Turtle Butts

I'm in love with this new soaker pattern by Melanie Hoffman of Adorabubbleknits. It's called Turtle Butt" and from the first moment I saw it, I couldn't wait to make it. I bought my yarn in anticipation of making it and even bought matching t-shirts to go with it. Unfortunately (for me), it took Melainie a little longer to write it up than I had anticipated, so little Marty outgrew the shirts before the soaker was even made! Still, it was worth the wait, in my opinion, and I even got to be one of the lucky test knitters for the pattern! (Hmmm, I wonder if all the pleading helped?!). Here is the original test knit in kelly green and navy blue, one of my all time favorite color combos. It looks very preppy, which is appropriate since my grandson is brilliant after all! ;o) It's done in Cascade 220 wool.

Since the first one was so much fun, I decided to mix it up a bit and knit the second one with a variegated yarn as the contrasting color. This is done in Galway wool. I've never worked with this yarn before, but it was very similar to the Cascade 220.

This TB is done using scraps I had left over from other soakers. I bought some Plymouth Outback wool on sale at Webs and just matched the colors up. Since there are lots (and lots) of ends to weave in anyway, the pattern really lends itself to using up scraps.

I went a little overboard at Webs when their Cascade was on sale, so it was no problem finding rainbow colors, except for the purple. I discovered that I didn't have one single skein! It's the only yarn I had to buy in order to finish. I guess I just don't think of purple as a "guy" color. The other color you'll never find in my stash is pink! Hate it! I guess it's because when I was a child I was told that I could never wear it as I had red hair. Whatever the reason, it just makes me cringe!

My last TB really isn't a turtle at all, so I call it my "Mock Turtle Butt". It uses the pattern as a template, but the stitch pattern is from Barbara Walker's "blue" book. It's called linked stripes and I really like the way it came out. It looks pretty complicated, but it's very easy to do. You just have to pay attention to the stripe sequence. You only knit with one color at a time, so it goes pretty quickly. I'm thinking of trying it in rainbow colors. Hey, I've got to use up that purple sometime!