Maggie is 17 weeks old!

Isn't she cute? Maggie has survived the swath of illness that swept through the family this week. James went down Monday afternoon, Xander Monday night, and me on Tuesday.  Luckily Maggie and Frank were spared so there was at least one adult to take care of sick and cranky kids and mommies. The boys seem fully recovered today and I am on the mend. It's been our second nasty illness this winter and as luck would have it each time one parent has not gotten sick. It so much easier when you have one functioning adult in the house. Maggie is doing so well.  She is such a joyful and happy little chub. Recently she has started to laugh and it is just the best sound in the whole world. She smiles all the time and is a really good sleeper.  The only time she fusses is when she is overtired and when she is hungry.  And when she is hungry she means business.  Patience is not a virtue that any of my children seem to possess! We go to the doctor next week so we'll make sure she is growing appropriately (of which I have no doubt).

So I finished Maggie's sweet bunting sweater. Of course as I was knitting the yoke I kept thinking to myself this is too long.  So several times I went back to the pattern and read it over and over again to see why my yoke seemed so much longer than the example. Every time I read the pattern over I couldn't see where I had made a mistake.  So I kept going and finished it.  I picked up my stitches along the front and knitted the front bands and it looks so cute!  But still I had this nagging sensation that it didn't look like the example and while my children are tiny I knit this is a 12-18 month size and yet when I tried it on James it wasn't that small.... So I went back to the pattern one last time and realized I had made a huge, horrible mistake! In the pattern it talks about the part where you bring the bunting string across as the "bunting join" and then in the next section when it describes how to knit the yoke it says to knit 4 inches from the "join" so I knit 4 inches from the bunting join, however what I now realize is that the "join" was the sleeve join, not the bunting join, so my yoke is 4 inches too long!!!!! Which is why it is more like a size 2 than 12 months and why it doesn't look like the example. So the age-old question becomes is it ok the way it is or do I rip out the front bands and rip the yoke back and reknit it? The idea of basically ripping apart a completely finished sweater is somewhat nauseating to me but I also want it to fit her. The photo below is of the sweater on James...and although it is a little small (but he is 3 1/2 years old...) I think it actually looks ok.  What would you do?

In any case I used the leftover yarn, which is totally scrumptious by the way, to knit Maggie a little hat. It is sort of a bel cloche but I didn't have enough yarn to do the brim and while I had intended for it to be worn with her sweater I didn't have enough yarn to make a bigger hat (although if I ripped back the sweater...). So I modified the pattern to work with what I had and it fits her now. It is seriously cute on her- looks like she is wearing a little purple cupcake on her head. It is also the first hat that really seems to stay on her head, although it does keep spinning so the "seam" is in the front. I'm gong to have to save my pennies to buy some more of this yarn because it is really lovely and the dusty rose color is calling my name.  

So not much reading going on this week- just some magazines and a couple pages of my dyeing book. It's been hard to read while not feeling well. Come and join the fun over at Ginny's place.