Seed-Stitch Jacket

Are you ready for cute? I mean, are you READY? 'Cause I'm about to hit you with some serious cute.



See what I mean?

We had the reprieve from wetness on Sunday and that was the last Seattle has seen of the sun. As a result, Leon's seed-stitch jacket took two days and a trip on the dryer sweater rack before it was finally dry. Oh, but today I made him wear it all over, finally taking it off around 2 when I laid him down for a nap.



Stats:

Seed-Stitch Baby Jacket by Elinor Brown
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted by Brown Sheep in "blue heirloom"
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) circular needles
Mods: I knit the sleeves in the round, 2-at-a-time.
Additional photos on my Ravelry project page.

I need to research some optional cast off methods. When I cast off the sleeves, I thought I did it loosely, but compared to the stretch of the seed-stitch fabric, it was tight. It made setting in the sleeves a bit hairy, but the results are still good. I love the finished results.



And now that I've finished, I've cast on a sweater for me! Yippee! I've got no progress photo to show you, but I'll lay out a couple of dets: I'm using some lovely Jamieson's Shetland Heather in a gorgeous color called "Seabright." Yummy. And the pattern? Check out the designer's page. Looks fun, huh?

As a send off, check out this shot of what Emmett got to do this morning...



Yea Whirligig!

Growing

I'm back. I've been intending to blog for some time now, but have been waiting for one of two things to happen: plant some of my vegetable garden or finish Leon's jacket. Can you guess which one got done?

Here in Seattle we have had what seems to be a prolonged stretch of gray and wet. Ha ha, you say, isn't Seattle always like that? We'll yes, it can be both gray and wet quite often, but we do usually get a break of at least dry and sometimes dry and sunny in March. (We are grateful and awed when the holy trinity of weather happens in March: dry, sunny and WARM.) Well, on Friday the wet held off long enough to finally motivate me get to the garden soil and start some seeds for the flower and vegetable beds.



For vegetables I've started salad greens, cauliflower, and watermelons. Last year I had no luck with my watermelon starts; this year I plan on direct sowing as well and see which way works better. Emmett would LOVE some home-grown watermelons! I plan on purchasing 2 tomato plants and a pepper plant at the farmer's market sometime in May. Since I don't have space to grow several tomatoes in multiple varieties, its actually more cost effective to buy 1 each of two types already started; so that's how we'll go this year.

I stopped by West Seattle Nursery this week and was able to buy seed potatoes, onion sets, as well as starts for broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cabbage. Friday I got the potatoes in the ground: 4 plants of a type called Russian banana. I've never grown potatoes before, so it should be a big learning curve to figure out how to do it. I think Emmett will love digging them up, though.

After that, the rain started back up and didn't let up all Friday through Saturday. Ugh. I think we saw 37 F midday on Saturday, which seemed so cold! But this morning, yippee, the sun was out. Ryan and I practically ran outside to get going. (Thanks to Grandma for being here and watching the boys.) Ryan and I first got a new raised bed installed and ready for drip irrigation. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough garden soil to fill the bed.



Later on in the day, Ryan brought home enough soil to fill it. Since it is in a pretty shady spot in our vegetable terrace, I plan on using this new bed as our lettuce bed. We were also able to get the onions, b.sprouts, broccoli, and cabbage planted. I'm going to try my best this season to really keep things moving in the garden so that as crops finish out (like all I planted today), I'll get new things in the ground. If the rain continues to hold off and all things work to my favor, Emmett and I will get out this week and plant lettuce, carrots, peas and beets.

It feels so good to have the garden started! Now if I can just get to the rest of the garden, because it is a mess.

And lastly, I'm proud to say that Leon's jacket is finished and blocking! I'll write more about it soon; in the interim, here are a couple of teaser photos before it got buttons and a wash.



yummy, yummy toes in sunshine, outside!



my sweet guy.