i finished!
luke's sweatervest is finished! i finished the actual knitting saturday...then delayed the seaming until monday....and the weaving in the 2,000 ends and sewing on buttons until yesterday morning. i'm pretty pleased with it. this is the first piece where i actually paid attention to weaving in ends (i think it took me like 2 hours total) and did mattress stitch instead of, "umwhatever, it won't fall apart" stitching like i usually do.
i even got the stripes to line up reasonably well.
the details:
someone made this vest (scroll down), which is in the book Kids, Kids, Kids, and had it on display at my lys. i fell in love with it, but i didn't want to buy the book for various reasons, so i figured i'd do it myself. i got this pattern, from the lion brand website...but due to my gauge crisis and the fact that luke is bigger than the pattern, i basically had to trek out on my own. but i did it.
it's made with less that one skein of red heart super sport in soft navy, with a small bit of red heart sport in paddy green, yellow, white, and cherry red. knit on size 2 needles (it's DENSE, but he won't mind).

the book that you see in the background of the first picture is My Car by byron barton. i saw this in the library and knew i had to buy it to go along with the vest. not only does luke love books with bright, fun pictures, but:
it features a female mechanic (go binary gender role subversion!)

and ethnic diversity:
i definitely recommend it if you've got a little one who loves cars.  ¶ 7:12 AM