sprung (annotated)

Out of my late winter knitting doldrums, some progress broke out:

The stripes line up in real life, this was a sloppy arrangement.
the Heartbreakingly Cute Kimono * NOW WITH MATCHING EDGES**.
The designer Cristina *** commented that the heart is not symmetrical and I should work that uneven overlap . The door creaaaked open in my brain.
Unfortunately I'd already ripped when I saw the light. Her statement reinforced a couple of thoughts: 1) Cristina is a crafting genius, 2) how limiting it is to see only the oh no! there's only one way and I have not followed it. In a blink I thought of how cute it would have been to embroider X's and O's along that longer bottom layer.

While procrastinating on the fix I knit this,

Love to accessorize them babies. No particular pattern.

Off this goes to 6 week old Beck who lives in a cabin in Maine , he'll have plenty of wool wearing season left in his first year.
pattern: from Mason Dixon Knitting
yarn: Cascade 220 superwash, 2 skeins needed for striping, tons leftover
needles: aaack! I've already forgotten. maybe US7's?
thoughts: Lovely little project, and an excuse to go diving in my button tin. I just love my button tin. I used the eyelet edge as button holes. The inner edge is tied with a small length of crocheted yarn sewn in.

The altitude/attitude troubled alpaca beret**** is flying right now, too.

Originally intended as a gift to someone in NYC, somehow a cozy warm alpaca beret in April seems more penalty than pleasure. So this might be part of my permanent collection. Come see me at a Shear Spirit event and you'll probably notice it flourished it around as part of our trunk show. (and when I say trunk what I really mean is.. modest size tote)

pattern: fr Shear Spirit, the Taos Beret*****. Sorry only a glimpse here but in 2 weeks I spills all. It has some really cute detailing on the brim. Really!
yarn: machine spun natural alpaca from Victory Ranch
needles: size 6
notes: Another button tin expedition. These are some handpainted ceramic beauties made by(I think) a local artist. ****** I love this pattern and getting to stick a button on is the proverbial cherry on top.

Lastly , moment of silence for poor Juliet.
It wasn't the surgery that got her. I spent a ridiculously long time cutting and 3 needle bind off-ing, and unraveling and then reinforcing the join so it hung just right. I washed and reskeined the cut out yardage and just as I was going to knit that last 3 inches of the bottom lace, I decided to have a good try-on . In a moment of honesty I saw this garment was all wrong on me. Never, never let me knit something with garter stitched cap sleeves again. To say unflattering is too kind. Since I already own a uniquely unflattering Klaralund that is my only-around -the-house-and-for-errands, yarn-that-I love -paired-with-poor-pattern -choice-for-me sweater, I didn't need this one. I now have aprox 600 yards of Araucania Chunky with no purpose, I need a vest or tank top project. Ideally one knit side to side, I decided the variation in this yarn makes for some broadening horizontal effect. Let me know if you have any suggestions,what I really want is to make it into an Imogen but I lack the yardage.

and now for the annotation, everything needed more explanation today than parantheses could bear:

* That's the Ravelry link to almost one thousand of these little bits of sweetness.

** I still need to steam down the new bottom edge, sorry about the flippiness.

*** I linked to an arbitrary page, just surf around hre site and you'll find something inspiring

**** The beret is discussed waaay at the bottom of this post

***** It is unblocked in this photo.

****** turns out they are buttons from South Africa, info here, but I bought them locally. Oh well. It is shown balanced on the unblocked hat with display thread, I'll use a less bright white to sew it on.