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Well, how about that? It’s a finished sweater!
Please pardon my little grouch. She didn’t want to wear it this particular day, and wasn’t afraid to let me know it.
This pattern is called a “Trendy Smock Coat with Cabled Yoke”, and I’m pretty sure it’s a Sirdar pattern., because it called for “Snuggly Aran”, which is a Sirdar yarn. I don’t know for sure who published the pattern, because it was a photocopy that a yarn store sent me. I know. It’s a long story, but I inquired about the pattern when I saw it knitted up by someone on Ravelry, and was told a yarn store gave the pattern out. Well, I emailed the yarn store and they mailed me the pattern, which turned out to be a photocopy of a published pattern. Yikes! I looked all over the internet trying to find the actual leaflet or book that the pattern was published in so I could do the right thing, but to no avail, so I just knitted it. It’s a black mark against my moral record.
Although I didn’t like a few things about this pattern, like the way the bands are knitted separately and then sewn on (the only way to do it neatly ended up being backstitch, which I hate), it ended up being one of my favorites. It doesn’t go too well with pink sweats, but we take the photo opportunities where we get them, right? I love the cabled yoke and the way the cables (and some k2togs) created little pleats along the “skirt” part of the sweater. I used Cotton Ease, which I always like for kids’ knits. And I salvaged the buttons from an old sweater of mine that was destined for the Goodwill pile (yes, another black mark–I sent the sweater on to Goodwill without buttons!). All in all, a happy sweater, and in the 3-4 year size, one that will fit this little kiddo for a few years. It’s huge!
…commenter #5, Paula!
Congratulations, Paula–you will receive my copy of Knit Two, Kate Jacobs’ second novel in the Friday Night Knitting Club series, which will be released in early November. Plus, I’ll throw in something yarny. Maybe of the sock variety. Send me your address, please!
So we have something interesting to look at in this post, here are some pics of a giant lemon that my favorite neighbor gave me a month or so ago.
It’s a Ponderosa lemon, which her friend brought back from Florida.
It was bigger than a grapefruit, seriously, and the kids loved it. After we played with it, we made it into lemonade. It was delicious!
I received a fun surprise the other day.
Knit Two, the third novel by Kate Jacobs and sequel to The Friday Knight Knitting Club, arrived on my doorstep via FedEx on Monday. Way back when TFNKC was about to come out, the publisher sent me (and lots of other knitting bloggers) an email and asked me if I would like a free copy of the book to read. I did, and I enjoyed it. I just re-read my old review, on Knits & Grits, and I had said it took me a while to get interested in the characters and that it wrapped up a little too quickly and neatly at the end. That’s how I still remember it, but I did enjoy it and passed it on to a friend to read when I was finished.
Since then, Penguin has sent me several more books to read, none of which had anything to do with knitting. One was Lottery, by Patricia Wood, which was a great read and very moving and real. I just fell in love with the characters, however flawed they were, because they were real. Another book Penguin sent was The Kept Man, by Jami Attenberg, which I haven’t read yet. And one was Comfort Food, also by Kate Jacobs, which I did read and thought was atrocious. Isn’t that horrible? But it was so…cliched. I kept being irritated by the name dropping and brand dropping and the sense that the author was trying too hard to make it feel like it was legitimate. So when Penguin emailed me about Knit Two, I remembered both TFNKC and Comfort Food and figured it could go either way.
Well, I’m happy to say that this was a really enjoyable story. The book opens 5 years after the events that occurred at the end of the first book (trying not to give any spoilers, here). The characters have grown up some and are still connected, still together and living their lives. Things have changed, but Jacobs does a seamless job of catching the reader up. In fact, I don’t really think you’d have to read TFNKC in order to feel like you have a good grip on this one, which is nice. There are some surprises, which I always like in a book, but no huge twists or anything. Mostly it’s just a very pleasant read. I again object to the way she wraps up the end of the book in a happily-ever-after sort of way, and rather suddenly at that, but I guess that’s better than an unhappy ending! (I never will get over the way Anita Shreve’s Sea Glass ended. I could hardly handle it.) So, in short–this is a good book and I liked it a lot.
Would anyone be interested in having my copy of the book? I’d be glad to pass it on to another reader, now that I’ve finished it. If you would, please leave a comment indicating your interest, by 12 noon on Friday. If there are more than one interested party, then I’ll have a drawing and include a little something extra. It’s my turn to pay it forward.
(Pictured with the book is AJ’s new sweater, a swing jacket with a cabled yoke that I have been dying to get started on.)
A few weeks ago, we found ourselves with an open afternoon and a need for something creative to do. I needed to make some rolls, and it occurred to me that I had once read about someone making little bears out of bread dough. I knew D & A would love it, so we got to work. I made my favorite dinner roll recipe, which is something like this, gave them different sized balls of dough, and some raisins. And this is what we came up with.
DJ’s was very symmetrical and his features were precise.
AJ’s was kind of like a Picasso.
And then we sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar and baked them.
In the end, the raisins didn’t stick, but the bears were delicious, the kids had fun, and they were very proud of what they had made!
AJ’s Little Jammies, one year later. I think she’s all legs (and hair) these days!
I wonder if I’m the only one who does this with my kids’ pictures? I just love to look at them side by side, to see how much they have changed and grown.
