6 in 6

Friday night I finished up my sixth sweater in six months. Whoo! I'm super happy with it even though I basically knit it twice. Much better the second time around.

Pattern: Button Me Up Pullover
Yarn: Eco + in Vandyke Brown
Needles: #9 Harmony
Mods: I got a gauge of 4 st to the inch instead of 3.75 so I cast on for zero ease. Sleeves are my usual 15 inches and I knit the body 3/4 inch longer. I also did 2.5 inches of ribbing at the bottom of the sweater instead of 5 inches.
This is a good basic sweater and I really really like the way it fits.

The little one turned six months old this past week. !!! Time has flown. I'm getting ready for her to just get up and walk around and start speaking in sentences, she's growing so quickly!

Catch Up

I've been doing stuff, really I have. This last weekend I made an AWESOME recipe from one of my first vegetarian cookbooks. A strawberry tart! Yum! The Man declared that it "tastes like what cheesecake should taste like, but doesn't." Super yummy and super easy. I'm a huge fan of almond & flour crusts, they're kind of like shortbread. I baked the crust one evening and did the filling and strawberries the next morning and then left it to chill. I even glazed the thing with apricot glaze so it's tangy and sweet and rich from the cream cheese layer. Ahh...everything I want in a summer dessert.


I've also been knitting a little lace. Well, not so little. It's the Icicle Dream Stole from the 2008 Winter Twist Collective. So far, so good. I'm on the third chart of four on the first half of the stole. (You knit the two halves separately and then graft them together.) The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the color Midnight Derby. We got a few very darkish skeins in at the shop and I just had to knit something with the last couple. The pattern calls for a laceweight but I'm not such a fan, hence a sock-yarn stole. I'm excited to see the end product, it's my largest lace project so far.


And finally...
This is what I'm doing right now. Eating some watermelon and knitting the body of my sweater, again. That small disaster from the other day? Yeah, this is it. After ripping out the ribbing I decided to try it on again to see how much longer I wanted to knit it. I decided it was a bit too snug. :: sigh::
So I cast on and just started knitting the dang thing over, directly from the frogged sweater. The man came in while I started this and looked really confused. "Why are you knitting that sweater into the same sweater?" I'm pretty sure daggers flew. "For fun." A couple days later and I've got a little over 13 inches reknit and should still be able to finish up by the end of the month. Probably to the detriment of my mom's birthday gift (her birthday was last Saturday). Sorry, mom!

Petite Disaster

I wish I had taken pictures last night. Anyhoo, I was knitting along on my sweater and getting the yoke finished and binding off. This seemed like an opportune time to try it on so I did. It's a little snug but nothing I don't think blocking won't help. I'm pulling down on the hem thinking that it's a tad too short when there it is - a hole! Not just dropped stitches but SNIPPED stitches. How the hell did that happen!? I pull off the sweater, run over to my knitting bag, and throw a couple of stitch markers into those dropping stitches. Yikes! After a few moments of pulling my hair I decide that it's not really a bad thing. I'll just rip back the ribbing (the whole was right in the middle of the ribbing) knit a few more inches of stockinette to lengthen the sweater and then ribbing and bind off. Two hours later the stitches were back on the needle ready to go and I went to bed. So much for my nightly knitting time. I also decided that I want to try the sewn bind off that is supposedly uber-stretchy that Elizabeth Zimmermann uses. Cool beans, a new technique after all that trauma.

PS I probably would have thrown the stupid sweater across the room and had a crying fit if it hadn't only been a week on the needles. I'll still make my 6 sweaters in 6 months deadline.

Exhausted much?

I'm super tired today. Wanna know why? I sure would. I stayed up a little later than usual last night, but not too late. I just had to join the sleeves to the body of the sweater I'm working on before I put it down for the night. It's sunny out, so it's definitely not the weather making me feel sluggish and I haven't done any crazy partying or amphetamine use that I can recall. Hmm. I really feel like I just need a solid 12 to 14 hours of good, deep sleep to expel this perpetual tiredness. Unfortunately that is nowhere in my future since I'm still working the crazy 47-ish hours a week schedule that I've been on since May. Oh well, knitting, socializing, and a beer should definitely improve my outlook for the week.

Unexpected

I received a lovely and unexpected gift in this afternoon's mail. It cured my recent homesickness for the time being. My best friend sent me some honey made by a friend of ours, a pear shaped candle & holder from the local Mendocino Bounty store, and an awesome kids' book called "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney". The card in back is a woman holding up a sweater with a heart/thought bubble that says World Wide Knitting. Awww. Ever since the little one has arrived I miss my hometown more and more, which is weird considering how ready I was to leave when I moved to Seattle. However, the incredibly hot summers are not missed nor the even-more-depressed-than-Seattle job market. This cheered me up big time. Thanks, lady!

Mariah

I knit most of this while I was pregnant so all I had to do was knit the button bands, weave in some ends, and sew on buttons.

Pattern: Mariah
Yarn: Elann Incense in Cypress
Needles: #8 harmony, I think

The sleeves are really frickin' long on this. I'm pretty sure I even made them shorter than the pattern calls for and they still go over my fingertips. It's also a little over-sized and I'm not sure if that's because I knit a larger size than I needed since I was prego or if my gauge was off. It's more of a hang around the house, want to be comfortable, don't care much about the fit kind of sweater. I also didn't knit the hood, I just decreased until I liked the neckline and then did the same ribbing that is on the bottom of the sweater to match. Actually, I like this better now than when I was knitting it last Fall. Maybe letting it marinate in it's own juices for a while did something for it. Dunno. This is #4 for NaKniSweMoDo & #5 is blocking as I blog. I've almost hit the 6 in 6 months goal I set for myself. There are also a couple hats (both green as well) blocking and a pretty little scarf on the needles. Now I just need to decide on #6. Hmmm....

Episode 21

I've been totally lax on announcing new episodes. We're up to #21 now. Enjoy!

Unseasonable

There has been some unseasonably warm weather in Seattle the past few days, I can say that even as an expate Californian. I would also deem it "hot ass" weather. Just cause it's really hot, but also cause it does really make your butt hot. It makes my knitting life a little unbearable. I'm knitting Wicked in Elsebeth Lavold Baby Llama (no harm came to llamas in the making of this yarn) and it makes my palms sweat like nobody's business. I mean, it's 100%, cute, frolicking, spitting, fuzzy little llama so I love it but I can only touch it after about 7 pm or it felts by fingertip. It's also nice to knit stockinette in the round FOREVER. I think I've been working on it off & on for about a week and I've already split off the arms, tried it on, and knit an inch or two of the body. It should make a nice quick #5 for NaKniSweMoDo. I was going to knit the pocket but I think the fuzziness of the yarn will not show the stitch pattern very well, and as Jessica pointed out, droop a lot. And all I really need right now is more drooping in the tummy area. Yikes. I'm off to sweaty palm-land.