august!! already??

wow! the time really flies when you aren't paying attention. my niece will be one this month and i can hardly believe it! i had grand ideas of knitting her something but now with the big day approaching so quickly i don't think i'll make it. i think i have to make it a post birthday knit instead. the hardest part though is finding a cute pattern for a 1+ year old. the patterns i'm finding seem to be for 0-1 or for young kids and she's just not in either of those places anymore. sigh. i think i found a pattern on ravelry. it's a seed stitch, double breasted, hooded sweater and the largest size is 12-18 mon. and i have the yarn for it already (now that i finally have a proper stash). the obstacle will be getting it done before she grows out of it.
i also have had my eye on the pinwheel sweater but i definitely don't have the stash for that. in fact there is a whole saga that goes along with this sweater.

it all starts before i had Shop & Ship and before my friend went home and brought me back an exorbitant amount of yarn. i sent this pattern to my mom and begged her to send me all the supplies to make it. she went to our LYS (the Knitting Bee) in Portland, OR and they gave her everything ever needed to make this super cute sweater. my mom packaged it up (with a few other things i have been missing from home) and shipped it out. she didn't want to pay more for shipping than was actually in the box (and really who can blame her) so she sent it regular mail. it never came. we waited and wait and i called EmPost the United Arab Emirates Post Office here and they had no record of receiving a box. i have been hoping and hoping it would be returned to the sender and my mom could now ship it to my Aramex Shop & Ship box but still no dice. it's been five months. i think (opinion only) that some lady who loves to knit, at our local EmPost office, figured out what was inside (because they go through practically every package here) and kept it for her self because she (like me) knows how hard it is to get good yarn here. i think this because the US Postal service and the UAE Postal service are just way to efficient to think it could have been the system's fault (insert sarcasm here).

anyhoo i digressed a bit there but i feel much better now that i have vented.

the baby cardi and the wavy scarf are coming along nicely... hoping to be done with the cardi shortly. but let me tell you that this whole picking up stitches thing (the cardi calls for it around the neck line) is WAY more complicated than i thought. it took me 2 books, a you tube video and 3 web sites before i finally decided to just go for it. it wasn't so much the technique of picking up the stitches but rather trying to space them evenly along a curved edge. but i must say out side of one little spot where there is a bit of a hole i think the edging came out quite nicely.... way better than i expected! that's for sure. now it's on to the sleeves...