C'mon Get Happy

Good morning, friends! Yesterday was a very long day in part because I spent the last two hours of the work day doing school pickup and then at the pediatrician's office with Rainbow (she's fine -- it was just her annual checkup, but she had to get three vaccinations, so it was a bit dramatic for my needle-fearing girl). After such a Monday Monday, if you catch my meaning, I did not expect to wake up so happy this morning, but I did, so I thought I'd share some of that happiness with you!

First of all, look at what we woke up to (with apologies for the screen):

We were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow overnight, but the Mister estimates that we got more than that. He was out shoveling for a full hour this morning and said that what he'd shoveled was already covered again by the time he came in. Normally I'd not be that excited by snow, but there was enough overnight that Rainbow's school decided to close for the day, so she's home doing school online. That means I get to have lunch with her and I don't have to drive in this mess to pick her up! She's also excited because it means she can stay in her pajama pants all day!

One good thing to come out of yesterday was that I managed to finish up the baby sweater, just in time for the last day of the Pigskin Party, too.

This is, of course, the classic Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I used the instructions found in The Opinionated Knitter, but you can now get the pattern for the baby, child, and adult versions directly from Schoolhouse Press. I was a bit worried that this version was going to come out a tad small, even for a preemie, but I compared it to the version that Rainbow came home from the hospital in and it's just a tad smaller (I blocked out a little more room in it as well). I used scraps of several fingering weight yarns for this one -- the green is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal, the blue is Little Skein in the Big Wool House Sock, the yellow is Dale Garn Baby Ull, and the red is Malabrigo Sock. I followed the pattern as written except for working on a smaller needle (US 3)/at a smaller gauge to make it suitable for a preemie and adding the applied I-cord around the entire body edge. If you look very closely, you might be able to see where I joined the I-cord at the center of the back, but I think I did a decent job of finishing. I did add buttonholes to one side, but I think the neck opening becomes way too small for even a tiny baby if you overlap the fronts enough to button it, so I'm going to do some duplicate stitch on the wrong side to close those holes up before I deliver it.

Another reason to be happy? Finishing the sweater means I can move on to the next WIP to finish, and that's my C2C crochet blanket. I've officially started decreasing!

The colors are again completely off here, but at least you can see that the sides are starting to square up. I've noticed that I'm also getting a little faster at this and can manage a little bit of it without looking, so clearly all the practice is paying off. And now that I understand this method of construction, I can see making a lot more blankets like this in the future.

Finally, what is happier than getting yarn in the mail?

These two half skeins of Fibernymph Dye Works Ridgetop Fingering arrived yesterday (they were a prize). They should have been here on Saturday, as the USPS told me they were out for delivery, but when they didn't show up, I checked the tracking and discovered that they hadn't been delivered because the carrier "could not access the delivery location." I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean; the mail carrier delivered the rest of our mail with no problem, so I can only surmise that we had a sub for our usual carrier who didn't want to be bothered with carrying packages down our street. In any case, it arrived safely yesterday, and at least it didn't take a tour of the state this time! I also am expecting another squishy delivery today, as I might have taken advantage of the HipStrings moving sale (they are moving out of their commercial studio and into a new space). Assuming the snow doesn't deter the mail carrier today, I'll share that tomorrow.

Stay warm out there, friends, and keep and eye out for things to be happy about!