Summer Sweater and Summer News

First, the summer news of our baby robins. As I was reporting in my last post, we had been watching a nest of baby robins grow. But, sadly, I'm afraid they met a tragic end. I had been trying to take photos everyday because they were growing so fast. and I was hoping to catch them as they learned to fly, with Mom and Dad clucking around them, urging them up and away. But, alas, it never happened. I had missed a day of photos and went out to capture them the next day but this is what I saw.

It's probably hard to see in this photo but
notice the empty nest fallen over and
hanging sideways. The best part of
the mess is shown.

Even though I hadn't wanted a messy, noisy robin's nest on our peaceful back porch, we were enjoying the positive aspects of it: seeing mama robin bring the youngsters worms, seeing one of the parents nestling down on top of them during cool evenings, even sitting out on the porch with her sitting silently on her nest, not moving - thinking we couldn't see her hidden behind that fake tree she was using for protection.

So we were all saddened by the turn of events. I didn't photograph the mess of blood and feathers on the floor of the porch. It was gross! But we surmised that the white cat we've seen prowling about our place was the culprit. The cat appears to be fed so we assume it belongs to a neighbor who lets it out from time to time. Bad idea. Cats get a lot of diseases when they are outside and they kill lots of birds. If cats could be trained to only snag mice, we'd all be happier. Or maybe only kill mice and cowbirds - but don't get me started on the brown-headed cowbird.

Here are a few photos from happier days:

And onto the happy news of my Cottonation summer sweater. The name of the sweater is Bandstand by Louisa Harding. It is not a free pattern but following the Ravelry link above, you could find out how to purchase the pattern. It is shown in the picture as being made with bulky yarn and the large version is more like a dress on the thin, young model. But a friend of mine has made 3 of these and has adapted the pattern for worsted yarn and made to fit normal, aging bodies. ;^) She taught a class at our LYS and has a second one underway. The class was a lot of fun, 3 sessions each and each time a few of the ladies brought lunch. Fellowship, Food and Knitting - what great fun.

Original short version

Original Long Version

Our version, adapted by our teacher

The sweater is knitted from side-to-side and was my first side-to-side knitting project. It takes some brain-adjusting to figure things out when you've always knitted bottom to top. If, by chance, anyone purchases the pattern and would like the numbers that we used for sizing the Bandstand sweater, just let me know in the comments or by email and I will share with you what we did.     

       

Also, we all did slightly different things with the sleeves. Many were made with 3/4 length sleeves. I made mine with sleeves just below the elbow. Hiding aging elbows is a good thing!

Here are the sweaters that were finished by the
end of our 3 session class. The green one and the
white one were both knitted by our teacher, who is
wearing the green one.

Here's the teacher in her 2nd sweater.
I do not have a photo of her 1st one.

I am on the left in the blue
sweater. Our teacher made
the other 2 sweaters and
she is in the middle.