I finished the sweater!!

(Click on photos to enlarge)

What do you think? I'm pretty happy with it! The seaming was a bit of a challenge--I wasn't sure how to do it at first, but I found a few tips online and also got some help from a really nice fellow knitter on Ravelry who has made this sweater twice! Once I started seaming, it went pretty quickly and I was able to sew all the pieces together in two evenings. Tonight I spent a few hours just weaving in all the loose ends and attaching the buttons.

I made the 6-9 month size sweater since the baby will be born in June and shouldn't need a sweater too often during the summer months (although you never know with this crazy weather!). I really hope it fits him at some point--I'm proud of my first sweater!

Knitting Humor

Trying to teach myself how to sew the sleeves onto my sweater...I've done a little googling looking for some tutorials, and came across this funny entry on the Yarn Harlot's blog: check it out here.

Updated pics of Monkey

The monkey is complete! I finished his face tonight and wove in all the ends.

Baby blue sweater update

Front of sweater (stitches will be picked up later to make the collar and button holes)Front and Back of sweater plus 1 sleeve!

Knitting for Baby

My first baby sweater is coming along! I worked on it while Becky was in town--we watched TV and chatted while working on our projects. Below is a picture of the back of the sweater which is complete now. The front will be knit in the same way, except I will create a collar and button holes.

Becky and I went to a knit shop called Nina in the city yesterday. They have such a great selection of yarn--Blue Sky Alpaca, Spud and Chloe, Twinkle...all these yarns I've always heard about but are not carried at my local yarn shops. I love browsing there!

Mom gave me these three books by Kristin Nicholas. We first found out about her books from Susan B. Anderson's blog. They are really beautiful books--the colors and patterns are so vibrant!

The best part about these books is that Mom asked Kristin to sign them for me! It's so neat to have books signed by the author!
After I finish my baby blue sweater, I want to make the cardigan pictured below.

I bought the yarn for the cardigan at the yarn shop yesterday. I really love the colors I chose--I think they will look so cute on a little boy!I taught Becky how to make a hat while she was in town. She also made the Marian cowl. She had never knit on circular or double pointed needles before--she learns so quickly! Her hat came out great--can't wait to see what she makes next! She's promised to start a blog too!

Monkey-ing around

What do you think? He still needs a face, but I need to figure out how I'm going to do that. I might do small buttons for the eyes, and then stitch nose holes and a smile on the lighter brown front of the face. I might also try to make the face a little smaller--we'll see. I think he is adorable, though! He's very soft and huggable. I love the hands with their little thumbs.

Itty Bitty Toys

Having time off from work is not as fun when you're actually sick and can't do anything! My week has consisted of Gatorade, popsicles, episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC, and knitting. I've been working on some Itty Bitty Toys. They're both still works in progress. The one on the left is going to be a monkey and the one on the right is a lamb. Poor lamb, the yarn I used was a heavier weight than the pattern called for, so he is looking quite plump!

For our sweet pea

This is the first hat I've made with our baby specifically in mind...what do you think? I have been wanting to try Susan B. Anderson's sweet pea pattern, but wasn't sure which colors I should use...I thought about making it entirely green, but I wanted the pea pod to really stand out. Susan B. Anderson's pattern is pictured with a blue hat and green pea pod with blue peas--

I wasn't wild about the blue peas. Jim suggested brown for the contrasting color since it was more earthy, like a pea pod growing in nature!

I'm so lucky to have a husband that not only likes my crafts, but takes interest in them and gives me good suggestions throughout the whole process!