Doug and I spent last week in Tucson. My 85-year-old step-father, Stuart, was celebrating a second bar mitzvah, 72 years after the first one. It was moving and fun and gave me a chance to see my folks and step-siblings and their families. We also got to visit old haunts (Doug and I lived in Tucson in the late 1980s) and to see many old friends. Doug taught a guest lecture at the U of A. We communed with the desert scenery, and soaked up some sunshine. We ate some really great Mexican food. I knitted for a total of about 15 minutes in 10 days. Sigh. But I did manage to take a few photos of my latest cardigan.
Despite having a few issues, mainly me worrying about the fit and making a lot of stupid mistakes with the edging, the cardigan turned out perfectly.
The pattern is Sparkling by Sus Gepard. I have blogged about it quite a bit (you can see the posts, in reverse order, here). I knitted it exactly to instructions. The only modifications being that I picked up considerably more stitches around the front edging than the pattern asked for.
I bought the yarn and pattern last January in Copenhagen and then waited some time before casting on. The stitch pattern is intuitive and quick and the cardigan itself knits up easily. I fretted quite a bit about the slope of the armhole decreases, but they turned out just right. I’m not sure why that is; perhaps its been a while since I knit a sweater in pieces?
Here are a few photos from our visit. The Mission at San Xavier del Bac:
Sunset through the windshield, with the mountains in the background:
Bisbee Royale:
Good times, great food; Doug, Marylou, Kelly, and Stuart at Elvira’s in Tubac. This is seriously good Mexican food. Go there if you have the chance.
We went from Tucson to Vancouver, where it is considerably colder. I have switched from tee shirts to down coat, hat, cowl, and gloves. I’ll post again when we are back home.
In England we have four seasons; sometimes all in the same day. Today we have had a bit of everything – sun, clouds, wind, rain, even hail. It was a perfect day to nestle into the cozy warmth of my new cowl.
This is the Highland Rogue cowl, designed by Kate Davies, and knitted with Kate’s 100% wool sportweight yarn, Buachaille. I love this yarn (I used it to knit three pairs of mitts, which you can see here, here, and here). It is a lovely, plump yarn that takes beautifully to both colourwork and texture, and it feels great on the hand.
I have written a few posts about this cowl; it has been on my needles since September. The pattern is not an easy one to “read” on the needles; I had to pay attention to the pattern on every row. This is odd given that it is only a 6-row repeat. Nonetheless, I repeated the pattern in my head over and over again while knitting this. (Perhaps this has more to say about my attention span than the pattern?) While this meant it was not mindless knitting, you can see that the resulting texture is simply gorgeous:
I have used this lovely orange shade called Highland Coo. It is a cool orange, with no yellow tones, and a strong, rich hue that looks good in sun and shade.
I especially like the way it looks against the blues and bold patterns of my Sofi cardigan (which is blogged here). These photos were taken today in Henley-on-Thames, which was a riot of blues, purples, and greens, all of which set off this pop of orange. I work and shop in Henley, so I am here nearly every day, and I am still amazed at what a lovely town it is.
I highly recommend this pattern. If you can manage it, try to knit it with the Buachaille – you won’t regret it!
I finished knitting this a few weeks ago, but couldn’t get it photographed until today. I am glad I waited, as it has been picture perfect (despite the hail). The bluebells are out in England at the moment, as is the wisteria, and everything is bursting with colour.
It’s a long weekend here, and I’ve got something new on the needles. Good knitting, everyone!
I am so happy to have some photos of my newest hand-knit, a very chic, boxy jacket with a pattern that pops.
The pattern is designed by Hanne Falkenberg, and is called the Sofi Combi. “Combi” refers to the fact that it is knitted with two different yarns. The dark blue is a tweedy wool and the soft green is a linen blend. The two are combined in a slip stitch pattern that has an art deco feel to it. The details of the pattern are fantastic. Notice the lovely details at the shoulder, and the way the zig zags undulate at the back of the garment:
And check out the lovely faux seam at the sides:
You may also notice the (seemingly) miles of seed stitch knitted with tiny needles for the sleeves. Those sleeves were an undertaking, especially since I knitted 2.5 of them (the first sleeve was a bit baggy, so I ripped it and then did some maths and some re-designing of the sleeve cap and tweaked the decreases to get a slimmer, smoother fit.)
