KnitMe

Great day

I feel a little shallow talking about knitting on a day like this, but I will get the knitting out of the way so we can all celebrate the fact that the countdown on the right side of this page is running down to zero! Note: clock REMOVED! Yay!

The green Welig gloves are finished and being worn quite a bit

They fit very well although I still cannot figure out where I went wrong with the stitch counts on the hands. I overlooked the increases in row 23 on the palm side, but I decided to make the 2nd glove match the first in this respect, and ended up with yet a different number of stitches when dividing for the fingers. The pattern is really beautiful. I love how the 4 strands of the cables run up the 4 fingers. As annoying as it was to execute, I love how the cable twists sometimes send one strand through the other (you might be able to see it in the center crossings). I'm resisting the temptation to sit right down and make the opera-length gloves from the same Robin Melanson book. What would I do with opera length gloves??

I have finished the back of Deirdre and am halfway up the front. I am really loving knitting with this Zephyr DK weight. What beautiful yarn. This is going to be an incredibly elegant sweater.

To relieve all the green, I started the Estonian Lullaby blanket by Evelyn Clark. The yarn is some angora/merino from France that I bought from Louise's stash sale - she said she had met the bunnies who made the fiber for the yarn.

I am not sure how much I am going to enjoy knitting this. The pattern is baby simple, although it does have a quirk that causes you to lose your place at first and led me to put markers in every two pattern repeats. The yarn is very soft, but it does appear to shed slightly, so when I get this all done, am I going to be able to use it? Any suggestions about how to manage angora items would be appreciated! I do recall that when I was knitting my Highland Triangle out of Brooks Farm Harmony, it shed like mad but then when it was finished and worn it did not shed. Maybe that will be the case here.

So, enjoy your day, make time at noon to watch TV, and CELEBRATE!

It's not easy being green

Somehow I have found myself knitting all green things.

But first, Sweet Pea is finished.

It makes me look a little bit like a pregnant whale, but I like it.

(More streamlined looking from the side.)

This photo makes it look like one pocket is higher than the other, but I assure you that is a quirk of how it is laid out, and everything is just fine.

I got through 1 1/2 sleeves, anxiously weighing the yarn as I went, before I decided that it would be just too close for comfort to expect to have enough left for the collar. Therefore, I frogged the sleeves and made a smaller size - they are plenty roomy anyway. This gave me the margin of comfort I needed, and I knitted the full 17 rows of collar with 20 grams or so of yarn left. Phew. This was the 8th of 7 skeins, if you know what I mean (I had to order an extra), so I was bound and determined not to need a 9th of 7.

The yarn is very fat, and the needles felt like broom handles, but boy did the yarn soften and bloom when blocked! It became so cuddly! I really like this and can't wait for the right weather to wear it as outerwear.

With this finished, and the rainbow socks finished, I randomly started a few things that I had been wanting to knit, and ended up thusly.

Green socks, which are now done:

Pattern: "Dove" socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways (Upstream architecture). Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Spruce, from my LYS. Size 1 needles.

These fit GREAT. The Upstream architecture is very cool.

Green gloves, which are now 50% done:

These are the 'Welig' gloves from Robin Melanson's Knitting New Mittens and Gloves book. They caught my eye the first time I skimmed through, and since I need gloves they were just the thing. I had two hanks of Artyarns Supermerino in stash that were just the right weight and really a great color considering that the gloves are inspired by willow trees. This mostly solid dark jade shade is just beautiful and shows off the pattern well.

The design is quite well thought out - the four strands of cables that travel across the back of the hand continue up the fingers. I somehow ended up with a stitch count anomaly such that I was 2 stitches short when making the last finger (index) but I figured I would not go back and take everything apart when it fit fine. We'll see when I make the left hand whether it's me or the pattern that went astray.

Sweater:

Deirdre, from Touch of Romance Collection by Elsebeth Lavold. The yarn is Jaggerspun Zephyr DK in 'emerald'. Wow. This is wonderful yarn.

Right now, the width of the piece is a tad narrow, but I am beginning to realize that things widen when blocked and I don't want this to hang on me like a sack. I am getting gauge so I will press on.

So, wow, all that green. It was totally unintentional, I sat down one day after Christmas and realized that no matter what WIP I picked up, it would be green. Maybe I was feeling a green deficit.

With the socks completed, I unexpectedly veered off into pink. Remember these socks from 2006? I put them on one day right before Christmas and found that they had worn through at BOTH heels. This is the first time I have had a pair of socks develop a hole, and it was BOTH. Heh. I always suspected there was a reason why this line of yarn was very short-lived.

Anyway, I do like the colors although they have faded significantly since I knitted them, so I ripped out the feet back to the base of the heel flaps and will use the yarn to knit some little felted thing. The yarn FELTS WELL. Then I reattached the leftovers to knit new heels and feet, continuing the reinforcing heel stitch down underneath the base of the heel.

Maybe you can see how the color brightens considerably where the gusset decreases begin.

I won't have enough to finish the feet in this yarn, but I will randomly stick on something from my bag of leftovers that seems to be enough. Not sure what yet. It doesn't necessarily have to harmonize since it will always be in shoes.

I completed my pilgrimage to the WEBS sale for the year. I was better behaved this year and came home with less.

I got a bag of Cascade 109 in a nice ruby shade of red - as if knitting one coat was not enough, I am enamored of the 'Go Retro' coat in the last issue of Knitters. While standing next to all the great colors of this yarn I could not resist two balls in a lovely royal blue that will make nice hats. I got a bag of Valley Yarns Northfield in a lovely lavender that is NOT pinkish as the photo in the link would suggest. I dithered and dithered over colors and then picked this which is probably too close to the color in which I just made Taconic. But whatever. This is really nice yarn that I've been wanting to try.

We also got Emmy a single ball of Sugarloaf (merino and microfiber) in a nice teal, so she could say she got some yarn at WEBS. Not that she spends any time knitting her nice ball of Galway, mind you. Sigh.

Mamacat update: She disappeared for 3 days right before Christmas when it was very very cold - too cold to come over to my house if she was being fed closer to wherever she hangs out now. Luckily, she came and ate up her breakfast early Christmas morning, which was good because we were leaving for 4 days. My petsitter put out a cup of food every day for her and it got eaten, and she has been coming around regularly for food since we've been home. I have started feeding her twice a day in hopes she will hang around more and eventually start using her little house again. Yesterday afternoon she came and sat on the doormat with a "Please sir, may I have some more?" look on her face so I dropped a couple of old cat treats in her bowl, which she polished off. This morning as I opened the door to put out her food, she was on her way across the back yard. I sure wish I knew where she was hanging out overnight! But she looks well and tends to sun herself in my front yard when there is sun, so she is overall doing great.