Progress and Completion

There I was, frantically working on the Mason Dixon Knitting dishcloth cotton Baby Kimono for its Wednesday completion date while traveling to visit family over the long weekend, when it happened. Yes, though I had packed not only the kimono but my brothers ginormous, seemingly doomed Maize and Blue Stained Glass Blanket, with its many skeins of yarn, just in case I finished the kimono ahead of schedule, I forgot to pack the as-yet unused ball of Peaches and Cream yarn I needed for the kimono.

Thus, upon finishing the first front, I had to disengage and hope that I would have enough time when I got home on Labor Day night. Instead, perhaps partially out of guilt, I took up my brother's seemingly doomed blanket and tried to figure out whether or not what I had knit on the new square thus far was salvageable.

What do you know? It was. All the problems I saw with it when last I worked on it just weren't there anymore, so I have to chalk them up as wild hallucinations brought on by blanket fatigue. With the problems no longer an issue, I spent a good chunk of Monday banging out rows on the blanket, until, that is, I realized that I forgot to bring the extra skein of white I need to start on the white-colored interior detail of the football I'm intarsia-ing for this particular square. There I was, Monday afternoon on a four-day vacation week with absolutely no viable knitting to do. I could blame only myself.

Here it is, the bottom brown-only portion of the football, right before the white striping and laces come into play.

Either that or I have a very large mustache.

Back at home after an hour and a half drive, I got to work on the second sleeve/front of the kimono from Monday into Tuesday, finishing it up for a quick soak, block, and sun-drying on the back porch by around 3 p.m. By 6 p.m., I started in on the seaming, pausing to play a game of Scrabble before the kid's bedtime, and sewed on the buttons just shy of 9:30 p.m., having searched for and found the perfect shade and size of brown buttons in a mason jar of assorted buttons I purchased at a consignment shop last summer.

It turned out just as Mason Dixon Knitting predicted it would: quick, cute, and practical, despite the fact that before I seamed it up, it looked like this:

Mom-to-be seemed to like it and I hope baby feels likewise. I figure, since the baby will be born in the summer, a nice light cotton jacket will help keep him warm on chilly summer nights.

I even made my deadline, even with the additonal knitting done to my brother's blanket, though I did learn a valuable lesson: In a vacation situation, you can never bring too much yarn.