpkin tweed?

I’m amongst the crowd of people that possess no ability to deny themselves of pumpkins.  If it looks like pumpkin, smells like pumpkin, or tastes like pumpkin…I probably already own it.  I am powerless in the face of anything that reminds me of a pumpkin.
There’s a darling little cabled pumpkin baby hat pattern making its way around Ravelry, and I succumbed to the cuteness.  Problem is, none of the local yarn shops that I’m willing to drive to for a spontaneous yarn purchase have worsted-weight orange tweed.  (Insert sad face here.)  I picked up some Rowan Felted Tweed instead, but the DK-weight was not working with the pattern. So now I’m just knitting whatever cables I want to knit.  I’m excited about how this hat is going to turn out.  Pumpkin + cables + tweed = Perfect autumn knitting.

You know what else is perfect autumn knitting?  Aran cables, paired with rust-colored chrysanthemums:

Oh, the simple joy of undyed, Aran wool, the quintessential material of knitting season.  It’s traditional, it’s elegant, and it’s cozy.  Sometimes I wonder why I knit with anything else…until I see shelves of tweed yarn…or a skein of silk/merino laceweight.

My hollyhocks, those wonderful heralds of summer, have begun to turn brown and cast their seeds into the wind.  As they begin to fold into themselves for their long winter sleep, I couldn’t resist the urge to photograph them, drowned out by the afternoon sun, in contrast to this little token of life and joy:

A little one will join a friend’s family in the next week or so, and I was feeling like celebrating its impending arrival with handknits.  Just a simple little hat, so tiny that it covers my fist with very little room to spare.  Just a squishy little thing, only usable for a couple of weeks before it will be too small.

Sort of like my autumn flowers…you don’t get a lot of time with them, but they’re beautiful and make me smile, which makes them a good thing to include in life.

Baby hats, tweed, pumpkins, cables, cream wool, and jewel-toned pansies…autumn is so lovely.

Getting the Knitting Cogs Moving Again

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It’s been a weird spring and summer for me, in that I’ve had no desire to knit.  None.  I forced myself to finish some projects because I had all that time lying flat on my back while recovering from those lovely herniated discs, but there wasn’t a time where I was excited about knitting.  I preferred to just lay on the couch and watch Netflix movies.  I didn’t even read a lot.  I’m proud of myself for keeping it relatively together, attitude-wise, during all that yucky back stuff, but I was kind of bummed out during those months.

New socks!

But then, in August, we had a couple of cool weather days.  Very cool weather, the kind of weather that makes your toes start to feel a little frosty.  So I went in search of my alpaca socks, and reveled in the loveliness that is a pair of handknit socks snuggling around very cold toes.  That wonderful feeling, in turn, started moving the knitting cogs in my brain–at first it was a rusty creak (“It would be nice to own more than one pair of handknit socks.”), and then a disjointed series of interruptions to my regularly-scheduled thought processes (“Sweaters appear to be in style this year,” “I’ve never made myself a sweater,” “Monkeyboy has grown out of his old sweater,” “I haven’t been to the yarn store in ages,”), all the while speeding up until I’ve rediscovered my former life as an obsessive knitter who feels greatly conflicted over whether or not to take the knitting with me to the U-Pick Berry Patch.  (Yes, it’s true; and I am a little embarassed that I did have to devote a little bit of logic-making to that decision.)

But even with my brain humming along its (now) well-lubricated knitterly paths of pondering, my hands and heart were having a hard time getting with the program.  I’d sit down to knit and find myself desperately wanting to get away from my yarn after a few minutes.  Knitting wasn’t fun anymore.  Knitting didn’t make me happy.

And, finally, I figured out what it was:  Knitting reminds me, so strongly, of my neighbor who passed away this past winter.

I was forcing myself to put in some work on a vest I’m making for Monkeyboy, and as I was knitting, my eyes glanced across our front yard and into the window that I used to monitor my neighbor through during her last few months here.  My thoughts wandered to the crocheting bag I gave her for Christmas two years ago, and I surprised myself with having to choke back a sob at the thought of how she no longer has a need for a crochet bag, and wondering what had happened to it.  Then I thought of knit group, which featured little wise cracks she’d make; and then I saw one of her crocheted afghans laying along the back of one of my couches, which made me think of the bits of granny square advice she’d imparted to me over the years.  And it hurt; hurt so badly that I had to lay my knitting down in my lap and just breathe until I could think about those things without wanting to cry.

It continues to amaze me at how much I miss my neighbor.  You have all these “regular” people in your life that don’t appear special on the surface.  They’re not your grandmother, your best friend, your roommate from freshman year, or that teacher who woke you up with their words of advice.  There’s no “moment” that can be pinpointed as to their significance in your life–they were just there, silently building up memories and bonding slightly closer to you with each seemingly-insignificant interaction that you shared over the years.  It’s a love that is rarely recognized in the flesh, and mostly only realized once circumstances change to the point of no longer having it around in its normal form.  It makes me both sad and angry that I didn’t realize that I loved my neighbor like I did until she was dead.

