Yarn choices

Sadly I have nothing to take pictures of. I made some good progress on St. Brigid, but found a mistake about 7 rows down and needed to drop down and try and fix it. Not good soccer-watching knitting. The cabled sock number one is done and I have not cast on yet for number two... because I started a tea cozy. My LYS is having a contest on the best tea cozy and entries are required by the 31st. Mine is for my little two cup tea pot that I use nightly. I always wished I had a cozy for it. I have cast on 3 times and ripped back twice. 3rd time's a charm I hope. It will be totally impractical because the tea will drip down the spout and stain it, but I didn't want one that I had to take off and put back on every time I poured a cup. I actually thought about knitting it up in a brown yarn, but a pink alpaca won over. I'll post a picture later.

The baby sweater pieces are blocking before I sew them up. Meantime I did some surfing last night and found someone who knit a beautiful sweater in some Sublime yarn (not the baby yarn) that has totally pilled and gotten fuzzy with very little wear. I hope that doesn't happen with the little hat I made, but I am going to run it through the wash a few times to see if it is worth using that yarn for a baby sweater. In the past I have used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for baby sweaters. I thought it was great because it was machine washable, but since all the sweaters I made were gifts, I never really saw how well they stood up to multiple washings until I made my son fingerless mitts with the same yarn. He wore them to school in the winter for several weeks and then I noticed them on his desk, ignored, looking shabby, pilly and old. I could not believe how horrible they looked. I used the sweater stone on them and it did revive them, but now I have re-considered my choice of wool for baby items. Maybe the microfiber in the cashmerino is what makes it so pilly? I don't know, but a mother of a baby has lots more to do than have to use a sweater stone on a baby sweater. Also, if one is going to spend the time to knit a sweater (especially an adult-sized sweater) with fairly expensive yarn, it had better hold up through several wearings/washings. I love knitting blogs.... I get so much useful information!