Library finds

Several things to update today.  First of all, the promised pictures of the wash cloths.

Very plain, but ridiculously quick to knit.  Just cast on with two strands and garter stitch til you’re done.  They will get some good use at this new house of mine.

Also, I’m about halfway done with one sleeve of my sweater.  Sleeves are so fast!  If I could actually just sit down and work on it, it would be done in no time.  But alas, it’s finally summer in Seattle and I’d rather be thinking about knitting than actually knitting.  I’ve been trying to find appropriate baby patterns for “Peanut,” my soon-to-arrive nephew, while getting distracted by other quick, and therefore sexy, knits.  I found myself in the knitting section of the library yesterday and came home with two fun books:

I have seen some really ugly knitted toy patterns.  And some that are cute, but I’d never really want to make them.  This book, however, had several that I’m itching to get on the needles for Peanut.  Hope he likes dinosaurs.  Rar!

It’s hard to find a good knitwear pattern for a man.  Seriously.  There are hats aplenty, but most of the sweaters out there are too textured or there is too much color work, or they have things that we think are cute, but really men don’t want to wear.  Or they’re plain ugly (see this book I left at the library - Yikes).  All in all, they’re too fussy.  The author of this book totally gets that.  He’s a man and knows what he wants to wear, therefore designs sweaters that are both simple enough for even Alan to like, yet have enough small details to keep a knitter thinking. 

And, more impressively, every pattern is provided in multiple sizes with multiple gauges.  Which is awesome!  I never get the exact gauge patterns call for because I just use yarn that I have on hand.  This totally take the guess work out of it so you can end up with something that not only looks good, but FITS.  WOOHOO!

It's a good thing I'm on a yarn diet or else I'd be surfing the web to find yarn to make one of these.  Instead I"ll just keep doing research to find something I can make for Peanut out of stash yarn. Maybe I have dinosaur colors?