Birthdays Galore

The gals in my family apparently like to get pregnant during a specific two-week period. There's an overabundance of Pisces in our family and I'm one of them. My cousin (mother of Caroline) has her birthday this Saturday. My mom's is on Monday. Mine and my cousin Joseph's birthday is on Wednesday. My brother's was two weeks ago, but he was two weeks premature, so you do the math. This makes for a happy and celebratory Sway with no money at the end of February.

This striped pullover I've been working on went into overdrive because I realized my parents will be seeing Caroline this weekend. This is a present for her and her mom. The pattern is from Rowan's Story Book of Little Knits, which is a beautifully presented pattern book with lots of gorgeous, wearable children's clothes. No Rowan 4-ply cotton anywhere close by, so I settled for the very very similar Dolce Amore from Filatura di Crosa.

One sleeve left to go and then seaming. I think I've become addicted to stripes. Stripes are fun! They're easy! Perfect combo for my poor overworked brain.

Also, Annie's has a wonderful relationship with Iris Schreier at Artyarns and she keeps sending us lovely colors of yarn. I don't know if this is available at other places, but it's the first time I've seen this color:

It's Ultramerino 4 and the color is a bit off here. The grays are right, but the "red" stripe is actually a deep hot pink/fuchsia. It makes me want to rock out.

Also, it is not a good thing to be in the vicinity of people who do other crafts. It makes you want to do them, too.

Instead of jumping into any crazy needlepoint and getting confoozled, I opted for this small makeup bag to stitch for my mom. She likes ladybugs. I don't think I'm very good at this (you can sort of see the canvas through my uneven stitches), but it's fun trying.