Springing towards Summer

The weather is toasty warm, the columbines are out, and I've found the macro button on my camera again. On Friday morning I heard screaming in the sky as I walked up the road to the bus stop, and I looked up to see the first swifts. Only a few, and they seem to have gone again, but they will be back, and I will spend my summer evenings sitting slanted on the sofa so I can look out through the fan-light in the door and see them whizzing about.

I have also stopped procrastinating and finished the little jacket for the niecephew that I started on the 29th of March. It was a much quicker knit than the time it took suggests. I kept taking breaks as I worried about the colour (I thought it was neutral, Chris thought it was rather blue, and we eventually decided that it doesn't need to have the buttons sewn on until the child actually makes an appearance, so those you can see in the picture below are not stitched down, and will be replaced by something in navy blue if the infant is a boy after all).

Then I worried about the size. It seemed awfully small, even for a newborn babe. I found myself in Sainsburys, measuring baby-gros (doesn't everyone keep a measuring tape in their bag?) but was not fully reassured until I had shown it to mum, who as the mother of three ought to have some idea what size a baby is.

Then I worried about my ability to pick up stitches and knit respectable button-bands. I have knitted many things, but not a lot of button-bands, and I have seen some awful ones in my time. Finally I sat down to it this morning, determined to finish the jacket off so I could start something new, and did them. Several times over. They look alright now.
The pattern is the Mossy Jacket, and I re-sized it for a newborn by using a lighter weight yarn (Araucania Pomaire, one skein with substantial leftovers, fantastically even stitches) and smaller needles (4.5mm and 5mm). Without the crippling attacks of self-doubt, it would have taken a week.

Now I am going to have crippling attacks of self doubt over my ability to handle cobweb-weight yarn. And watch more Battlestar Galactica. But not at the same time, because BSG demands concentration, as does cobweb, and I only have so much brain to go round.