Yarn Along: Spring Shrugs

I finished Katie's Easter sweater.

I know the many mistakes I made while knitting this shrug. It amazes me that, despite those mistakes, the sweater really does look darling on her. And she loves it. I've had a hard time keeping her from wearing it every day. I think that's a great testimony to the pattern. Truly, before this shrug, I had only knit washlcoths. This is  perfect pattern for learning. (Nicholas did ask me if I was ever going to knit a whole sweater.)

Katie's shrug is a little tight through the top. I should have made the 10 for her and made the 8 instead (so ended up adapting the sleeves a bit). We decided to skip the buttons, since they would strain. But, Sarah's doesn't have button either yet, because I still can't figure out how to do the loop. Comments open for kind-hearted tutorials:-).

And I have begun to work on a shrug for Karoline. Elizabeth is knitting Karoline's Easter shrug in blue. {If you click here, you can see the blue cashmere and you can read a wonderful picture tutorial on how to dye yarn with children, using Easter egg dyes.}

The sweater I'm making Karoline is my first attempt to stripe. So far, so good. It's fun to switch colors so often and it's so much easier to count rows. Seriously, I had the hardest time counting rows with the other two. There must be some row-counting trick I'm missing. I love the Spud and Chloe sweater yarn. It handles easily. The wool content is bothersome. I don't think I could wear it and I do have to put it away and take Zyrtec every so often, but it knits beautifully. I found myself considering allergy shots last night. I wonder if they even do those for wool allergies. I keep telling myself that by handling it, I'm desensitizing myself (I'm not really believing that, though.)

Still following the same Lenten reading plan: knit and listen. When the children are awake, I listen to them read these to me.

I'm also reading quite a few new blogs, thanks to last week's blitz through all the Yarn Along posts at Ginny's. Go!