And my neighbor is linked to the knitting part of my life, which makes the knitting part of my life hurt right now as well.

I won’t quit knitting.  (That would be so many levels of stupid.)  But I now understand why it’s been difficult, and that it wasn’t just my injury that made me disinterested in what I consider to be my most favorite hobby, over this past year.  It’s some weird expression of grief, and now that I recognize it for what it is, it does make a lot of sense to me.

However, the past couple of days have found me, for the first time this year, looking forward to knitting.  Autumn is on my mind, which raises mental images of cabled sweaters, tweedy wools, and marled mittens against a backdrop of fallen leaves.  Boots beg for warm socks as lining.  There are whisperings of Christmas knitting.  The changing of the seasons is diverting my thoughts to the good times that await throughout the next few months.

Those knitting thoughts are happy knitting thoughts, and they are peeking through the sad knitting clouds of mourning that I’ve been unconsciously carrying behind me.  So I’ve decided to take those thoughts of my neighbor and frame them in a positive light, rather than allowing my brain to close itself around the dismal interpretation of those thoughts.  I remember my neighbor’s smile when she unwrapped her crocheting bag, and I don’t allow myself to think on the question of what happened to the crochet bag.  The crochet bag made her happy, and I gave it to her.  That is a wonderful thing.  I am thankful for the crochet advice she gave me, and I’m glad that I have it to bless the lives of those I crochet for.  That’s another good thing.  And I will always look fondly upon “Bright White” skeins of Red Heart Super Saver yarn because it was her favorite color to edge her granny squares with, and there are a lot of people in this world who possess the Bright White works of her hands.  She was good.  And I got to have that in my life.  It’s just good, all around.

Autumn is approaching, and Knitting Season is beckoning me to move forward…and my heart and my hands are willing to get on board.

Life goes on.

Grief isn’t permanent.

Knitting waits for you.

Climbing Out of Winter

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The view from my kitchen counter offers a glimpse of green fields and mountains with less and less snow each day.  (You’d be able to see it out that brightly shining back door if the sun wasn’t shining so brightly!)  The temperature rises as the weeks go along, and this weekend we’re waiting to see if the weatherman had correctly predicted the 70 degree (F) weather we would so very appreciate.
 
My back is climbing out of its little funk.  All the bed rest has mandated much knitting, so as to keep my wits about me.  I churned out the Chudnovsky Pi Shawl at the beginning of my prison sentence, and then took a moment to whine on one of my favorite message boards on Ravelry when I ran out of the yarn.
 
One of the results of that little whine session, besides the outpouring of encouragement and commiseration from my fellow online knitting chums, was that a British knitter wrote to me and offered me yarn money to help ease the burden of being stuck on my back and inwardly raging over my predicament.  I trolled about online yarn shops, my gifted yarn funds burning in my pocket, and came across this brownish-gray color and, despite not really ever having noticed a single thing in that color EVER, I took a liking to its solid drabness.
 
I searched through my patterns on-hand and came across Juneberry Triangle, which had been gifted to me two Christmases ago by my dear knitting friend, Kit.  Gifted yarn, gifted pattern…I liked how it all went together so nicely.
 
Most of the knitting has been accomplished on my back, on the couch, while I watch old episodes of Frasier.  (Goodness, I loved that show while I was growing up!)  Any time I pick this up, I start remembering Frasier funnies, which is entirely awesome to me.
 
I started knitting with the fifth, and final, skein of yarn today.  I have about six more repeats of the edging to go and then this will be ready for a soak and a block.  My back has improved to allow for less couch-lounging and more standing, so my knitting has relocated to the kitchen counter.  The counter is higher than any of the tables in the house, so it makes for a good surface to rest my knitting–I don’t have to stoop down to pick it up, and I don’t have to support the weight of the project while knitting because it rests on the counter.
 
 
So I stand, knitting away while gazing out on the blue sky and the fresh green of the fields, knowing that spring is on her way.  The washed-out brown color of this yarn reminds me of tree bark at the beginning of spring–weathered and muted from months of cold and drizzly weather, while new life throbs within, waiting to burst forth in flowers and fruit.  My back is building up strength, and I’m looking forward to a fresh spring, full of possibilities and made better with the love and service from family and friends, just as this shawl is the more dear to me due to both the pattern and the yarn being gifted from knitters who care.
 
It’s funny how a little brownish-gray shawl can hold so much symbolism to its creator.  But not really, when you think of what lies within each of us, and how the gentle coaxing of a Creator’s hand can cause beauty to bloom, even in our most humbled and weathered states.

Chudnovsky Pi Shawl

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All the forced rest of the last two months has seen a lot of knitting happening.  I finished up a few random projects, and then finally allowed myself the indulgence of knitting up this little Pi-inspired shawl, which I saw being knit in a yarn shop in Calgary two summers ago.  Penguin, whose favorite color is green right now, made an immediate claim of ownership during the first hour of knitting.  She has watched, anxiously, ever since, and inquired diligently as to when “her” green shawl would be finished.  I finished this a while ago, but it took forever to get weather fine enough to allow pictures.
 

