Real Housewives of Orange County & Oliver's Sweater!

Hello from hot, sunny, southern California.  We are in the midst of a heat wave and I can hardly wait until it goes away.  How I long for those cloudy, rainy days of western Washington......

We had a fun afternoon yesterday.  Every year our investment/insurance representative hosts a afternoon boat cruise out of Newport Beach.  We attended yesterday and it was so pleasant.

 

Here's a photo from yesterday showing my husband with our host, Vicki Gunvalson (one of the Real Housewives of Orange County) and her assistant, Linda.  I don't watch the housewives show, so I don't know about all the drama.  But I will say, that Vicki is a charming, intelligent business person who owns a well run business.  She's a very nice person.

Are you ready?......I finally finished Oliver's sweater.  It's not that it was difficult.  It was an extremely easy pattern but for some reason, the sizing was a problem.  I had to measure and remeasure to get this little sweater to fit.  My grandson Oliver, is five years old, tall and thin.  So, here's the finished product:

 

 This picture shows it's bright pink but it's actually dark burgundy.  I bought the yarn three years ago when I was visiting Croatia. It's an acrylic/wool blend.

I used a combination of two different patterns that I had in my file.  I'm not a big fan of one of them as I had used it before and the sizing seems to be way off.  Anyway, I wanted a raglan sleeve with a hood. 

I added the garter stitch border around the front edges, bottom edge and sleeve.  I didn't want to use ribbing since I had in mind to finish it off with toggle buttons.

Here's a close up of the buttons and loops. I bought these resin toggle buttons on ebay.  I wanted shorter ones but these worked at 1 1/4".  I made loops using two strands of yarn and crocheting a chain of 9 stitches.  I attached these loops to the front borders of the sweater.

I finished off the front edges by sewing a strip of grosgrain ribbons on each side.  It helps give the sweater extra strength and body. (sorry for the bright pink color - it really is burgundy!)

Tomorrow I'm going to give this sweater to Oliver.  I had him try it on so many times (I even took it to Hawaii on worked on it).  Last time he told me, "Grandma, I'm tired of that sweater"!  He's so cute I can't get after him.

Have a wonderful week and I do hope you can take time to say "hello" or sign up to follow my blog.  In the meantime, please stop by Handmade Harbour .

Have a wonderful weekend!
Pat