Happy Mole Day!

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

6.02x10**23 atoms or molecules -- Happy Mole Day!! I never even realized that this basic tenet of chemistry actually had its own day, but my chemistry professor brought in cookies yesterday for all of his students in celebration of today, 10/23, so I pass along my great joy to you as I say, Happy Mole Day!

Thank you for sending me your extra copy of Vogue's 25th Anniversary issue! It arrived yesterday, and as you've said, there is nothing more fun than receiving an unexpected package in the mail! Thank you so much! I'm very much enjoying reading through it!
My seven year old was clearly jealous of my package, and my five year old immediately started squishing/popping the plastic air bubbles inside of the bubble/mailing envelope (which was so pretty in all of its floral glory -- very fun)!

I've been sewing and knitting when I can, and have a few things to share with you. First, my five year old saw this paw print fabric and has been asking for a "fleece jacket with a zipper" for a few months, so I got busy on that.(Okay, so he's wearing his pajamas in these photos, but just so you know, when he wears the jacket outside, he actually has real pants on...)

I've also been pushing to finish Sapporo. The lower hem is sewn in place, complete with "zip cord". The front plackets are done and the zipper has been officially sewn into place, though I still will hem stitch around the edges of it to hold it in place better and keep the lower part of it from flapping around (since my zipper ended up being and inch or two longer than the opening for it). I followed the directions in the tutorial on our sidebar for sewing it into place. I still must fold down the neckband and sew it into place. Pictures of the finished sweater, "right side out", in my next post. Here is a snapshot of the finishing which shows the sleeve where it is attached to the sweater, with facing sewn down over the raw cut edge where the sleeve was placed into the body of the sweater.
"Take Two" of the Christmas sweater for my DH is well under way. I totally ripped out the body, because the hem at the lower edge just wasn't going to lie flat, and started again with ribbing. Now I'm about ten inches along (needs to be about 17 before I add the sleeves and start knitting the raglan yoke), and this is probably about 500 yards of yarn knit into the body so far. These hanks of alpaca yarn are great, because they are about 600 yards each, so there aren't going to be very many ends to weave in when the knitting is done -- a very stark contrast from my Sapporo (which has very laborious finishing). Still not certain this will be done before Christmas, since I only work on it when DH isn't around. It's the project I most enjoy knitting these days, even though it is a sea of stockinette -- I think because there seems to be a lot of other stuff going on this fall, and it is nice to just pick something up to knit which requires absolutely no thought. When I make another sweater for DH someday, however, I think I will make sure to select yarn which may be knit on needles larger than size three...

I'm "decorating" in the loosest sense of the word, making fleece pillow covers for the pillows on our (very old) couch. So far, only one is completed, so of course my kids now argue about who gets to sit by the pillow having the soft apple cover on it... I might have the second one done just in time to replace them with pillow covers which are more in the spirit of Christmas. Pattern/instructions are from Nancy Cornwell's books on sewing fleece.

I've been sewing Halloween costumes, too, and will share those in another post. For now, it's back to Tuesday chores. Tuesday is really my only day "off", so now I must go make gold while the sun is shining (if by "making gold", I mean "do laundry, sort paperwork, scrub things"...)...

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)