 
Pattern:  Chudnovsky Pi, by Kourtney Robinson

Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Heritage Paints in colorway #9882 (1 skein), Schulana Kid-Seta in colorway #45 (2 skeins), Knit Picks Stroll in Forest Heather (~ 0.2 skeins)

Needles:  US 10 (6.0 mm)

Modifications:  None, except some creative license with the edging, color-wise, when my original yarns ran out.

Look at that deliciously fuzzy halo!

This shawl is super soft.  Ridiculously soft, like a baby unicorn belly.  Bluebird wants a “mohair shawl” for herself now, too–so much that she gave me the last of her birthday money to purchase enough fingering-weight and mohair laceweight to make another one of these for her, but in blue.

A handful of knitters who have knit this up have complained that the yardage listed “is just plain wrong.”  Seeing how I ran out of both of my yarns, I’m going to have to agree.  I substituted in some Knit Picks Stroll in a dark green when I ran out of the Cascade sock yarn…it worked pretty well until the mohair ran out as well, leaving me with a stark strip of dark green, previously softened by the bright green of the mohair.  When I knit up Bluebird’s “blue mohair” shawl, I’m going to go down a needle size and see if that helps–the printed pattern listed a US 10 needle, whereas the Ravelry pattern page lists a US 9 needle.  I’ve contacted the designer about this discrepancy and she has responded saying that she looks forward to seeing if the needle size-down helps the problem.

I was still in the first skein of mohair when I started the ruffle.  I ran out of the second skein before the ruffle ended.  The ruffle is a yarn-inhaler!  Regardless, I loved the no-brainer aspect of the ruffle.  I’m actually looking forward to knitting the ruffle on Bluebird’s shawl.  Mindless, mindless, mindless.

It’s a good scooter shawl, don’t ya think?  Penguin loves it and wears it with pride, lovingly folding it and placing it back in her drawer with the shawl pin placed amongst its folds.  The shawl is technically mine, but I’m OK with “lending” it to her for safe keeping.  (Let’s be honest, I’ll probably never get to wear it.  Ever.)

Conclusion:  Easy knit, oh-so-soft, watch your yardage, yarn-eating ruffle.
(And please ignore the wonky formatting–I don’t know what is going on with Blogger today!)

 

Raspberry Ropes Cardigan

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Junebug finally has a handknit sweater to call her own!  She’s pretty happy about it, mostly because she picked out the best buttons ever–according to her, they are the reason that this sweater is better than all the other sweaters in the world.

Pattern:  For the most part, I made this baby up!  The cable pattern is “Overlapping Ovals,” from The Harmony Guides: Cables & Arans, edited by Erika Knight.  I also spent some quality time with various cabled yoke sweater patterns around the internet to get a feel for how they went together, notably the “Cabled Knit Pullover” found for free on the Patons Yarn website.

Yarn:  Cascade Yarns 220 Tweed in Color 7608.  (Junebug calls it the “Minnie Mouse Rainbow Yarn.”)

Needles:  US 5 for the ribbing, US 6 for everything else.

Notions:  Six 1.75″ gingerbread buttons from JoAnn.  (The buttonholes are enormous!)

Obviously, I’m proud of this sweater.  🙂

Lessons Learned: 
Knit the top yoke up to the neck and then start the neck ribbing.  As you can see in this picture, the ribbing and top yoke grew because of the pull of the horizontal cabled section.  I now understand why almost every yoked sweater I saw had a vertical cabled top yoke–cables don’t tend to stretch like plain knit stretches.  However, I still like it and she’s going to grow into more over the next year or two, so I don’t consider it a failure.  Just a design element…yeah.

Junebug will change her mind about everything if you give her the chance.  When we first started planning her sweater, it was going to be “aphid green” with “dark grass green” trim and little handknit ladybugs stitched all over it.  I drew up a little sketch, colored it in and we set off for the yarn store with our idea on paper.  When we stepped into the yarn store, she immediately changed her mind to a black and red sweater with ladybug buttons, to a brown sweater with gingerbread man buttons, to the final “Minnie Mouse yarn with rainbows in it” yarn–with white polka-dot buttons like Minnie Mouse.  I put off buying the buttons when I bought the yarn, and when we went to the JoAnn store to pick out buttons, she was immediately swayed from her polka-dot buttons to these giant gingerbread man buttons.  If I was the sort of person who required everything to match, it would bug me.  However, I think that kids should be allowed the freedom to completely design something for themselves every now and then, so I’m not bothered by all the decision-changing.  (And it was rather amusing to watch her give herself whiplash in the yarn store…)

Sweet girl, growing up so fast.

Enjoy your Minnie Mouse sweater sweater with gingerbread man buttons.