Forced Knitting

Last month, I was chatting with my mom, who'll be 87 next month.  She was lamenting that she had been invited to a baby shower for her neighbor's daughter and she just didn't know what she was going to get.  This actually translates to "would you knit something for me to give to the baby?".  I would do almost anything for my mom, so I decided just to go ahead and knit a sweater for her to give.  Mind you, at the time, I wasn't working on anything in particular so I was happy to help out.  I have a favorite sweater that I've knitted at least eight times over the years.  It's an old Sirdar pattern.

I've had this pattern for almost 15 years and the yarn has long since been discontinued.  When I heard that they weren't going to make it anymore, I bought up as much of it as I could find.  I even ordered some from England.  It's a pain to knit with, but when it's done, it feels and looks just like a light weight fleece.  It's incredibly soft.

In this picture, the blue almost looks gray, but in person it's a very pretty shade of blue.  I even found duck buttons for the back.

After it was done, I thought I might as well knit a hat so it would be a complete set.  I didn't have a pattern, but I just charted some small ducks and "winged" it.  It looked pretty big to me, but I measured it and tried to remember that babies almost always have huge heads!

This made for a cute baby gift, but then my sister chimed in and said she wanted to go in on the gift with my mother (my parents live with her) so I thought maybe I should add a bib.

This is my Quacking Up pattern and I thought it was appropriate with this whole duck theme.  I suggested that they finish it up with a little rubber duck and maybe even a duck book!

My mom was just thrilled and was very grateful.  Personally, I was just happy that it was done so I could move on to other things.  My sister, however, was really happy, so much so that she informed me that she needed another sweater for a little girl that was going to be born at the end of this month.  Not only that, but she had already bought a duplicate book and duck!!  I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have to knit another identical sweater.  I guess because she doesn't knit, she doesn't realize how boring it is to knit the same thing over and over.  I'm dragging my heels on this second one, first because I just don't want to do it, but also because I just finished charting up two brand new bibs and I want to work on them instead! 

On a personal note, I lost my wonderful aunt a couple of weeks ago.  It was so unexpected and sudden.  She lived alone and they found her on the floor in her apartment.  I was really close to her and I've had a hard time dealing with the loss.  I was her flower girl over fifty years ago!  We always had a special relationship and we shared a lot of the same interests.  I remember when I was young, someone gave me a little kit of embroidery pictures of nursery rhymes and she offered to show me "how to do it".  I sat right beside her while she stitched. . .and stitched. . .and stitched!  I kept begging her to let me "try it now", but she kept telling me that I should let her just do a "few more" stitches.  Well, as you might have guessed, she ended up stitching the whole thing.  I don't remember actually learning much, except that she did tell me that I had to keep the back nice and neat.  I've always remembered that and, to this day, I still keep the back of my work neat.  I really miss her but I have lots of wonderful memories.

On a more positive note, when I finish this sweater, I'll start on the new patterns.  One good thing is that I won't have any more of this yarn when the sweater is finished so I won't have to make another.  For a girl anyway.  I do still have lots of blue. .