It's done!

You wouldn't believe the problems the button caused lol.  First of all, as we live in the middle of nowhere, a seventy mile round trip was made to buy a button.  Then there was choosing said button which was a lengthy process.  I took the sweater with me, (a miracle in itself that I remembered!).  But, we had other shopping to do also so we did that and checked out and afterwards when I opened my purse (handbag for my English friends) to put the receipt away I spotted the sweater in it's ziplock baggy and realised I hadn't purchased the button. My wonderful husband who has some serious health problems was by this time exhausted so he sat  with the cart full of shopping and waited while I went back to get it.  We shop in a superstore that thankfully sells everything.

Now came the choosing process.  I was hoping to find a cutesy button of a teddy bear or something similar but they were all too big and jagged which I thought might scratch my grandson's neck.  So then I thought I would get one that matched either the brown or the beige but nothing jumped out at me and then I spotted the one(s) I bought.  They were wooden buttons that incorporated both colours of yarn.........perfect.

That was Monday.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was my birthday and I decided to have a chill day and not do a lot.  Something very rare for me. It was also the hottest day of the year so far, 109F about 42C. Later in the afternoon though I thought I had been lazy enough, plus being lazy is very boring I realise, so decided I would sew on the button.

Now as this is my first garment on the machine I have been ultra meticulous in sewing in the ends etc so I sewed on the button, sewing in the ends in the edge of the neckband where it joins the main body.  It was an amazing work of art.....but...the button wasn't in the right place, when it was done up the neck edges didn't fall in line. aarrgghh!!!!!.  So, I unpicked it all.  Then my brother called from Canada to wish me happy birthday so I was trying to talk to him and mess with the button at the same time and sewed it on again only to find it still wasn't right. double aarrgghh!!!!  Then it was time to eat so I abandoned it.

Sat down after dinner (tea for the English and supper for the Canadians) to watch some TV and decided to try again.  Carefully unpicked it again.  Then I got wise!  I kept trying it by just threading the yarn through two holes of the button and holding the yarn at the back to see if the button was placed correctly.  I finally found the perfect spot and sewed it on properly.

So messing with the button took as much time as knitting the front even with all the problems I encountered with that lol.

So here it is.......

I am ready to move onto the next garment now.  This one has been fun and a learning experience but I am ready to mail it off.

Soooooo, next one will be for another grandson who is 14 months old.  He will be one and a half when it will be cool enough for him to need a sweater, he lives in California.  Plus he is an altogether much bigger baby that my other grandson so I will knit for an age 2 at least.

I have some royal blue yarn and some green, both 2/24 weigh which is about 1.5 ply.  So two strands together shouldn't be too thick for him.

I thought I would do the rib in a mixture of both colours then do alternate stripes of blue and green.  Will do a swatch to see how it looks.  Another simple garment to get broken in with the machine.

My husband is already joking that he has been thrown over for the knitting machine lol so don't want to overdo it.  he is and always will be my first love.