Awesome new book

I just picked up Fairy Tale Knits at Borders. (Thank you 40% off coupons. Gotta love it) It's a gorgeous book with awesome patterns for kids between age 3 and 10.

When it came out, I was very excited because I've noticed a kind of dearth of patterns for kids in that age range. There are a few patterns for that age, but I've found that for the most part they are very dull. Not very exciting to knit, and kind of shapeless and blah.

I'm hoping that one of the patterns in here will be perfect for Georgia's navy blue sweater.

Plus I think she's totally going to dig the patterns that are in here. They're very cool. And I can keep making them as she grows.

Damson

Finally made it past row 76, which was very exciting. I think I ripped back to row 72 about 10 times. Last night I discovered that I had read the instructions for the wrong side (odd numbered) rows incorrectly and had been inadvertantly adding 2 stitches per row which of course threw me off count.

I cannot WAIT to wear this thing. Only 30 some odd rows to go...

Featherweight

My friend (and yarn store gigilo) Auffermann and I went to Seaport Yarns today to pick up some stitch markers. So now I can actually cast on for the Featherweight, as I needed quite a few more markers than what I originally had for the Damson. I'll be doing that tonight.

This is now my third Fettig pattern, and you'd think I would have learned from the first two that my gauge is vastly bigger than hers (or her test knitters) and that I wouldn't even bother trying with the needle size that she lists in her patterns. But of course, I did, and once again my test swatch was almost three inches too big. Amazing, isn't it? I thought from the Fettig patterns that I was a really loose knitter, but according to my local yarn store experts I'm actually a fairly tight knitter and that the Fettig patterns must be knitted super tight.

(for the non-knitters reading this, gauge is the measure of tension in your knitting. At the beginning of each pattern, the designer will usually give a gauge reading, like 24 stitches in stockinette by 36 rows = 4 inches. So when you go to knit the pattern you do a test swatch to see how closely your knitting with that particular yarn matches the designers and then size appropriately. If you don't do this, and your gauge is much bigger, then you could end up with a ginormous sweater, even though you followed the instructions for an XS.)

I have no way of verifying that one, as my test samples consist of exactly one knitter (me).

I went down three needle sizes and finally got gauge. She called for a size 6 (US) needle, and I'm using a size 3.

Last night I also read through the pattern, and it looks like a really fun knit, so this is going to be very exciting!