The sweater fits, so we can get on with more projects

The sweater fits, or will fit even better by winter, when she'll wear it. You may wonder why there's no head. That's because I don't publish recognizable photos of the grandchildren publicly. The family has received the link to the photos of the birthday party last week. She appreciates, particularly, the big pocket.
The party was a success. Cousins from the Paris area and all the grandparents were present. Among the cousins were the ones who moved back to France from Pittsburgh, where they had enjoyed the extended family connection. They miss Pittsburgh. I got the impression that the neighbors where they are, now, are not quite as welcoming.
On Tuesday, I went into Paris, spent some time with a friend who is trying to sort out her mother's succession and is having considerable trouble with her sister and the notaire her sister chose. She's now got our notaire's office on the case on her behalf, but it's still a slow moving process.

From there, I caught a bus to the American Library, where I was scheduled to man the voter registration table before the Pamela Drukerman talk. She's a pretty well-known NYT contributor and author of Bringing up Bébé. Her new book is about becoming a grown-up in her forties. She's a good speaker.
I got a new camera. A bridge, this time. I find the compacts are just too hard to get my hands around. The old Sony got some sand in it when we were in Spain, which is why I was looking for a new one. It's a Panasonic Lumix FZ200. Not the most recent model in the line -- I would have liked WiFi and a universal USB connection, but I settled for lower price. I'm pretty happy with the zoom and the enlargement created by cropping the image.

That sweater -- again

Here's the sweater! I used a pattern generated by sweatermaker software, based on C's measurements and my gauge swatch. She's turning 4, but she'already a little bigger than a standard size 6.
She chose the main brown color and the rusty orange from my stash. I could see I would not have enough of the orange to do much, so I added the white and ripped back the gauge swatch I had of the dark yellow, so there's just a couple of yards of that yarn left. Even then, after knitting the sleeves, I could see that I wasn't going to have enough of the yellow and orange for stripes on the body section. So, I made a pocket.
The sleeves, following the pattern instructions, were too short, so I lengthened them and I lengthened the body a little. I have plenty of that chestnut purée colored yarn. Once I sewed everything up, it looks to me that the yoke is too short, that there isn't enough armhole.
Following the pattern, I knit the two yoke pieces, first, sewed up one seam, and did the neck ribbing. I followed the instructions, but the folded neck was too tight, so I undid the cast off and sewed it shut. Then, sewed the second seam. I put the required stitches from each yoke back onto the machine to knit the first sleeve, from the top, down. And the second one. I had to be extra careful to get the stripes in order -- opposite from the order on the yoke, which was knitted from the bottom, up.
This is exactly where I got to the first time. It went faster because I remembered what I was doing. I was very careful to have the right number of stitches on the yokes. Then it was time to put the body stitches on - front or back, didn't matter. I ran into the same problem as before. The yoke circumference would not stretch enough over the straight needle bed. I had to put the stitches onto a needle and hand knit several rows. I did 17 rows, in all. It was still a tight fit onto the machine, but workable and the rest of the was fine, finished in the time it took to cook the vegetables (about 10 minutes). That was the back. Before repeating for the front, I had to create the pocket so it would be ready to integrate into the front -- and the first time I did that, it was backwards. Again, I'm not used to thinking Top-Down. I had to rip out about 10 rows and put it back on the right way. Just before doing the ribbing, I had to put the bottom of the pocket on the needles, but I forgot. I had to rip out the ribbing and start that bit over.
With all this ripping out and doing over, it took five sessions over two days to do. A much faster feat than had I hand knitted the whole thing. Now comes the test. Will it fit. Especially, will it fit in the Fall and winter. If the yoke is too short, I can unknit a row and add a few extra brown rows and graft it back together by hand.
Can I trust this software to churn out the patterns correctly, or will I have to constantly correct them?

Famille/Family

English first, French after the line _____________________.
We just had a very short mid-week visit with the Northampton crew. They all seem fine. We're fine. Al.. had us over for an excellent lunch to set us off on the return, yesterday. There's absolutely no news to report, which is, as the saying goes, good news.
On our way there, on Tuesday, it was gray and foggy in northern France and pouring cats and dogs on the English side of the Channel. It poured until Luton and continued raining until Milton Keynes. The Northampton area was dry. It was a harrowing drive, though.

The sweater I had started knitting for Ch.. ended up like this. I stuck the frogged balls of yarn onto a circular needle just to keep them in order, so that when I start the project, again, I won't have to go looking for them. (to "frog" knitting means to "rip it" back. Say that fast enough and you'll get it.) I miscounted the number of stitches for the yoke pieces and didn't realize the mistake until the sleeves were all done and I was trying to mount the body stitches. Grr.
This weekend, I intend to call family in the US. Be forewarned. I will try to call at a good time, but we all know that the time zones make that difficult.
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Nous rentrons d'une petite visite à la famille à Northampton. Ils vont bien ; nous allons bien. Al.. nous a invité pour un excellent déjeuner, hier, avant notre départ. Il n'y a pas de nouvelles à rapporter, ce qui, d'après le dicton, est une bonne nouvelle.
La route aller, mardi dernier, était grise et dans le brouillard côté France, mais il pleuvait comme vache qui pisse en Angleterre. Il pleuvait fort jusqu'à Luton, moins fort jusqu'à Milton Keynes, et pas de tout, enfin, à l'approche de Northampton. C'était éreintant.
L'image de toute cette laine sur une aiguille est le résultât du pull que je faisait pour Ch.. J'ai du tout défaire suite à une erreur de montage. J'avais fini les manches et ce n'est qu'en montant les mailles du corps que j'ai vu qu'il me manquait une 20 de mailles de chaque côté. Grr.