In Which the Pirate Buys Yarn.

My brother and sister-in-law found out last week that both of the impending twins are girls! I am so excited to have two more little niecelings on the way. (Only a tiny bit of that is because “nephewling” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.) Right now they’re being referred to as Thing One and Thing Two… yes, my brother is a Dr. Suess fan, why do you ask?

I brought the KnitPicks catalogue with me to New York, and pointed out the Swish Worsted to my sister-in-law as the yarn I thought would be best for the twins’ sweaters. We had a lot of fun looking at the colours, but she already knew that she wanted one sweater to be pink, and one to be purple. It was just a matter of picking the right shades. The pink was easy, since there was only one that we liked – the other was way too bright. This colourway is called “Carnation”. Carnations are my favourite flowers, and maybe the Pink Nieceling will grow up to like them as well.

The purple was a little more difficult, since there were more shades to choose from. After going back and forth we decided that this “Amethyst Heather” would work well. The plan is to make two “Presto Chango” sweaters (link to free pattern on Jimmy Beans Wool) with an extra front panel in each colour. The twins can then wear solid colours, or swap their sweater-fronts for a new look. I’m considering making each panel with a different lace pattern so I don’t get too bored with knitting the same thing four times over. Two identical sweaters will be enough as it is; it’s a good thing that baby knits go so quickly!

I wasn’t sure how much of each colour to buy, so I asked the wise minds on the Ravelry forums, and we settled on five skeins per sweater. That should definitely be enough for the extra panel as well. Someone suggested that if there was enough yarn remaining after the sweaters were done, I could knit a hat. That seemed like such a good idea that I bought one extra skein in “Sugar Plum” to coordinate. If I have time, I’ll stripe it with the leftovers to make two not-quite matching hats.

The three yarn pictures in this post came directly from KnitPicks’ site. I’m sure I’ll take my own pictures as soon as the yarn arrives!