The Hunt

Last night I finally got around to watching "Quest for Dragons" (which had been in the DVR queue for a couple weeks). It was fairly interesting. I got a bit of my scarf done.

There was this section about how dragons could have been a way that ancient man interpreted the found bones and fossils of dinosaurs. So, they spent some time talking to paleontologists and comparing and contrasting dinosaurs and dragons.

I've never been a big dinosaur fan, but my nephew lately has gone dinosaur mad. So, as I sat there and knit I had an inspiration. Dinosaur sweater for Topher. Christmas is coming!!!

It's never too early to start Christmas knitting. Every year I swear I'm going to get to it earlier, but it's usually about this time that the gears start up. And, assuming that Topher will still be dinosaur mad in December, and that I can anticipate how fast he's growing (so that I don't knit a too small sweater), I may have a plan. Well, first I have to make a plan.

Where do I find a dinosaur sweater pattern? They have to exist. First I tried Ravelry. I was sorely disappointed. It had lots of stuffed dinosaur patterns, but only a couple sweater patterns, and those were unobtainable. Then I had to resort to my least favorite resource--my stash.

I've subscribed to three knitting magazines for nearly a decade now. The magazines only come out once a season, but that means that I have more than a hundred (I'm afraid to count). Plus, I pick up interesting ones when I see them. And I have no handy index of what patterns are where. The only way to see what a magazine has in it is to actually thumb through it.

It was about 1 AM when I started the search. At about 2 AM my eyes started to blur, so I gave up and went to sleep. Then when I got up I sat down with my entire pattern stash and continued the search. What did I come up with? Three not-quite-right patterns. Ugh!

I thought that mine was a common situation. Boys love dinosaurs, right? So, there should be some more patterns--any patterns--out there. I went back to searching the Internet.

I finally came across something that might work. But the pattern was from Norway. The website is not in English. And there is no way to obtain the pattern here. I checked. So, I guess I'm on my own.

Of course, the dinosaur phase could pass, and then I'm off the hook. Although, I'll still need to come up with some sort of gift. Well, two. Then I've still got to deal with his birthday.