If Nautical Nonsense Be Something You Wish

Ms. Lily turned 9 last week, as you will remember. On Saturday she celebrated with a Learn-To-Knit party at City Bakery....featuring two awesome cakes. One was made of wool, and the other was the Official Best Cake Ever!!! Otherwise known as the Strawberries and Cream cake from Arcadia Farms. The wool was part of the goodie bags for the seven little girls who learned to knit (infecting others with the knit bug is our goal in life). And the strawberry cake was for me. Just for me. The other 25 people there had to split the tiny little chocolate cake in the corner.

In other birthday news, Lily drew a design for a sweater, a fancy beach sweater, when we were in California for Spring Break. As soon as she drew it (on a placemat, in a cute little pizza place in Claremont Village), I knew that I had to knit it. But could I do it in a week? Of course!!!
Here is that famous drawing, which is soooo cute as a piece of art on its own. I pasted it in our red notebook.

TAAAA DAAAAAA!!!!! I stayed up all night two nights in a row, but I would have anyway. And the results are worth it. Stephen helped by knitting the pink shell before felting. It was scrap angora/wool (Classic Elite "Lush"), while the other felted pieces were Cascade "220". The tiny orange Fair Isle fish across the chest are from my own handspun, the green sideways cable is Lopi "Lite", and the body of the sweater (turquoise again?!?!?!) is also "220". Yum. Wool. Too bad it is already 85 degrees here....


This is the octopus, otherwise known as "Dr.Puss", which is what the girls used to say. To turn him into the official doctorpuss, I am going to use two sequins to make a stethascope and one of those fancy head-reflector-thingys. I have some purple sequins left over from my senior prom dress. Of course. Doesn't everyone?

He already has glasses, which indicates that he is a doctor of some sort, right?

Fair Isle Fish close-up.

Felted Starfish. Please ignore my less-than-perfect handsewing.

The shell has tiny pink shell lines stitched on. I may go back over the lines with a darker pink, so that they are more visible. We may also make a tiny hermit crab climbing out of the shell. Notice the cable detail at the raglan decreases.

Here's that cable. It kind of looks like sand dollars, or like those salt water taffy candies. Either is perfect for a beach-themed sweater, and Lucy helped me translate the pattern for this cable from the new Phildar magazine. As you can see from the shot below, we left the back mostly plain.

Lily was so happy with her party. Lots of our knitting friends of all ages were there, and so was her teacher. This is the yarn that Lily dyed especially for her beloved teacher (Lily taught her to knit as well). It was a grey Lopi, and Lily added some greens and blues with Kool-Aid. It really is a pretty yarn. Ms. J thinks that she would like to make fingerless gloves with it. Good choice!

Hope everyone out there is enjoying Spring, and that not too many of you are stuck under drifts of snow. Remember, it's time to celebrate a lot of things.....especially the return of the Green Tea Frappucino at Starbucks. And tell them, "Melon, not blackberry!". Ummmmm. Matcha.

Knit on (and send thousands of Starbucks giftcards to...),

Kiki