Signed, Sealed, Delivered

My faith in the post office was rewarded. Pancake Goddess got the package I sent last week, with some knitted thingies for her fourth baby boy. In a completely stunning development, the gifts arrived before the baby. This isn't my usual m.o.

Fortunately, she agrees with me that it's the thought that counts, so is overlooking the -- well, the less-able bits of the presents. A teensy stripy sweater:


Since the babe is going to show up in summer, I went with cotton. This is Foxfire organic cotton, courtesy of a long-ago birthday gift from my sister. I figured it will fit him for about 15 minutes max, anyhow, so a light sweater is the way to go.

Along with the sweater, I broke a personal taboo and knit a little stuffed creature. It began with bunny intentions but sort of . . . well, morphed. After trying to make old cotton diapers into stuffing (trust me, don't. I wont', next time), knitting ears seemed like more than I could face. I thought "bear" for a few minutes (bears have much smaller ears than rabbits, I thought). After I noodled around for a moment, trying to minimize the buttockness of the back, my entire family agreed.


It's Squirrel Nutkin.


So, now I'm going to distract Jen specifically by posting garden pictures. For some reason, it cheers me immensely to think of her shaking bangles among my peas. I even saw some of the exotic basils peeking out of our exotic garden mulch of begged/borrowed/stolen grass clippings. The neighborhood gardening crews see us coming and start setting them aside.


You might notice that the little proto-plum has what look suspiciously like fingerprints on it. Hmmmmm.


On the needles now? The eternal orange vest. Now that I'm back to reminding myself that charts read in two directions, it's going much faster and I have hopes of doing more than two rows in the upcoming week. Because I can't knit on that and think at all, I started the "Cabaret Raglan" from the Summer 2004 Interweave Knits. You can see someone else's version here. I believe (without conclusive evidence) that I have enough of that tobacco-colored Foxfire yarn to make the whole thing. We'll see. I also realize that it contains eyelets, whch are not my friends. I'm knitting the front with them first, so I can relax into the miles of stockinette afterwards.

And the girls want matching cotton tank tops, out of Sugar'n'Cream. Apparently, they have caught the Mason-Dixon knitting bug without me even reading the book. I'll be busy.

Oh, and for Mother's Day? Besides the adorable cards and breakfast orchestrated by Thing 1, Thing 2 announced that she's going to make sure that her (three on three, no goalie, under-6) soccer team wins.

I'll be so proud.