Nothing's perfect

Ahhhh, the weekend. A wonderful time. No work. Home all day with my husband and daughter. Few commitments. The opportunity to sleep in and nap, and time to catch up on things to do (particularly the mountain of laundry that awaits those who are cheap and tree-huggy and use cloth diapers which they wash themselves). Ideal, yes? Unfortunately, no. The tradeoff to all this wonderful weekendness is the complete lack of any postal service. So for those of us who are waiting for knitting-related packages in the mail, the rack gets screwed extra-triple tightly on Saturday and Sunday as all trips to the mailbox are rendered completely futile. (The rack is particularly painful if you were seriously expecting the package to arrive on the Friday.)

If the yarn has arrived today, my husband will not get the mail before picking me up. If the yarn has not arrived, he will. I know this to be true.

Itchy-and-Scratchy mittens for baby MacDonald

Done! I finished them on Friday. Don't they look great?

Self-designed sweater for baby MacDonald

Much "test" knitting was done over the weekend. I think I now have the pattern down the way I want it. But rather than confirming this with another piece of test knitting, I have foolishly forged ahead on the actual sweater. Twice. I changed my mind about the colour - it's now red. I was originally doing it in mint green, but then I realised that the mittens for the same baby were also mint green, so I switched. The baby will be half-Chinese, so it's a good bet that it will have the colouring to wear red. Plus I have the impression that red is a big good-luck colour in Chinese culture, so I think it will be appreciated all round. The only potential snag is that I'm using the red leftover from the United Way argyle cardigan I recently finished. I can tell you right now that there is no way I have enough left to do the entire sweater - I know I will have to go out and get more. This makes me very nervous, since when I bought the yarn originally, it was the last ball in the whole store. The likelihood of not being able to find any more of this yarn is high. I admit that I'm being very brazen in my tempting of Murphy. We shall see. At any rate, I'm now on the bottom ribbing, working in the round.

Carnival Coat for DD

This cardigan is one big freakin' comedy of errors, I tell you. First I should mention that I completed the skirt and successfully attached it to the yoke. I then wove in all the ends. But the thing is in no way almost finished. There's a problem that I've been ignoring for some time which I now need to face. The pattern for this cardigan comes in four sizes. My MIL, when she gave me the pattern and the yarn, asked me to do the second-smallest size. Now, in the "materials" section, the pattern specifies that the two smallest sizes require two buttons and the two largest sizes require three buttons. Straightforward? Of course! It's no surprise, therefore, that my MIL bought two buttons, which are bee-yew-tiful and work gorgeously with the yarn. Well, guess what. When you actually get into the instructions of the pattern, it states quite clearly that the second-smallest size actually requires three buttons. Which I don't have. Moreover, the instructions do not tell you where to make the third buttonhole, and I wasn't paying attention when I got to that row and didn't make one. This would on the surface appear to be fortuitous - I have two buttons, I have two buttonholes. What's the problem? The problem is that the cardigan really, really needs a third button, as you will see from this photo:

The orange thing on the buttonhole band is a row marker where the third buttonhole should be. (The first buttonhole is hidden by the little foldover of the buttonhole band at the top.) So...I am now going to have to ask my MIL what the odds are of her buying a third button to match the other two, and I'm going to have to do some cutting-and-grafting wizardry to create buttonhole #3. And hey, did I mention that the sleeves are way too long and I need to do more cutting-and-grafting wizardry to scale them back at least an inch? I think I'm just going to take a deep breath and walk away from this project for the moment. It's too big for DD to wear now, anyway, so there's no rush. Bleagh.

Poncho for moi

Progressed on this over the weekend - about 25 rows. But it doesn't look all that different from the last time I worked on it, so no photo. Plus, I'm wondering if I shouldn't use a different pattern. Basically, this 'poncho' pattern has you make a really big triangle and then sew the shoulders together. Enh. I'm not that thrilled about the shape this will create. I'm thinking of taking a close look at the A Very Harlot Poncho to see whether it would work with this yarn. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I continue to salivate at the colours as they flow through my fingers.

Spanish Knight sweater for Mom

Took this to work with me today, and I'm now halfway through the first pattern repeat.