Elephants and Squid

Here are the completed projects from the NH trip:

Elephant Sweater

Detail:

The Elephant Sweater uses this guideline-pattern as the base, adjusted, of course, to my son's measurements. He seems to have a longer torso and arms then the guidelines call for and had me constantly second-guessing my knitting. I do not remember where the elephant graph came from. I've used it before and when I went searching I could not find it either on line or in my graph stash. Instead I grabbed the hat I made last year and regraphed from that. If you look closely you will notice that the elephants march in one directon around the shoulders and in the other direction around the waist. That was DS's idea. Reversing the elephant graph while in the car was a task I would rather not repeat.

Squid Mittens:

The cuffs are worked on 40 stitchs of k2, p2 ribbing and are almost 5 inches long as per the owner's request. The hands are worked on 52 stitches and fit nicely due to the compression that results from the mosaic knitting. The pattern is the mosaic "Four-way Spiral" from Charted Knitting Designs A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G, Walker. I used one and a half repeats of the design keeping the decreases as subtle as possible. The thumbs are on 21 stitches and are also slip-stitched to keep the parallel lines going. DD claims that they are nice and warm.