Yes, two posts in one day!

A friend’s baby shower is coming up. I’d planned to make her a baby blanket, but I’m not sure I’ll have time. And I don’t even have the yarn yet. It’s on order from Bendigo Woollen Mills. But I already had enough yarn to make a baby bib to test out my idea:

I have to admit, I’m having second thoughts. Stitching those musical notes on took a lot longer than I expected, and reminded me that I hate sewing and aren’t very good at embroidery. But I have a few alternative ideas now – something along the lines of scaling up the stripes and crocheting notes to sew on instead – to think about before the yarn arrives.

In the meantime I figured I’d better get some existing projects out of the way.

These Endpaper Mitts are amazingly soft and I love the colour combination. I love it so much I’m thinking of making a hat to match. Probably a tam, with a green brim and top, and the pattern repeated around the middle. My cat approves of the mitts:

Last night I picked up stitches around Starsky’s armholes and knit the sleeve caps:

I knit the sleeves straight onto the garment two different ways before. First I did it by picking up the number of stitches the instructions say to bind off at the top of the sleeve, then picking up stitches each side as I work back and forth. The second method I learned is the one I’m using now, and makes it easier to pick up stitches evenly. You pick up stitches around the sleeve hole – the number of stitches at the widest part of the sleeve (the underarm). Starting at the top as before, you knitting back and forth, turning after working an extra stitch (or two or three to match the decreases per row in the instructions) each row.

It’s much easier to do this if the sleeves are plain. It’s a bit harder if they’re ribbed, and grows more difficult the more complicated the stitch pattern is. If the stitch pattern can’t be reversed for knitting from the top down, forget it. You may as well knit them bottom up and sew them in.

So far Starksy looks as if it’s coming out rather small, but I’m not worried. The swatch grew a bit when it was washed. And blocking will also smooth out and widen the cabled areas, too.