The spring sweater in January

Okay, so I've finally figured out how to do pictures on this thing. Here is the long awaited January sweater.
I know, it's rather unimpressive at this point, but hey, it's only my second attempt at doing a sweater ever. It's the February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/february-lady-sweater) only adapted to be a little less swingy, with full sleeves, and worked in Old Shale instead of Gull Lace.

(yeah I know the picture's sideways, but I can't figure out how to fix it. Judge not!)

I really wanted to do the Gull Lace pattern but I have a ridiculously hard time going directly from a yarn over and into a slip, slip, knit. I'm sure I'll learn how to do it right some day, but for now I'll just stick to a pattern that I have memorized. Plus I have kind of a thing for Old Shale anyway. I like the natural little scallops it makes at the castoff edge.

Okay, so Christmas 2012. I haven't started yet. Mostly because I'm lazy but partially because I haven't fully decided what to make people yet. I have things picked out for all of my sisters, have the yarn and everything, but I'm torn. I have two little sisters, Lauren and Sarah (one older as well, Adaira, but she doesn't count in this story). Lauren's 14 and Sarah is... I want to say 10 but I have a feeling that two minutes after this is posted I'll get an angry call from someone about not knowing how old my own sister is. Hey, I'm only human.

Anyway, Lauren has always been really responsible and takes good care of her things so I'm not worried about making her something nice, but Sarah is... Well she's 10 (probably). She doesn't really understand that certain things need to be handled really carefully. I can just imagine me knitting her gift out of Pima Cotton/Silk, spending hours and hours making sure it's just right, and bestowing it upon her making sure to tell her a million times; "Do NOT put this in the washer or dryer Sarah Juanita. Have your mom or Lauren take care of washing it, do NOT throw it in with the rest of your laundry, it will be ruined." And then getting a call two weeks later from someone saying: "Sarah mixed it in with the rest of her laundry and it just got thrown in to the washer. Then the dryer. Now it's ruined. Lauren still has her beautiful gift so now Sarah feels left out. Can you make her another one?"

I bet you money that some time shortly after Christmas I will have a very angry blog post retelling that exact story but in the present tense.

So here's my dilemma, knit her something out of nice material anyway even though it will probably be destroyed? Or knit her the same thing, but with a fiber that's a bit more hardy? And superwash. I would just do the later, but Sarah is smart and she knows the expensive stuff from the... Less expensive stuff and I would never hear the end of it. "You love Lauren more, her gift is nicer! Why didn't I get a nice gift?" Thoughts to how I should handle it?

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Knit on, my lovelies.