On the Ferry to Fair Isle

I've decided (finally) to start working on some of the recent stash purchased from Knit Picks! Specifically, the laptop bag kit. I'm on about row 28 of 91. Fair isle takes a lot longer than I had anticipated, but I'm enjoying the colorwork and think it's going to be a fun challenge. It's knit in the round and once I'm done with the body, I get to steek for the first time. In other words, I get to cut the fabric so it becomes a flat piece. Scary! Here's where I am so far:

Let's see, what else has been happening around my house? Well, Hubby's been out of town all week, so I've had plenty of uninterupted knitting time in the evening. While I would much rather have him around, I have been enjoying my special yarn time. I still haven't gotten the zipper put into Bean's sweater, but here's a picture of it anyway. Bean seems to like it, hopefully it still fits in the fall, I underestimated how big it needed to be.

I had a lot of the yarn left when I was finished, so I decided to make myself a matching hat. It only took about three hours to whip out, but I think it turned out really cute. I was planning on taking a self-portrait while wearing it, but as I am broken out like a teen just hitting puberty, that's not going to happen.

After the hat, I decided to return to the yarn I had left from the Moderne Baby blankets, kimonos and hats and whipped out these two little kimonos. I made some changes to the pattern as written in the Mason Dixon Knitting book. Specifically, when you're adding stitches to the rows for the sleeves, the instructions tell you to use a backward-loop cast on. I didn't like this from the first two that I made, it seems a little too loose and sloppy to me, so I used a cable cast on instead. I really liked the result since it's more solid feeling to me. Also, on the first two, I used a yarn-over, k2tog to create the buttonholes. I decided this time to use a buttonhole technique we learned at Stitches from Chris Bylsma for a more tailored look. It involves binding off a number of stitches, then casting them on again to create the hole. Again, really happy with the result!

So, that's pretty much it for now. Hubby's getting in soon, (YAY!) so I'd better get ready to go get him.