Steggie, at last, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So, all of a sudden, I am living with two five year-olds. How did that happen?! I have lots to show and tell about their birthday party, but I’ll save that for another day soon. For now, I want to show you the monkey I finally have off my back:

pattern: Steggie , size M, by Julia Farwell-Clay
yarn: KP Shine Worsted, in Grass, 8 skeins plus a tiny bit of a 9th, so just a little more than 600 yards (less than the pattern indicates), plus much less than 1 skein of Serrano (red) and Serenade (purple)
needles: size 5 (for seed stitch), size 7 (for everything else)
cast on:March 27
bind off: May 23
mods: after I bound off the hood, I realized it needed to be much larger for my kid’s huge noggin, so I tinked and added a lot of depth. The hood is huge now, but it fits. I also am going to need to go back and fix the zipper. I really think it needs a longer one than I ordered – I measured well (I thought) but this cotton blend really stretches out (and especially down). Once I get a new zipper and install it, I will also tack down the top. As it is, the top looks pretty tacky!
verdict: He loves it! But I did *not* love knitting it. The pattern itself is cute and clever. But I picked the wrong yarn for it. A nice sturdy wool would’ve been just right. The cotton blend I went with – which I chose so he could wear it for warm weather – was heavy, drapy, and slippery. Doing the spikes in this yarn was a huge pain, and slow going.
raveled

Still, I’m glad to have a happy kid.

You know what else I’m happy about? After Tiny Dancer saw it, he declared he didn’t want one. He wanted something that had a dragon on it, not something that was meant to look like a dragon itself (actually this pattern is meant to be a dinosaur, but my guys like dragons, and had a dragon-themed birthday, so that’s what I went with). After a little etsy searching, I found this:

It’s an appliqued fire-breathing tee from monkeysbug on etsy. He loves it. And it’s so cute! (I would highly recommend this etsy seller – super-cute stuff, super-quick delivery.)

Once I got going on the dragon theme, I couldn’t stop. I also found these cute shirts on Threadless:

It’s a dragon blowing out candles on a birthday cake – appropriate, yes? Of course a week later and it’s on sale. Wishless

I’ll share about their party soon. I think five is going to be a fantastic age!

By the way, I am destashing my unused KP Shine Worsted. Maybe you want to give this pattern a go in this yarn – maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did. Or maybe you have some other pattern in mind. I just know I won’t be using it. I have 13 skeins of the green, 1.5 each of the red and purple, plus a half of a red zipper and a half of a green zipper! Let me know if you might be interested.