I have blogged about this jacket extensively over the (dare I say it?) almost TWO YEARS that I have been working on it. (Of course, in that time, I have knitted many other projects.) Now that I am actually wearing this, however, I am kicking myself for not having finished it straight away. You can see some of my previous posts on this garment under the tag Hanne Falkenberg here.
The finishing details on this garment are amazing and I have learned so much from making it. The edgings on the fronts are picked up and knit in reverse stockinette stitch, which allows the edge to roll to the back. The left photo below shows the pick up edge from the inside of the front. Along the pick up edge, you can see the edging is rolling over towards the back. The edging is then pulled over the picked up edge and sewn down, to make a beautiful, neat edge, shown on the right.
The neck is finished the same way. I am so thrilled with the finishing details on this jacket. I feel that they give a very professional look to the garment.
I have knitted two of Hanne Falkenberg’s designs previously (see my post A Tale of Two Falkenbergs for details). You can only buy her patterns in a kit, with the yarn that she provides, but I have found them to be well worth the purchase. The yarns are beautiful and Hanne’s colour sense is lovely; she often puts together colours that are surprising, but they always work. They are intellectually challenging knits (in a good way) and I have learned something from each of them.
The weather has cooperated; we are having an unprecedented warm, sunny Easter weekend in England. After posing for the above photos, I ended up knitting in the garden, and Doug thought it deserved another photo:
I am not always good with pairing patterns with patterns and so I am surprised by how much I like this jacket with this top:
When I read a blog post about a sweater, I always want to see the reverse side. So, for those knitters like me, here you can see that it is a truly lovely jacket inside and out:
Now, I am headed back to my garden to take advantage of a sunny weekend (and hoepfully to finish another project). Have a lovely weekend!
I finished my first knitted garment of the year; the Tensho Pullover (Artist), designed by Beatrice Perron Dahlen:
I knit this for my daughter, Leah, but as she is back in Vancouver now, I have modelled the pullover myself in these photos. Tomorrow it goes in the post!
The pattern has a good range of sizes covered, from 32.5″ to 51.5″. I made it in the size 44.5″. I am wearing it with about 3″ of ease; Leah is one size bigger than I am, so it will have a tad less ease on her.
I knit this EXACTLY as written. This is very rare. I didn’t need to swatch because I had used the yarn previously and knew my gauge. I was able to cast on immediately and I didn’t need to change a thing. I commented on a previous post about how much I love the way that this pattern is written. It gives me exactly the information I need and doesn’t pfaff around with the information I don’t need. Of course, we will all differ on what we need/wish in a pattern, but I know that I would pick up another pattern by Beatric Perron Dahlen without a moment’s thought. I like the way she writes and thinks.
When Leah came home for the holidays, I sat her down and showed her a bunch of knitting designs which I thought she would like. Her answer to each was the same: “Hmm, that’s nice.” Imagine this said with no inflection, while trying to hide a yawn. Finally, I showed her a photo of Tensho, which I had planned to make for myself, and she said “Wow!”. And, boom, it went from the knit-for-me queue to the knit-for-Leah queue. I ordered the yarn that day and cast on as soon as it arrived.
I am wearing it here with the Cascade cap which I knit for Doug, but frequently steal borrow (blogged here). Tensho is knit bottom up. The sleeves and the body just flew off my needles, but then I got bogged down with work, Leah flew back home, and I had a gluten-accident (25 years gluten-free and then I made a BIG mistake) – this means I slowed down quite a bit. Even so, it took me 6 weeks from start to finish, which is a pretty good pace for me.
I used Gilliat, a worsted weight wool yarn by De Rerum Natura. I purchased it from Wild and Wooly in Hackney, London. I used this yarn last year to knit another sweater for Leah, SnowFlower, which I blogged about here. I love this yarn. It is incredibly durable, it takes to colourwork really well, and best of all – it is economical. I don’t know about the rest of you, but it is important to me to watch my pennies. When I go to a yarn event (not too often these days), it is hard not to come to the conclusion that knitters have no limits on their disposable incomes. I have been spending less on knitting year on year for the past 5 years, and still manage to knit nice things with nice yarn.
