Live and Let Knit

This sweater is knitting up quite fast. I had cast on for the first sleeve at SnB on Wednesday night and by late Saturday evening I was starting on the second sleeve. I do think that I am going to have to go back and redo the sleeve cap shaping. I keep goofing and forgetting that the DEC listed in the pattern’s special instructions is a k3tog instead of just two. My friend Karen will often knit the sleeves of a sweater first instead of starting with the body. Sounds like something I’m going to have to try. Karen also knits both sleeves at once and both socks at once, but I think that would slow me down too much since I don’t like dropping the yarn from my right hand while I’m working.

I finally got a good picture of the stitch markers that Audrey picked out for me – she has awesome taste. The trick was to wait for sun-light and crop the picture instead of trying to use the zoom on the camera.

Aren’t the tails on the mice too cute!

The circular needles in the top picture are something special to me. Back in the fall of 1996 I had bought an Alice Starmore book and was determined to make a sweater. There was a sweater in that book that was all knits and purls which I thought would be easy enough to learn on. I actually can’t remember if I had ever made anything other than swatches by that time.

I had bought some skeins of acrylic and the suggested size 7 circulars. At the time I was very new to knitting and didn’t quite know about the importance of the length of the cord between the needles. I had way too many stitches and it was almost impossible to work with. My mom went out and bought me my first pair of Inox circulars with a much longer cord. They made such a huge difference on how smooth the stiches were. Too bad she didn’t have a magic solution when I discovered that I had been working on a mobius strip for 8 inches.

I finished all but the sleeve cuffs of that sweater and then didn’t knit for several years. Back then I didn’t quite understand gague (not sure if I’ve got it yet either) so it’s been stored away for a future life as a maternity sweater.

When I was looking for links to the pattern picture I saw that they are making a new movie version of the Threepenny Opera wikipedia. I’m not familiar with the story/musical so this is a great opening for further research

Note the critter chewing on my stitch marker strings and staking her claim on this sweater…

Now that I’ve shown pictures of my stash and the cats its time to start talking about my WIPs. (work in progress)

My largest projest at the moment is to hopefully turn this:

into this:

Three Penny pullover by Veronik Avery published in Interweave Knits Fall 2004.

I’m really enjoying working with this yarn. When Elann.com originally offered it I was going to buy a whole bunch in different colors. The price was right and it’s superwash too! Then Elann posted that they found the yardage to be substantially less than the manufacturer’s label. I decided it wasn’t as big of a great purchase so I only bought this one color.

I’m starting to wish that I had bought more. (too bad it’s all gone) The printed pattern used an expensive cashmere/merino blend. For me, the Marly has been a perfect substitution yarn. I just hope it holds up to future wear.

The pattern looks very complex and time consuming, but I’ve had an easy time with it. The construction of the cables and crossovers doesn’t really require a cable needle so I can still knit this while watching a movie. I did have to drop down a needle size *and* follow the instructions for the one size smaller garment to get the dimensions of the size to fit me.

Plus I think I’m going to have enough yarn left over to make a second one!

These picture were taken a few weeks ago..

Neko playing a computer game with Wayne	Neko playing in the stereo cabinet
Neko – Behaving?

I put my name into Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Olympics to do a lace shawl. The challenge there is to start a knitting project during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and finish it before the closing ceremonies. I’m waiting for the Superbowl weekend sale at Needleworks in Newington to buy the yarn. I’ve been on a yarn diet just for that sale My project idea is a white lace shawl – not sure if I will do lace weight or something heavier since my plan is to wear this on March 25th.

For a long term goal I’ll be working on this:

This is yarn I received as a Christmas present. I’d like to return the thoughtfulness in the form of a blanket for this Christmas. Any patterns out there for a Giants football fan?

I was looking at the PowerBall billboard this morning on my drive into work. How nice it would be to win the lottery and not have to work. Imagine all the knitting I could do!

When I went back to the vet to pick up Neko from her spay operation, the paperwork mentioned to watch for excessive licking of the tummy.

I thought to myself… oh boy I sure hope she doesn’t cause any trouble. Sure enough, within an hour of arriving back home Neko had pulled out her stitches so it was back into the crate an zoom off to the vets.

The put in staples and gave her antibiotics and this.

Goofy little thing. She’s had it for a few days now. I’m sure it’s an awkward weight since she walks funny and kind of scoots it along the floor.

You can see by the picture though that she hasn’t lost her spirit.

Last year when I was taking the shuttle bus to and from work I needed a small project that was easy to pick up and put down. So… I went through my stash of solid colored sock yarn and started a plain ole brown K3, P1 ribbing sock on US1 needles. Deep down I knew these would be for Wayne, but I never really said it. I wasn’t taking any chances that a sock would count towards the sweater curse!

I had to make Wayne’s first pair cool enough that he would like them and ask for more pairs, but also practical enough that he might still wear them to work. Plus they had to have some green in them since that’s his favorite color.

He seems to like them so far

Further proof that I need to remain on my yarn diet:

Last fall I used a gift certificate to buy more Silk City: Bounce yarn from elann.com

This is the yarn that the green stripes sweaters are made out of. All 4 cones were one pound cones so here you can see how much work I did on the green stripes and how much more I’ll have for the ginger and cream… The green stripes were done using US3 needles. With the ginger I’m going to find a pattern and double the yarn and use larger needles so it goes a lot faster.

The magis sock swap bag also contained these:

The note from Sigrid says green thrums… I don’t know exaxtly what that means, but I like this yarn too and it’s more of her handspun. The picture doesn’t show it too well but there are little green sparklies in the yarn. Gives it a little pizzaz. THANKS SIGRID!!!

I’m thinking of trying the cabled-rib scarf that Audrey knit recently with this yarn. 2006 is going to be a big year for FOs! (finished objects)

The magic sock swap bag also contained this:

The colorway is labled Mandy. I need to knit a few swatches to see what this yarn wants to be.

The real treat about this skein is that it’s Sigrid’s handspun. I’ve never had any handspun before. Yeah sure some of the retail yarns out there are labled handspun, but what I mean here is that it was done by a regular person like me sitting at home enjoying her craft.

I’m very excited about it.