Happy Easter!

We've been busy bees these past few days gearing up to Easter Sunday. We're having both our families over for lunch after church tomorrow (today) and so like many of you, we've been cleaning and planning and shopping and cooking...well and knitting of course!

I finished Peter Rabbit today and faced my fear of embroidering a friendly face too. Ain't he cute. Julian seemed thrilled for all of 30 seconds then dropped it to the floor and crawled for another toy. Oh, well. Can't win them all. Maybe he'll have more interest in him during mass tomorrow. Afterall, he is holiday appropriate and quiet enough for church ;0)

I used this pattern but made lot of modifications: I made it 25% smaller because I only had 17 yards of the navy yarn left and ran out before getting to the crotch of the pants so I printed out the pattern and basically multiplied every number by 0.75 and rounded up or down for my smaller version and it worked out great. Oh, and because I think it's hilarious, here's a picture of Peter in the making...

I knit the whole thing in the round to avoid seaming which looks so much neater this way than it would have with a seam running down the back. I also changed the ears: I didn't really like how the garter stitch looked so I worked a 10 stitch tube, folded each end lengthwise on itself and tacked it closed about 5 mm in from both the top and bottom to give it that bunny ear shape.

I'm glad I finished it too because the mailman rang on Thursday to drop off this:

How cool is that? It is the Palette sampler from Knit Picks. I ordered it to knit a nativity and advent calendar like these (scroll down and click on each booklet to see a preview of some of the pieces - amazing stuff, eh?). Talk about an early start! I figure, if I don't start now I'll never get it done in time for Christmas (especially since I'm going back to work in July). Plus, this way I can knit the pieces according to the Project Spectrum colour sequence. Ah, multitasking! So the yellow angel is first. Notice I got some orange sock yarn too which I'd also like to start this month but first, I have to finish my sisters' socks first.

And, because no post is complete without one, here's a picture of Julian on the swings yesterday.

We went to visit his cousins G and T and were compelled to go to the park together. The weather is just great these days. We took out our patio swings and barbecue too and are living it up like it's July! It's great! Burgers on the grill anyone?

Cheers!