Don't you hate it when a blogger that you read regularly starts posting really infrequently, and every time they post they apologize for leaving it for so long, and promise to try to update more regularly? And then they say that they have lots to post about, but they're going to leave some for next time, but yet they never seem to? Yeah. Me too.

As you may have heard if you read Betseydoodle or Hedgehog Knits, Kelly has moved back to Newfoundland, and before she left, Nancy and I made sure she spent lots of money was well prepared. Somehow, at Wool n Things, we each ended up with a skein of Colinette Jitterbug. I've heard lots about Jitterbug in the blogosphere, but it was the first time I had seen it live and in person. Oh…my…god… it is just so pretty. At one point, a second skein Jitterbugged its way into my hands, but I managed to wrestle the red one back onto the display (where I believe it ended up in Nancy's hands), and walk away with only one skein.  But that skein matched the shirt I was wearing – how could anyone be expected to resist that.  This picture really doesn't do the colour justice, but it does show how well it went with my clothing

See how devious that Jitterbug is. This is not the point of this post, but the yarn has mesmerized me and has taken over all control of my brain.

So, while we were at Wool n Things, I saw some light blue denim yarn (Indigo Real Jeans) on sale. I immediately recalled seeing a pattern on Knitty for some baby jeans that were adorably cute, so I bought some.  At our next stop, Wool-Tyme, I saw some dark blue Schachenmayr Nomotta Blue Jeans yarn, also on sale, so I bought a couple of skeins of that.

When I got home, I looked up the pattern I was thinking about – it was Blu from Knitty.com. And just like I remembered it, it was adorably cute.

On Tuesday of that week, I decided to make a pair. The following Saturday I was going to a baby shower for my friends Nicole and Liam, and their new little guy, Noel. (The shower was supposed to happen in early June, but Noel decided to come a bit early, and foiled our plans!). Although I already had a gift, I just had to cast on Blu that very minute, and get them made before Saturday.

So I did. The knitting part went pretty fast. I had them finished by Thursday evening.  I washed them on Friday evening (Like the Rowan Denim yarn the pattern calls for, the yarn shrinks lengthwise on first washing, so you need to wash the pieces before sewing it together. As well, the yarn is dyed such that it will fade over time, like jeans. When you knit with it, your fingers turn blue because from the dye, which needs to be washed out before it's worn, lest your little baby end up with blue legs. So that first washing also gets rid of the excess dye). So after washing them (and yes, they shrunk exactly to the right length), I started the embroidery and sewing up. That's when the trouble began.

I learned an important lesson about myself and my abilities. I knit well. Quite well. But I can't embroider to save my life. And it's not like I was trying any fancy embroidery moves – running stitch, for the most part. I tried a couple of times and it looked awful, so I left it for Saturday morning. The party wasn't until 4:30, so I had plenty of time, right? Yeah, right.

Part (but only part) of the problem was the yarn I using. I had a couple of different orange cotton yarns in my stash, which I thought would work okay, but they didn't.  So I made an emergency trip to Michael's for some embroidery floss. That worked better, though it didn't improve my overall embroidery skills. And then there was the seaming problem.  The pattern has you make visible seams using orange yarn and backstitch, so that it looks like real jeans. Yeah, sure. My seams looked horrible. Finally after one or two (or five or six) tries, I went with an invisible seam (mattress stitch – that I can do!) and embroidered over top.  Meanwhile, time was ticking quickly. First thing in the morning I had knit and hand-felted a bit of matching orange wool (I have a lot of orange in my stash!), so I embroidered a little tag and sewed that on. I realized after it was on, that it was crooked, but my drive was on its way, so I had no time to fix it. I snapped a couple of quick pictures, threw it in some wrapping paper, and left (I hadn't yet done the embroidery on the inseams when I took these pictures – I figured if I didn't have time for everything, that could be left out. But my drive was late, so I had time to finish it after all!)

When I got to the party, and met little Noel for the first time, I immediately thought that the pants were going to be small. Too big is fine, they'll grow into them – but too small would not be. It turned out that they fit him perfectly. The pants were a huge hit! Nicole took off the pants Noel was wearing, and put on his new baby jeans.

Very cute! 

I have a very busy weekend again this weekend. Last night was Knit Night at the Bridgehead on Wellington, but I had to skip it. I had planned to go, but yesterday morning I fell down my front steps, and both feet were very sore all day. I figured I should stay off them as much as I could, so I stayed home yesterday evening. I'm much better today – still a bit stiff, but I don't think I did any serious damage. Today I'm heading out to J.'s place for her 2nd annual Kool-Aid yarn dying party (and Tara's going away party). That should be fun. And tomorrow is the Ottawa Knitting Guild's 2nd Annual Knit-Out. I'll be there as a Stitch Doctor, so if you come, be sure to say hi!

And in case you were wondering, the afghan has been finished, but I still need to block it. I think I'll pin it on my bed and use the steam iron on it, but I'm waiting for a cooler day. Pictures will come, I promise.