What's wrong with this picture?

Well, there's the fact that this sweater was finished in March and it's now back on the needles. Or the fact that the designers of this Rebecca pattern stopped designing when they got to the neck, leaving me to do their work for them. Either way, I'm annoyed. It's started getting cold here and I wanna wear my orange stripey sweater! So far I've tried five times to put a new neck in here and have been foiled by dumb mistakes (forgotten bind offs, wrong needle, etc.). But this time I may have finally gotten lucky. Or smart. Whichever it is, it doesn't matter. All I care about is that I may be on my way to an honest-to-goodness gen-u-ine finished sweater.

Woot!

All the orange of wee one's buttercup baby sweater got me thinking of my own orange Rebecca sweater that I began on last summer's trip to Germany where I picked up the Rebecca magazine and the yarn. Some yarn reorganizing caused me to stuff the unfinished sweater into a bag and the bag into a corner shelf and there it waited until last week. When I pulled it out again, I was amazed to see that it was almost done. The neck had been finished and it lacked only the orange sleeve cuffs and the final seaming and finishing.

It's all done now. But I'm not finished with it. I'm sorry to say that it doesn't fit very well. It doesn't have any waist shaping, something that I know I prefer in my sweaters but had thought I could live without for once. And the neck is not flattering on me. I can't stand a boatneck. Again, I was hoping that in this instance, it would just work. It looks good enough in the pattern picture, but that girl's got a lot more up top than I do, if you know what I mean. Nope, if I'm gonna wear the thing, it needs waist shaping and a proper neck line. I'm toying with the idea of steeking it to get the right fit. I'm sure as heck not reknitting it all.

The sleeves though, I adore them. They are singularly ridiculous but I love 'em!

After dropping off the boys at school, wee one and I got out our toys. Not that I can really get much knitting done while she's awake, but as she played with her dollhouse, I was able to get my Rebecca sweater out, see where I had left off, and refamiliarize myself with the pattern. The knitting is slow with so many stitches on the needle and, frankly, with my hands being so out of practice after so many weeks of sewing instead of knitting. But it's looking great and, best of all, it was fun.

Finally, my Lana Grossa yarn has arrived from Germany so I can finish knitting my Rebecca sweater! Oma tossed in some candy and magazines for the boys (along with some socks we apparently forgot there), which, sadly, are all getting a lot more love than the yarn right now. It took almost a month for the box to arrive, which means that I'm now in Halloween costume sewing crunch and can't spare a minute to knit. I've got batman boots to sew, shark fins to attach and lots of other fiddly bits all to finish up before Friday.

So knitting will resume. Next week. (Stay tuned this week for Halloween updates every day! The kids are loving it!)

I've gone just about as far as I can on my bell-sleeved Rebecca sweater. All the pieces are finished up to the yoke, I've joined everything together and have started the raglan decreases. And the orange yarn is just about gone! More is already on its way from my mother-in-law in Germany, but I have no idea exactly when it will arrive. Go, go, yarn!! Luckily, I've still got a few nights' work seaming up the sides and sleeves and taking care of the tangled mass of ends hiding under all those pieces. Luckily?

My Rebecca sweater is coming to an end, but my yarn is coming to an end even faster! One ball of each color (plus a smidge more) to knit the back up to the yoke. One ball of each color (plus a smidge more) to knit each sleeve up to the yoke. One ball of each color half gone in the front so far. And only one ball of each color left to knit the yoke, cuffs and collar. I'm no good at math, but all those plus a smidge's are adding up I'm sure. I'm getting nervous. So I've sent off an email to my mother-in-law to stop by the tiny store in Germany where I bought the yarn and pick up some more.

Hilfe. Brauche Wolle. Schnell.

It's Hansel Halloween parts!

The tooth and the bat mask belong to the boys. They've asked me every day since Saturday if I've finished anything for their costumes yet. I finally forced myself to sit down yesterday and cut out the pattern pieces so I could actually show them something. Oh, the motivating power of children's unrestrained enthusiasm! When they heard that I'd cut out stuff, S wanted to see his funny shark tooth piece and B pulled on his bat mask pattern with glee. Hooray!

The wings, however, are mine.