Gilliat comes in 100g balls, with 250 metres per ball. I bought 5 skeins of the grey (Fusian) and 1 of the white (Sel). I used 45 grams of the white, and I only needed to break the 5th ball of grey for the last few rows of ribbing around the neck. If I left off a quarter inch from the length of the sweater I could have made this with just 4 balls of the main colour. This means that the entire pullover comes in at £55. (As a comparison, if I knit it with Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, I would have needed 8 skeins of the main and 1 skein of the contrasting colour – and that would be pushing my luck a bit with the CC – which would have come to £112.50. Note that BT is an American yarn and the Gilliat is a European yarn and I live in the UK; it could be that BT is cheaper in the US and Gilliat more expensive. Nevertheless, my point remains – this yarn is economical.)
Since I know that knitters like this kind of thing, here is a photo of the reverse side:
I am not a natural in front of the camera. One of the problems with acting as my own model is trying to relax and not look stiff in the photos. Emma’s approach is to make me laugh:
Tomorrow this goes in the post. Hopefully, Leah will enjoy wearing it. Apparently it is already warming up in Vancouver. Am I evil to hope they still have a few cold weeks left in the season so that the pullover gets some use?
I finished the Sayer tank just in time for my holiday in Crete, and it is a perfect piece for this glorious place.
Sayer is designed by Julie Hoover. She is a designer I have admired for some time and I am happy to have finally knit one of her pieces. She has a very simple, spare style, with easy shapes and loose, but well-tailored, fits.
I knit this using Ito Kinu, which I purchased at Loop in London. Here is its description from Loop’s website: “KINU is a 100% silk noil yarn, also called organic silk, as it is produced from the leftovers of spun filament silk. Differently colored fibers are blended for this silk noil yarn, to produce a melange effect.” I used the shade Hydrangea, and it was knit with the yarn held double. It makes an excellent fabric, which is cool in the hot sun.
I followed the pattern exactly. It is all stockinette knitting and would be an easy piece for a beginner to knit. I knit most of it while I was in Malaysia; it is a good project for travel knitting. I thought about changing the edging because it didn’t feel or look right while I was knitting it, but once done I thought it was brilliant.
The two photos above were taken at our B&B in Milatos (see below for details); the first is from our balcony looking out to the sea.
Here you can see the edging at the V-neck:
This tank is designed to be reversible; you can wear it with the V-neck in front and the crew neck in the back (as in most of these photos) or you can wear it the other way, with the crew neck in the front and the V-neck in the back (as seen in the three photos below).
These photos were taken in the evening at the harbour in Rethymno. There is not much light but I think they show off the tank really well nonetheless. The sun is so strong here that only photos taken in the early morning and early evening work well.
You can probably tell from these photos that I was having a really great time in Rethymno. We are on holiday with our dear friends, Theo and Jonathan, and these evening photos were taken by Jonathan. We were clearly having fun.
Behind me is the harbour. Just in front of me there is a lighthouse. The harbour was filled with tourists taking photos of people with the lighthouse behind them; it is obviously a popular photo spot. We bucked the trend and shot in the other direction! All of the tourists were probably wondering why we were ignoring the obvious photo opp right in front of us. (We aim to be different.)
Crete is full of flowers right now, many of which match my tank. Doug took this photo in front of a doorway in Rethymno (and also provided the terrible pun in the title of this post):
If you are interested in a very wearable, A-line tank, I would highly recommend this one. It is well-designed, the pattern is well-written, and it is trouble-free knitting. You can wear it for breakfast, for sight seeing or for an evening out on the town. (Here I am sitting having breakfast at our lovely B&B hotel, the Milatos Village Cretan Agrotourism Hotel. It is a wonderful place and the hosts, Kat and Alice, made us feel right at home! The breakfast spread, by the way, is gorgeous and plentiful – I had not yet gotten started on it when Doug took this shot.)
The photo at the top of the post was taken by Jonathan at the Arkady Monastery, which is so beautiful that no words can properly describe it. If you have a chance, go see it.
Make this tank! It will make you smile. It may even make you laugh with joy!
Doug went to Vancouver last week and was able to take Emma her birthday surprise sweater. (Given that her birthday is in May, it was definitely a surprise!)
This is the Ojai Top, designed by Andrea Babb, which was published in Wool Studio: The Knitwear Capsule Collection from Interweave Press. I knit it with Dye for Yarn Fingering Merino with Silk in the colour Fading Stormy Night.
I finished knitting this before we went to Malaysia but was waiting to get modeled shots before showing it to you. (It doesn’t look like much on a hangar!) I had worried throughout the construction about how it would look and fit once blocked. I think we can safely say that I needn’t have worried. It looks pretty great on Emma.
