When summer attacks.

Appropriately, I finished my Seasonally Inappropriate sweater in the middle of a ninja heat wave -- the last few days were lovely and rainy, with some great storms, and then SURPRISE! Out of nowhere, another heat advisory. It was 100 degrees today, and it will be 100 degrees tomorrow. And I have a completed wool/alpaca sweater. Details to follow when the sweater is washed and blocked and the weather is sufficiently cool enough to try it on for longer than 30 seconds.

As much as I love summer, I'm ready for autumn. I've got another sweater on the go and it's moving quite quickly, and I have almost decided to take Lettuce to California with me. At least Lettuce is the front-runner at the moment. The laceweight yarn is the biggest appeal -- no dragging along half a dozen (or more) skeins of wool for a sweater. Three skeins is all the sweater should take for my size. And even though each skein of Malabrigo laceweight is 470 yards, the wound skeins are tiny and should fit quite nicely in carry-on luggage.

Thank you for all your congratulations on Lydia's arrival. I know I am probably a bit biased, but I think she's just lovely and I can't wait to meet her.

In other news of New People I am Really Excited About, my dear friend Sarah and her husband had a beautiful baby boy almost two weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to go meet the little guy in the hospital. I also had the honor of making his going-home hat.

I know you can't see his hat very well, so here's a better picture of it:

I made the Thorpe pattern (Rav link) and used DK-weight yarn on smaller needles to make an infant size. I kind of made up the duck's bill on the fly -- he had a duck outfit to wear home from the hospital and I wanted it to match. The yarn is Knitpicks Crayon, a 100% cotton yarn that is beautifully, beautifully soft. I used white and orange and dug around in my button stash for the eyes. I was really impressed with the yarn and how soft it was. I haven't knitted much with cotton because it usually bothers my hands, but this was really nice to knit with.

There are just babies everywhere these days!