I finally conquered the Five Hour Baby Sweater!

For two years on and off, I have tried to knit this bastard. I started out knitting the version with the lacey yoke. The lace was flipping me out and causing me to gain and lose stitches when I was not supposed to. So I poked around on the internets and found a version where some brilliant lady had revamped the pattern to eliminate the lace and replace with ridges. If I could find her, I would kiss her.

I know its supposed to be a baby sweater but I took a chance with some bulky weight yarn and size 13 needles and dove right in hoping it *might* fit Fern. (Gauge? I don't need no stinking gauge!) You know, it fits perfectly. I would say its a 5/6. We even picked out the cutest buttons. Now, its not perfect and if you look closely you will see flaws but hey - its my first knitting sweater. And I cannot wait to cast on for the next one.

Speaking of other projects, I am working on a baby dress from a vintage pattern book. So far, I have crocheted the bodice, but its pretty clear that I won't have enough of this hand spun and hand-dyed yarn to finish. My options are a) knit a skirt, b) use fabric to make a skirt to attach to the bodice, c) find a nice coordinating yarn to knit the skirt and some details or e) frog the whole damn mess and toss it back the stash....

Lastly, I had been promising the girls that we would do some tie-dye. I think they turned out pretty cute as I used a clearance kit from Wally-Word.