I am still giggling over my Rebecca sweater's Liberty-Bell-sized bell sleeves. Ding dong, these babies are gonna be awesome! It's all so orange and over the top that I think I'm gonna have to wear this sweater out with the kids on Halloween night.

And the supplies for wee one's (no-sew, no-knit) costume should be winging themselves to me as we speak! More on that next week....

first sleeve of my Rebecca #37 sweater

Wide at the base (the small ribbed cuff will be knit down from the provisional cast on), lovely rows of decreases at the forearm, and a beautiful, straight sleeve just taking shape above. Ooooh, I'm just giddy about how fun and pretty it's turned out. With all those stripes and the funny proportions though, don't you think it kinda looks like something from Dr. Seuss? It's the poofy-est, floofy-est, goofy-est, kooky-est, spooky-est, rooty-toot-toot-iest sleeve in the world!

Less than a week of school and I've already got one boy home sick with a stomach bug. He woke up twice in the night to throw up, poor little guy, so he's gonna spend the day relaxing and watching Nick Jr. (because the pre-school shows are "kinda funny" he says). To make matters worse, boy #2 woke up crying this morning because the tooth fairy forgot to come. I'm ashamed to say that this is not her first time forgetting. Or her second. It's unbelievable what a terrible tooth fairy we've got here. She totally sucks and so needs to be fired. I'm thinking that if she forgets again, we're going to tell the boys that they can just give their teeth to us and we'll give them two bucks. (wink.) But for now, we've hung a big sign on the boys' door to help the tooth fairy find her way to us.

The tooth fairy may have been distracted by my poofy-sleeved Rebecca sweater. Check this out:

This is is the front piece, knit up to the beginning of the armhole/yoke. Now look at how wide the sleeve is in comparison! Yikers.

Between having the boy at home today and me trying to flag down the tooth fairy, there won't be much free time for me to knit any more on the crazy sleeve, but there may still be some crafting. When he's feeling up to it, we'll spend some time working on his homework for this week: a collage about himself. Can you believe it, I found all these pictures in the blog archives!

recipe for a sick day: collaging and watching Nick Jr.

The boys are back to school!

hmmm... let me guess what you did this summer

What I wanted to tell you about, before the kiddos interrupted me for days, was, well, who the hell knows what it was anymore. Here, at least, is what I remember from the last few days.

Over the weekend, we celebrated the official end of summer by visiting our favorite local corn maze.

The theme this year was the Olympics and we couldn't resist taking this picture of all the kids on the medal stand. They weren't quite in birth order. S (the second born) snatched gold away from B by finishing his hot dog first.

This was not an easy picture to take as wee one didn't really understand the concept and B (the first born) wasn't quite satisfied with his position. Take a look at the first try. The maze was fun though. It was a beautiful day. And I even did a little bit of knitting in the car on the way.

What am I knitting right now? Well, in Germany, I finished up the pink baby sweater set that I started shortly before we left.

my version of the peace baby set - more info here

And then I started a sweater for me from the latest Rebecca magazine.

Ooooh, I just loved those stripes and those large poofy sleeves. I was also really drawn to the orange color. The yellow is kinda blech, so when I went yarn shopping, I picked me out a pretty little pink to pair with the orange. The local yarn store by my in-laws has a nice selection of Lana Grossa yarns and I remembered enjoying the Cool Wool 2000 when I got some at New Year's for an itty bitty bunny ears hat, so I decided to go with that again. As you can see from my progress, I have had almost as much knitting time recently as I have had blogging time!

And the busy days and tired nights aren't over just yet. We've got company! My brother-in-law came to visit. We just saw him in Germany and now he's over here visiting friends and us. Wee one is very confused.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm moving and reorganizing the entire yarn stash again?

I've finally kicked myself out of wee one's room. My desk is gone (I now have half a cabinet in the kitchen for my desk stuff - city living with three kids is tough!) and the yarn is next. Then wee one will have her own little room all to herself with plenty of space for her toy stroller and doll house and all the other pink stuff still to come. Now I merely have to find a way to squeeze my yarn stash into the built-in sideboard in the dining room. The boys' games used to be in there, but they've been evicted (the games, not the boys). Essentially, I've spent the last month or so (before we left and after returning), moving everything from downstairs upstairs and everything from the left side of the house to the right side of the house. But soon, very soon, it will all be done.

And then we can talk some more.