My Week In Stitches - a Finish!

*twirling, spinning happy dance*

I finished Hallie's sweater - before her birthday.  Ecstatic really does not describe how I feel.  I sure hope it fits her, lol.

This was made using the instructions for the Custom Fit Raglan.  Yarn is Caron Simply Soft, in Pagoda (the jade color) and White - I used the white striping to ensure I'd have enough of the jade for the entire sweater.  It was very close - I was nervous enough to go out last week and pick up another skein, which I ended up not needing at all.  Of course.  This is the color Hallie fell in love with when she was going through my yarn looking for a color for her friend's legwarmers.  This mama pays attention to things like that.  So, 2 skeins of jade and some of white.  The neck is unfinished because when I tried adding ribbing it got very small all of a sudden.  As it is right now, the neck will almost go over my head, so hers should fit through it just fine.  In the future I will modify the instructions using some of the v-neck technique to create a larger drop in the front.

So because I had a brand-new shiny skein of the Pagoda and so much White left over, I decided to make her a bonus piece - a beret I found on Ravelry.  See how cute it is?  It's crochet - I was hoping to work in a new stitch on the band instead of the seed stitch, but I couldn't figure out how to make it small enough to stay on her head and still do the specialty stitch (which you'll just have to wait until National Crochet Month to see).  The instructions were written for an adult head, and she's turning ten, so I did have to do some resizing.  I started by using smaller hooks than called for, then on the first round of the band I did sc-ch1-sk1-sc-sk1-sc (the instructions call for skipping every other stitch of the previous round and leaving a ch1 space, I decreased by removing every other ch1, if that makes sense).  I'll keep working on this idea because I think the band of a beret would be the perfect place to show off this stitch, and I'm determined to have projects to show the new crochet stitches for 2013.

And here they are together as an ensemble.  She's going to look so cute.  I hope she lets me get a picture of her wearing them, she's kind of weird about that right now.  Because she's almost ten.

The only other bit of work I accomplished this week was I-cord for the legwarmers.  I didn't even pull out Fairy Sisters, because I was really needing to get this sweater done.  I was going to start aprons today, but the almost-10-year-old is home sick, so it's back to my "decoy" project - since both girls requested legwarmers and even chose the colors, this is what I work on in front of them.  But with 3 weeks left until Christmas I'm starting to feel the pressure to get these done, too.