Happy Summer!

Summer vacation is finally here. This means homeschooling with the boys, a (hopefully) large garden and lots (& lots & lots) of time for knitting! Also, it means that a few of my creative monkeys can be used for writing blogposts.

It's an odd paradox for me. When I was self employed & had much more time on my hands, my knitting tended to drop off in the summer months. If you've ever been to St. Louis in July, you know why. It's hot. It's humid. It''s not at all uncommon to have many consecutive days with highs in the upper 90's and humidity at 80%. That doesn't exactly make one long for wool. Or cotton. The only thing those conditions make a person long for is a pool (we don't have one) and a cold, fruity drink (alcohol optional).

But now that I am employed by a local school district, just about the only time I have for knitting is during the summer. There's no stress from work. There is a lot more free time. These are things that make me want to knit! Even if the air conditioner has been running all day and the shingles on my roof are melting.

In this last week alone I've made more progress on the baby vest I'm knitting that I did in the last month of school. It's a gift. A gift for a baby. A gift for a baby who is now nearly a month old. That's okay. It's never too late to welcome someone to the world! Here's what I've got so far:

I know. It doesn't look like much right now. I had the hardest time figuring out this completely wonky pattern wrapping my brain around the general workings of this unique pattern. This is my third attempt at this pattern. The first problem I had was that the pattern called for "Number 10 needles." So, although this seemed awfully big for a baby sweater, I hauled out my US 10's. Three quarters of the way up the front I realized that this sweater would fit my baby. My baby is two years old.  So, I hit Ravelry & found that most people had knit this pattern on 4's and 3's. I ended up on US 5's. Then there were other issues. I couldn't find the instructions for knitting the back. I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to attach the left front yolk. I wasn't really understanding the sleeves from just skimming over the pattern.

Then, yesterday, the light bulb went on, the heavens opened and angelic choirs sang a perfect G-major chord. I realized that I knit up the front, cast on a bunch of stitches for the back neck, attached the two sides at the shoulders, and am now knitting down the back. I think the sleeves start with picked up stitches & are knit down from the shoulder as well, although I'm not there yet, so I'm not entirely sure.

This is what it looks like if I fold it at the shoulders:

It still looks like an amoeba. But an amoeba that resembles a sweater. Sort of. If you squint at it. A lot.

This is what it is supposed to look like:

Of course, if I get frustrated with this wonky pattern, I can always work on a sand dollar for Riley's blanket that was supposed to be done by Christmas...

I'll be posting much more frequently now that I'm knitting more. And now that all my creative monkeys aren't completely preoccupied with writing songs about money, letter sounds and toilet training. It's hard to write blog posts when all your creative resources are focused on work.