This is an interesting piece to knit. The loops are actually three-dimensional, as you can see in the below photograph:
As you start to build up the loops, the piece looks a bit of a mess; I referred to it as a Kraken in an earlier post. You can read more about its construction and the beginning stages of knitting Ojai in these posts: here and here. I struggled a bit when it came to ending off all of the threads (each loop has two threads to end off); what to do with the hole left in the fabric from creating the loop? The trick is to not tack down the loop when weaving in the ends, but to sew the hole together in a way that reinforces the tunnel structure of the loops.
I had also worried about my choice of yarn. First, because I substituted a yarn with 25% silk content. When I was knitting it, it felt very unstructured and I was wishing that I had used a 100% wool yarn as indicated in the pattern. But the real point of contention was the colour. I ordered it over the internet, and when it arrived, it had more variegation in the skein than I thought it would. I decided to use it anyway, with the hopes that the finished garment would be very drapey and look like flowing water. It is interesting that Doug and Emma chose to photograph it next to a lake where it really does seem to flow like water.
They had driven up to see a friend (hi, Jill!) who lives at Lilloet Lake, in British Columbia, and they took these photos there. Beautiful, isn’t it?
I knit this in the small size. When I washed it, it grew by a few inches, so I was very careful not to stretch it and didn’t pin it. It is knit sideways so the extra length goes into the width (thus into the sleeve, which I think is good in this case as Emma is tall). I do think that the short side is rather short. If I knit it again I would think about adding some stitches to the cast on so that it gained a few inches in length. (Perhaps Emma would disagree?)
Emma notes that the one armhole is a bit tight. I originally sewed the side seam to the length indicated and then crocheted around the armhole as instructed (which allows the tubes to be tacked down properly at the armhole). However, I felt that it was too tight, and re-did it so that there would be an extra 2 inches of circumference around the arm. It could have used with an even more generous arm width and I may re-do it for her in future. (This does not involve any re-knitting, but just making the side seam shorter.)
I am very happy with how this turned out. It is a striking piece and is sure to be a conversation starter.
How do you solve a mis-match between pattern and yarn?
Here’s how:
As you may recall, I was having some troubles with my latest project. I had picked a pattern for a pretty little summer t-shirt; the Sunbird Top by Quenna Lee.
I had paired it with Carol Feller’s yarn, Nua, a rustic blend of wool, linen, and yak. I had nearly finished knitting it when I finally succumbed to the niggling doubts that had pursued me from the beginning: I like the pattern, I loved the yarn, but they were not a match made in heaven. The main issue was simply that the Nua is too substantial a yarn for this project. Even though I hit the gauge exactly, the yarn was too heavy to drape properly for this t-shirt, and, let’s face it: it knits up much too warm for a summer top.
I pointed out two other problems in my post outlining my difficulties with the project. First, the bottom edge was curling up, more than I thought would be fixed by a good blocking, and second, I hated the top-down cap sleeves, which were puckered and terribly annoying to knit:
Clearly, this yarn was not going to work with this pattern. However, I was reluctant to rip the whole thing out so I started thinking about ways to rescue it by re-conceptualising it as a fall sweater. Here’s what I did.
Buy some more yarn
This one made me laugh. I pushed the button to buy the yarn just minutes before I saw the comment left on my blog post by Lorenza: “Three words: sunk cost bias…” Yes, exactly! So, let’s solve this by throwing even more cash at it! My idea, however, was to turn this into a fall sweater with long sleeves which means I needed more yarn. Since I didn’t want to try to track down the right dye lot, I decided to buy a different shade and make a colour block sweater. I was going to go for a gold colour, but Doug convinced me to buy this olive green, which I adore. Isn’t it a fantastic mix?
Doug said it would look like the colour transitions you get on the ocean when the depth changes, and he was right. It reminds us of the greens and blues we saw last summer on our holiday around Vancouver Island.
Rip out the bottom 6 inches of the sweater, and re-knit with the green.
Not only did I want the sweater to have a contrasting deep border of green, but I decided right away that I didn’t want the curved edging of the Sunbird Top. It didn’t work well in this yarn, but also it wasn’t fitting into my mental concept of what I was hoping to accomplish. So, after ripping out a chunk of the bottom, I knit it down straight, keeping the lace on the sides, and then finishing with 6 rows of garter stitch (3 garter ridges) at the hem, to repeat the garter ridges above the chest on the original pattern. Not only would this tie in the new design with the old, but it would (I hoped) get rid of the curling problem on the edge. I think it turned out great.
