Ronan's Old Man Sweater

or "Proof Positive that I was not on a Two Month Bender..."

I mean, you can't be drinking and knitting... right?

Anyways, I had bought six skeins of Dalegarn Baby Ull in three colors: lime, sunshine yellow and blue. I throught they looked nice together and wanted to make a baby sweater out of them. I actually get a kick out of making baby sweaters that are in colors most people don;t consider 'baby colors.'

And so one of my best friends, Colleen, announced several months ago that she was having a baby boy. I think I had this in my head when I originally bought the yarn, but I delayed the project for several months. Then I dealyed it until after my Mother's Mother's Day sweater was done, meaning I started Ronan's sweater circa May 21st. The shower was on May 30th. I would have *totally* gotten that sucker done in time if I didn't have to drive from Vermont to Wisconsin in the middle.

That's OK. Ronan isn't born yet (he is due fourth of Julyish) and the sweater is sized so he can wear it in oh, December rather than July. I had enough done so I could show everyone the body at the shower, and most of the guests thought it was a dashing vest. Nope... I just had to add the sleeves. Sleeves, I think, are my nemesis.

Anyways, with the yarn I had, I decided that it would be funny if I knitted a golf style argyle into the sweater with fair isle. Because in my warped mine, making an 'old man' style sweater for a newborn was funny.

I wove a good amount of the fair isle on the body of the sweater. I am getting away from weaving, but I didn't want anything snagging. I didn't Fair Isle the sleeves at all. That isn't because I hate Fair Isle on Magic Loop (ok, I *do* hate fair isle with magic loop...) but more because I didn't want any loops in the sleeves whatsoever so there would be no chance to Ronan catching his itty bitty fingers in them.

I sewed the steeks on a seweing machine, cut them (to the horror of my aunt), sewed them on, and tried about six different variations for the neck. My biggest quandry there is that I wanted a button and a toggle until someone politely pointed out that some babies chew things like buttons off of thier clothes. Yargh! I want to dress the baby, not choke the baby, so I haven't finished the sweater 100%. It also needs a blocking, which will get done tomorrow.

On the bright side, both the mother and the mother's family like the sweater. So goal accomplished! woot!