Louise Cardigan

I recently finished the Louise Cardigan from Vintage Baby Knits for a sometimes Purlygirl who is due...today! Wow! That went by quickly! It's a sweet little sweater and it was fun to knit.

Pattern: Louise Cardigan from Vintage Baby Knits
Yarn: Color Baby (Australian Merino is so soft!)
Needles: #3 Addi Turbo
Mods: None!
This sweater is knit bottom up and in the round. I had no problems except for trying to start the sleeves on my bamboo needles which totally hated the slip stitch pattern. I recommend something pointy and sharp like Addi Turbos for maneuvering those tiny little stitches.

Kira

Kira is done! I have a small adjustment to make with the button placement to keep it closed a bit more snug but I'm really happy with the finished sweater. I ran into a couple of problems - mainly that I ran out of yarn just short of finishing the dang thing but luckily we had the same dyelot at the shop. I found my ceramic buttons from Stitches and they're a perfect match. This sweater feels so light I think it will become my late Spring/Summer wardrobe staple. I can't say enough good things about the yarn either. In all 7+ balls of yarn I only found ONE knot. Excellent!

Pattern: Kira by Cecily Glowik MacDonald
Yarn: St Denis Nordique by Classic Elite Color #5820
Needles: US #6 Harmony & Addi Turbo
Mods: None!

I do suggest knitting this with a bit of positive ease (mine has about 1.5 inches) so that it can be worn with a lot of different things. Happy knitting!

The Cat Returns

Not the animated movie. Moving has been good but crazy. The actual moving day went very smoothly and we slept at the new place that same night. Since then we've made good headway into unpacking, organizing, and setting up the new household. The Little One barely skipped a beat with her sleep schedule and likes the new place. I think that it's because we have an open floor plan and she's not denied access to the kitchen. We had a small disaster when my feline stepdaughter ran away for a few days but she's now safe at home again and acting as if nothing happened. The new place is good and the old place is, well, saaad. Sad in a bad way. I spent six hours there today cleaning. Six! With all of the furniture moved out the mold and mildew in the bedroom is really really noticeable and it takes a long time to get things cleaned up. I'm happy to report that both bedrooms are completely and thoroughly scrubbed, the living room window (Miss Kitty's hang out) cleaned and sparkling, and all but two kitchen cabinets freshly cleaned and sanitized. I don't mess around with the move-out stuff. If they're going to try to withhold deposit money it won't be for the lack of cleanliness in that moldy little house.

Tired

Moving is in full swing and I am so tired! As of yesterday I am up to five carloads moved by myself. In total we have eight loads moved. The house looks sparse since there's almost nothing on the walls and most of the shelves are empty. The Man has the next two Mondays off of work for moving time so the plan is to stay at the new place on Monday night. I'm looking forward to living in Ballard but the move has me sore and smelling like wintergreen (icy hot for backaches). In what little free time I have I've been working on some knitting. Kira is almost up to the armpits and then I have to knit the sleeves. I really really like working with Nordique and the yardage is really good. This sweater only calls for seven skeins for my size.
We got a booklet in at the shop last week from Manos del Uruguay called Adirondack Accessories. The cover is of some lovely twisted cable mitts knit in a silky merino blend. I snatched up the book and pulled out my leftover partial skein of Sundara Aran Silky Merino. I knit this first mitt in just two days and it's loverly although it does turn my fingers red. There are a lot of great accessories in the book and they all look like fun to knit. I'm not given to wearing legwarmers but I just might knit the two pair in the book since they're sooo pretty. There's even a hat by Cecily (designer of my sweater, Kira) that is really cute. I'll just work my way through that bad boy and have hats and mitts and legwarmers ready for next Fall.

Return of the Damn Stole

Remember way back in February when I ran out of yarn for the Print O' the Wave Stole? 15 repeats short? I finally got another skein from the lovely folks at Brooklyn General in New York. This thing is back in progress after a 3 month hiatus and I can't say I'm hating it; time out proved to be beneficial for both of us. The new skein has quite a bit more white in it but I'll have to wait for daylight to see how noticeable the shift in color turns out to be. I would still like to see the Ravelry pattern page for this edited to reflect the correct yardage or at least a range of yardages since there are two versions available. Misti Alpaca Handpaints have 874 yards so theoretically I should have had 74-ish yards left over. Not. I'm excited to finish this and see it all blocked out. Squee!

Waiting, Waiting, Moving!

I heard back from the property management group and we got the apartment! Hooray! Things are on hold, however, until the lease is ready to sign and the keys are in our hot little hands. This is such a very very good thing. The landlords of doom came over last night with a letter stating that they're going to repair/remove mold, windows, cracked ceiling, etc over the course of three months. This was followed up by a list of things we have to do like move all of our bedroom furniture into the living room several times to allow for mold cleaning, keep the heat on but also the fans running (can we say waste of energy?), and do some general cleanup outside the house. They ended by saying that we would be required to sign another one year lease with rent raised by $100. Thank goodness we have a place to go that is clean and bright and not with these landlords. The property has not been maintained well in the seven years we have lived here and every time something is to be replaced they act like it's our fault. Um, yeah, it was totally our fault that the 30+ year old refrigerator stopped working and that guy who came to cut down the tree in the back yard? Yeah, our fault he never showed up for work after the first day. Or that the electrician put the grounding rods in incorrectly. Or that the plumber left refuse underneath the house. Sheesh. Good riddance to you and helloooo new apartment!

Waiting, Toe-Up

I'm anxiously waiting to hear back about the apartment we viewed on Friday evening. It's in a good location and is a good size for us and May's rent is free. That means we could take the whole dang month to move stuff over there which would be awesome since moving with a toddler is not something I look forward to. In the meantime I cast on for my first EVER toe-up sock. Judy's Magic Cast On works like, well, magic. I followed the tutorial on Knitty and everything went swimmingly. I'm knitting the Penny Sock by Maia Discoe of Tactile Fiber Arts in some Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks Kona. Ravelry says the yarn is a fingering but it's a sportweight for sure. I don't normally knit socks on this heavy a yarn but I didn't know if I would like toe-up socks so I thought faster would be better. The sock is a little wide but that's okay since I'll be using them as house socks. So, here I am, knitting my socks and waiting for a phone call.