Match the neckline finishing to the edging.
The 6 rows of garter I added to the hemline gave it a very nice finished look. I decided to add the same around the neckline. Not only did it tie all of the elements together, but it raised the neckline a crucial half inch, which matters now that the sweater is a warmer-weight fall sweater instead of a breezy summer top.
Make long sleeves.
I absolutely hated knitting the original sleeves top down. I don’t mind seaming either so the obvious thing was to knit these bottom up, flat, and then seam and set in to the shoulders. I worried a little, since I was knitting bottom up, about getting the line matched up where the blue switches over to the green, but think I planned it out perfectly:
For those who like to know these details, the sweater measures 11.5″ from the underarm to the bottom of the blue; the green is then another 5″. For the sleeves, I knit 6.5″ of green, and then switched to the blue for another 11.5″ before starting the underarm decreases. I do think that it stretched a bit when I washed it (gaining just under an inch in length), but it seems to have stretched evenly, as the colour transition still lines up perfectly.
I had to re-knit the sleeve cap three times before it fit properly. The first time, I even set it in, but the armscythe felt tight and bunchy, so I ripped the seam out, and started the cap over. I do think that the seam looks pretty good and that the cap fits much better than the original cap I was knitting top down. If you recall, when I knit the body of the garment, I started with a larger size across the top (a 46″) and then switched to a 43 at the underarms. This was definitely the wrong choice, and if I was being totally picky, I should have ripped the whole thing out and started again to make the shoulders narrower. Although I think this sleeve fits pretty well, I do feel it would be a better fit at the shoulders if it were an inch narrower at each side.
While I still have a few niggles with this, all-in-all I think it is a pretty good save! The Nua washes up great, it has a lovely silky feel to it and feels fantastic next to the skin. It is warmer than it looks (due to the yak, I suspect), while the linen makes for a rustic look and adds depth to the colour variation (the linen doesn’t pick up the dye in the same way as the wool). I have switched this on Ravelry from a Sunbird project to a “incorporates Sunbird” project, and have re-named it Ocean Waters.
Now, as often happens, I’ve knit a fall sweater just as summer kicks in!
I finished knitting my “form” pullover and I love it! It is fantastic!
I love everything about this sweater. It is comfortable, wearable, light as a feather, RED, stylish, shapely, and, oh yes, RED! What is not to love?
The pattern, designed by Lori Versaci, is beautiful. I had some trouble at the start figuring out how to put together the neck bands (which I blogged about here). Lori very kindly responded to my email with a couple of photos, which helped explain the process. Once I got that sorted out, however, and got on my way, this sweater practically knitted itself. I am a pretty slow knitter, and this took me just under 4 weeks – and for two of those, I was practically catatonic with flu and didn’t manage to knit much at all.
The pattern has two length options and two sleeve length options. I choose the longer length and the longer sleeve length. I think the look is very 1960s. I have a collection of Vogue Knitting magazines from the 1960s and many of the sweaters had this kind of a feel to them.
The boat neck collar is one of the cool features of this sweater. Here is a peak at the shoulder:
Other things I love about this are the compound raglan sleeves which are perfectly formed; the armhole depth is perfect, allowing me to move comfortably and naturally and without feeling constricted. The sleeves are roomy but in a way which I think looks chic rather than loose. The A-line shaping in the body is lovely; and the positioning of the increases makes it drape so nicely. Really, I love everything about this pullover.
I don’t have a lot of detail shots, because I am recovering from a bad flu; I gave Doug just 5 minutes to take some photos before I came back inside and collapsed by the fire. It is, however, lovely in every way. (It is also unblocked! And I don’t think it needs any blocking.)
I followed the pattern, EXACTLY, except for two small details: I used German short rows, and I did not do the tubular cast-on or cast-off. I used my standard, every day cast-on and cast-off. Why? Three reasons:
I am lazy.
I didn’t think it would really matter much given the mohair which makes for a fuzzy edge in any case.
I am lazy.
