Catching up with y'all.

Since my post ten days ago, I've frogged that vest back (which I thought was black, but turned out to be navy blue, verging on midnight blue) and whipped up a new one in the same dark green as the first vest half. I did not like the feel of the fabric. The blue yarn needs to be worked on 5-0's or maybe 6-0's. I've cast on the front, worked three rows, and set it aside for a few quick household chores.

I saw something at Knit Night that I want to get for Blessing's yarn basket. I even have a picture of it, but my phone is sulking in the charger.

It's almost bedtime, so I'm going to surprise everyone, myself most of all, and not even think about fighting the urge to fall asleep.

Night, y'all.

Black, right?

This is the yarn I am using for the second half of Justice's vest. Photographed in the very bright incandescent light of my bedroom.

This is what I saw as I sat in Relief Society this morning, photographed in the very bright fluorescent light of the classroom.

That's not grey. And it's not Prussian blue. What it is, is darkest navy, almost midnight blue. So I guess I may be forgiven for thinking it was black. And it will still look wonderful with the dark green of the first vest half.

And now if you will excuse me, I have knitting to do.

Done.

The finished but as yet unblocked doll vest, part one.

I'm eight rows in on the second piece, which is black, which means that I'll have to slow down and work with plenty of light if I don't want to botch it entirely. Even though I now know how to modify the pattern, the second piece may take as long as the first one did with all of its frogging, recalculating, and intermittently patient slogging.

I'm going to try to put in two more rows before calling it a day.

So maybe worth 500 words.

Justice's first vest half, ready for the I-cord ties and bind-off. That tiny spot dead center is intentional. A tie from the second vest half will pass through it to adjust the fit at her waist.

You ask, was it a royal pain to pick up a loop from each garter stitch bump all along the top edge? Yes. Yes, it was. The designer (as we've previously established, not me) is brilliant. But right now I kinda want to pelt her with marshmallows. Big fluffy ones. Not little fossilized ones. (Because my kids asked.)

I picked up the stitches for the armscye bind-off before church and during Sunday School. I finished it and wove in the ends during Relief Society. I will probably start the ties in a few minutes, although I doubt I'll finish before bedtime. At some point I will need to pick up stitches around the other three sides and finish them off, but I am severely tempted to cast on the second vest half instead. And I may end up redoing the armscye bind-off. It's a little more snug than I would like. Maybe that will be my reward for slogging around the borders of this vest.

Mostly fixed.

The side panel is done, and most of the ends are woven in. My final task before crashing last night was to pick out the woven-in ends at the shoulder and frog back to where I have two separate sections. Tonight I'll adjust the length of the shoulder straps, fore and aft, and finish it out properly.

Today has been mostly about napping and quilt blocks.

I did buy two patterns online, one for a Victorian walking dress and the other for a steampunk outfit. She credited my shipping and sent me PDFs.

Can't. Wait.

Knitting progress, of a sort.

I worked the first vest all the way to the waist, then tried it on Justice to see what needed tweaking. I ended up frogging it all the way to the armscye, eliminating the underarm increases, and now I'm creeping slowly along to the waist, improvising the central decreases and making notes so I can replicate this on the second half of the vest.

I'm still having fun. I'm definitely learning a lot. And I'm heading back to my knitting now.

So, this happened today.

TheKid (my junior attorney) came up to my desk right after I got there and said that he and his daughter had been out this weekend and found a book she thought I might like. She's six, but apparently she's pretty impressed that some grownups still play with dolls.

The book was originally published in 1957. This is a 1985 reprint. The story is charming. I handed it to Fourthborn to read after I got home from Knit Night, and she noticed that some of the pages had been cut out. So I consulted the Google & Thummim, and there's a whole series of these books. About half of them are still in print and available, presumably, through Amazon.

There has also been a bushel of knitting on the doll vest, which I want to get back to, so this is all you get for now.