November 3, 2003. Here's the body of the sweater. I finished it with five rows of 2x2 ribbing, and then four rows of stockinette, so I'd have some decorative curling, but wouldn't have to worry about the entire sweater curling up to the armpits.

August 4, 2003. I've finished the top of the sweater:

Right now it looks like some sort of crazy bat wing getup. At any rate, now that it's at the body part, I can just knit round and round without increasing or decreasing, so I'm all ready for some relaxing knitting whenever I go into labor.

July 30, 2003. I've suddenly decided that I'd like something to knit while I'm in labor. Now, I know this may be a ridiculous notion. But the fact is that knitting relaxes me so much, that I think I'd really like to be able to (at least try to) knit while in labor. Or, at the very least, I'd hate to want to knit and not have anything appropriate. I decided I wanted to do something very simple and circular, so I could just knit and knit and not worry about rows. I originally thought I'd get some fancy bulky yarn and knit a tube scarf on 16-inch circulars. But when I went to the yarn store yesterday, none of the yarns really said "scarf" to me, except maybe for the novelty yarns, and I'm not really a novelty-yarn-scarf type of person. Then I decided that maybe I don't want a scarf at all.

So I shifted gears and decided to knit the Knitting Pure & Simple Bulky Neck-Down Pullover (#992), which I already had the pattern for. I got a bunch of Lamb's Pride Bulky in Blue Magic, got the needles I needed, and ran home to start knitting. I want to be able to get to the body of the sweater (the part below the sleeves) before I go into labor, since that's just straight knitting without increasing or decreasing. So far it's going pretty well. I've got 22 more rows until the sleeves, and should be able to finish that today or tomorrow. And this way, even if I don't knit while in labor, at least I'll have started a sweater that I want anyway, rather than some scarf that I didn't particularly want.