I knit this holding two strands of yarn together. The first is Isager Spinni, a light fingeringweight 100% wool in Red, and the second is Shibui Silk Cloud, a laceweight mohair and silk blend in the colour Tango. I used less than 3.5 skeins of each, which means the whole sweater weighs about 270 grams. Like wearing a cloud!
I knit it with a US7 needle, which resulted in a gauge of 21×30. The pattern calls for 20×32. Lori has two samples on the pattern page – one is knit with 4″ of positive ease and the other with no ease. I was hoping for something in the middle, around 2″ of ease. I could knit a size 42, giving me 1/2″ of ease, or a 46, giving me 4 1/2″ inches. Given that my gauge was a bit off, I knit the size 46 and ended up with 44″ across the chest, a perfect 2 1/2″ of ease.
Because I am sick, I haven’t taken the time to dress it up for the photos, but this will be a fantastic work garment, and will also dress up nicely. (The best I could manage today was a pop of red lipstick and a fantastic coat!)
It has been a long time since I have knit the same sweater twice, but I am already dreaming of another “form”!
I’ve just remembered that I haven’t yet posted photos of my Offbeat mitts.
I am really happy with these. The pattern was designed by Anna Elliott. I have wanted to make them since I first saw them on Kate Davies blog here (they were designed to be knit with Kate’s yarn, Buachaille). There is a matching hat design, but it is the mitts which really captured my attention. Aren’t they pretty?
They were not the easiest mitts for me to knit; the problem arising not from the very well-written pattern but rather from my lack of skills in stranded knitting on DPNs, which I discussed in this previous post.
I noted in that post that blocking produced miraculous results. As proof, I present the below photo, showing a blocked mitt on the left, and the rather pathetic-looking unblocked mitt on the right.
The moral of this photo is to persevere; knitting is a very forgiving sport!
(If you are interested in the sweater I am wearing here and in the top photo, it is the Leyfi sweater designed by Romi Hill and blogged here.)
I knit the Offbeat mitts in Buachaille – which is a lovely yarn that becomes even more lovely with each time you wear it. The mitts are surprisingly soft, warm, and cosy. I took them out for a walk a few weeks ago:
I like this photo because it shows me wearing three mis-matched hand-knits, which manage nonetheless to look great together: the Offbeat mitts, my Peerie Flooers hat, and my gold Cabled-rib shawl.
For the knitting purists out there, here is the obligatory shot of the reverse side.
I highly recommend this pattern. And if you have a chance, you should knit them in Buachaille. It makes for lovely mitts. (This is my third pair of mitts in this yarn.) It is hard to describe how lofty and sheep-y the yarn is, and how nice it feels on the needles. And look at how the colours glow in the sunshine:
I have come down with a flu bug. My prescription? Watch the Olympics and knit. Sleep. Repeat.
Do you ever wonder what to do with little odds and ends of homespun yarn?
In the fall of 2016, Doug and I spent a few days in Wales (blogged about here) and included a stop at The Lost Sheep Company in Colwyn Bay. There, in addition to chatting with its charismatic owner, Chrissy, and wading through waist high bundles of fleeces:
We purchased four tiny skeins of homespun yarn from Welsh bred sheep. In the below photo, the yarn on the left was un-labelled, followed left-to-right by Jacob, Welsh Mule, and Black Welsh Mountain.
I had differing yardage of each yarn, and they were of different yarn weights. I wondered for a long time what to do with them, and one night shortly after the New Year, I just picked up the first skein and started to knit. I didn’t do any gauge swatches or fuss with measurements. I didn’t do any math. I cast on 180 stitches with a size US 11 needle and started to knit in 2×2 ribbing. When I got to the end of one skein, I added another, and kept knitting until my yarn ran out.
As Doug was the one who picked out the yarn, I made the cowl for him. I think it suits him well.
It is amazingly plush and cozy, and has a fantastic hand. With the exception of the small nups of colour in the un-labelled batch, it is all un-dyed. I hadn’t knit with handspun in some time, and really loved having it on my needles.
Emma was still here when I finished, and she had just finished knitting her own cowl (blogged here), so I tried to get a photo of the two of them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get Doug and Emma to cooperate and not be silly?
Photo attempt #7:
Photo attempt #13:
Photo attempt #312:
Photo attempt #2,397:
This is, of course a slight exaggeration, but they delight in being silly, especially when I am trying to get a photo for the blog.
If you are trying to find a use for small bits of homespun yarn, I recommend this fun and easy solution.
