Aruni in Her Sweater

Here's a snap of Aruni wearing the Baby Surprise Sweater. The sleeves look a bit short, but Anju says this is perfect given Aruni's propensity for sticking her hands in her mouth and drooling down her arms.

Distractions

I'm supposed to be working on my taxes this weekend -- that means organizing all my papers and filling out a questionnaire so that I can take it all to the accountant next week. I hate doing this, and would rather be doing just about anything else. To make it a bit more palatable, I got two new CDs (Dave Alvin West of the West and Carrie Rodriguez Seven Angels on a Bicycle) to keep me entertained through this mind-numbing task. I actually did sit down on the living room floor this afternoon with all the unsorted/unfiled paperwork that had accumulated since last March, and it is now all sorted and filed. The questionnaire is the hard part.

Now I'm taking a wee break and goofing off, working on my spreadsheet for my upcoming trip to San Antonio. Since Flickr provided me with such a font of inspiration for the London trip last October, I recently joined three (why are there three?) Flickr groups for San Antonio, and I must say that they've been less than inspirational. There's lots of cross posting, and none of the groups seems to have any particular niche, like historic, folkloric or kitchy San Antonio. Lots of macro flower photos, birds, and bbq, none of which do anything for me. Using Roadside America instead, I found a few items of interest to put on the spreadsheet:

• Giant Virgin of Guadalupe candle mosaic (2 stories high!)
• Pig Stand Cafe (a drive-in pink pig)
• World's biggest cowboy boots
• World's biggest wooden nickle

Molly promises to drive me around in the hill country one day for some antiquing and photo ops. I'm looking for a vintage travel trailer parked in someone's yard that I can get a snap of to use for a new Flickr buddy icon for myself. Also, we'll hit El Mercado for a couple hours -- it's the largest Mexican market outside of Mexico, and always a great place to shop for gifties.

If anyone has suggestions for places to visit in the San Antonio area, let me know. The trip's not till May, so there's plenty of time to get your comments in. I hope to be better about blogging from the road than I was when I was in England. And I just got a USB card reader thingie, so I should be able to post to Flickr from the road as well.

Back to the taxes now ...

It's finished!

The Baby Surprise Sweater is done and ready to mail to NYC. I didn't have 5 buttons that matched, so I decided to go with the mismatched vintage buttons. I think it's kind of a bohemian chic look, which is fitting for a little girl who is spending her first months of life going to classes at Columbia. I hope Anju and Rahul send me a picture of Aruni wearing it.

Now I'm going back to knitting socks for moi.

BSS is almost done!

This lumpy mass doesn't look much like a sweater ...


... but here's how it will be folded to become one.

I've made a ton of progress this past week, particularly on the snow day when I beached myself on the sofa with cat and comforter and knit most of the day. At this point, with nearly 200 stitches on the needles, a row can take me about 20 minutes to do. I've made the button holes, and now there are only 4 rows left to go. After that, I'll sew the seams on the top of the sleeves, work in the ends and sew on the buttons and it will be done.

I haven't heard from my knit-along pal in days, so I hope it's going well for her, too. We usually consult when she gets to a tricky row where Stuff Happens. It's been a swell project, and I'm glad Erin suggested it, but I'm looking forward to having this done and going back to knitting socks.

BSS Update

48 rows done!


This is how the sleeves will be formed.

The Baby Surprise Sweater is coming along nicely, although I can't claim that I've been 100% accurate about the pattern. Somehow I ended up with more stitches than I should have around row 48, or I went two rows too far, but then I was miraculously back on track around row 58. It's taking on a very weird shape as I work on the body, but that's what's supposed to happen. The yarn is great -- a much richer purple than these crappy pix show. I'm not stressing about the pattern so much any more. It is what it is. I guess that's the zen approach to knitting.