Got a great email from Jane of the Venice-Adventure who said to my “This…. Was going to be this…..” entry from yesterday, “Why is Rachael trying to knit a baby?” And then she said various charming things about me and this blog, none true, and attached this picture which made my morning. They don’t have a dog.
As to the pattern for the baby sweater, I don’t really have one. I have the beginnings of it written down as follows (from unknown source):
Bring on the SpitUp Baby Sweater
With sport-weight yarn and size 5(US) needles, cast on 22 st. Row1: P3, place marker (PM), P2, PM, P12, PM, P2, PM, P3. Row3: Knit across, increasing on both sides of marker by knitting into front and back of st before and after each marker (8 increased stitches). Row3: Purl.
Now the Rachael part: Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you think it’s big enough (that’s the hard part for non-mom me). Separate for sleeves by knitting to them, placing them on scrap yarn holders, and connecting the body portions. Knit the cardigan body until it’s long enough. Change colors and rib the bottom about four or five rows. Bind off. Go back, pick up sleeve stitches, knit down about three or four inches, change colors and rib 3 or 4 rows. Bind off, sew sleeve seams. Using the contrast yarn, pick up stitches all around sides and neck, rib four or five rows, putting in button holes at appropriate spacings, bind off. Add buttons (always my LEAST favorite part). Voila.
Sorry it’s not more scientific. I knit loosely, so I actually use size 4(US). Sometimes I use worsted weight and start at casting on about 18 stitches and modifying.
It’s my weekend! I have Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays off – I love having midweek days off ‘cause I can run around and do things while it’s less crowded. Hate crowds. Today I’m getting checked for glasses. After a scary weird episode last week where I saw jagged lines across my vision and then couldn’t focus on anything for about thirty minutes, and after reading darling Greta’s trials and tribs with her eyes, I’m not putting it off anymore. Can I just say to the salesperson, in a very little voice, I want super-cute glasses, please?
My eyes were SO bad while I was growing up that by the time I was six I was wearing bifocals. And I HATED my glasses. Despised them. At one point, when I was perhaps eight or nine, I I lost my glasses. I remember seriously not knowing where they had gone. I was standing on the stairs that led to my attic bedroom and my mother confronted me, thrusting my muddy glasses at me. “I. Found. THESE. Buried. In. The. GARDEN.”
I didn’t remember burying them. Truly and honestly. Maybe Christy buried them for me, but I don’t think so. I think I must have hated them so much that I subconsciously took ‘em out there and stuck them in the ground, hoping that either I’d never see them again, or…. or what? We’d grow a glasses-tree and all the kids would want some and I’d finally be cool? Dunno. Don’t remember.
As I grew, though, the farsightedness got better and better and finally I had almost-perfect vision. I was warned at age nineteen that someday my eyes would get bad again. That day has come. Dammit. I want really cute glasses, okay?
I’ll keep you posted.
And you SHOULD have really cute glasses. They’re out there. Em has really cute glasses. Or you could do what I did and get really cute contacts. 🙂
I’m at work and my monitor is very dark and I can not tell, even with my cute glasses, what that thing in the picture is. Is it a bunny? Pot-bellied pig? Baby wildebeast?
Confessional: when I was in junior high I faked my eye exam so that I could get glasses. Do I get some sort of UberGeek Prize? Could that prize be yarn, please?
i have had glasses since my 20s, just for reading/computer (and since i proofread for a living, work). as i get older, i wear them more and more. the farsighted thing is compounded by the effect aging has on your eyes — takes them longer to focus. fun, eh?
warning: if you want cute and not rimless, DON’T try on titanium-framed rimless (like the silhouettes or my menrads). they weigh nothing. everything else will feel like lead on your nose after that and you’ll be forced to spend $400+++ to buy these f*kers. i personally think my menrad rimless (with purple titanium arms) are cute as sh*t, but after years of murphy brown hornrims and the like, i was ready for lightweight, too.
I’m about due for some new specs, or at least a vision check. I have the lightweight titanium Squib’s talking about, but the lenses are finally a bit scratched after four years. Look into online options — my pal Suzanne used a site where you maybe send them a headshot and they send a whole box for you to try. . . Let me know if you want me to get the details!
Oh, and about that pattern, asks the raglan virgin, are you starting from the top? Whole lotta guesstimation goin on there . . .
Wow, I am so excited to have read your journal. You seem so great!
Glasses! I wore them from the age of 7 until I finally convinced my Mom to let me get contacts in high school. The proverbial straw was having to wear bi-focals that had the fuddy-duddy line and everything as a freshman in high school! I intentionally broke them during gym and soon after got the A-OK for contacts.
Now I don’t have to wear anything since I had LASIK last year but I find myself yearning for a cute pair of glasses to make me look studious and cute. I just can’t explain it. 🙂
knitting a BABY
and needing uber-cute
glasses?
Uh-hunh.
Go Titanium, babe…
all the avengers gotta
have ’em,
it’s like a uni or
something 😉
VILLA? An Italian summer home
for my BRAIN? OH YEAH, you are
free to submit those adoption papers
any old time!!
Glasses rock! Don’t you know that? And there are so many cute frames out there — you’ll find something perfect for you. I think Em does deserve an unspecified UberGeek Prize for faking her eye exam, but can I be runner up? I have perfect vision, and I have fake glasses! I just like how they look! 🙂 Happy weekend!
Thanks for posting about the baby sweater — I’m quite the novice so I hope I can make something work that looks like a baby sweater! :^)
As always your blog is so fun to read!