We had a phenomenally beautiful weekend. The weather was picture perfect – not too warm and not too cool, sunny and just perfect. We had company for the weekend, too, so we were able to spend a lot of time on the porch and I got lots of time to knit.

I’ve been working a lot this weekend on a gift for my niece and her husband who are expecting their first baby, a boy, in just about a month. I’ve got several gifts ready to send or bring to them but this is the one that I am most excited about. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog (I’m pretty sure that there are only a handful of you who do, so I’m going to risk posting progress photos of it.

The pattern is called Owl Baby Vest and it’s a free pattern on Ravelry. I am knitting it with a great red Vintage DK yarn. I have one skein and it should be enough to finish the whole garment. When I saw it I knew it HAD to be the “sweater” for my niece who loves owls (and her husband is an Alabama fan so the color is spot on, too.)

The pattern has been an interesting experience. I don’t believe it’s been tech edited so the language and the steps aren’t always clear. I have minimally altered several of the steps, starting with the very beginning. I didn’t want the starting point to be under an arm but I wanted it at the center back which meant knitting 27 stitches before starting the owl pattern. I also had to “fix” the underarm decreases and the setup for dividing the back from the front and the two sides of the front, too. I’ll put the specific steps that I made differently into the notes on my Ravelry project page for this little vest.

As of today, I’ve attached the shoulders and I’ve picked up the stitches around the collar (t’s a v-neck vest so there were quite a few stitches to pick up.) I’ll get them stitched in the next couple of days and the arms, too. I’m excited to see what it looks like when the pieces are all done! My plan is to add stitched on eyes for the owls – I haven’t decided if I will sew on eye buttons or if I’ll keep it even safer and stitch on eyes with yarn. But the cabled owls need eyes.

I’ll update this post when the little owl vest is finished.

Today I pulled out my Aeslight Shawl again after a brief vest knitting respite. I have finished all but the knitted on edging. It also occurred to me that I don’t have enough of the yarn for the larger size shawl which is the one that I’ve knitted of course. So, I’ll be hoping to find another skein of yarn, Malabrigo Sock in the Tiziano Red colorway. I’ll be crossing my fingers and toes. If I don’t find the red, I’ll be forced to choose a second colorway for the edging which isn’t my preferred result but I think it will be acceptable. If it’s not, I’ll be starting it over with a new yarn because I really love this shawl. AND I chose it to knit because my friend and coworker just came home from Shetland.

Aeslight is knit in traditional Shetland construction: a garter stitch triangle and then stitches are picked up in the yarn-over edge and you knit a border which, in this case, is a bird’s eye lace pattern that I loved knitting once I learned to look at my knitting. The third section is a knitted-on edging. I’ve just completed two repeats of the edging and it’s fun but my tired brain needed to rest tonight. And, I’m not sure about the yarn amounts. So … it’ll have to wait until I get to the store and see if there is one more skein of red yarn. Or not. What a rookie mistake!

Gone knitting.