Green Gable update

I wore this sweater to church the weekend I finished it, and yes indeed, the neckline was too big. It felt like it was just about to slip off my shoulder all morning, and I was not comfortable.

I picked up stitches over the back and two sleeves, leaving the top of the lace panel alone. Then I worked ribbing in short rows. The ribbing slopes down nicely to the front two raglan lines where the lace starts, and pulls the neck in just enough. It's still an open, summery feel, but now I'm not worried about my bra straps showing, let alone my entire shoulder.

p.s. I should have straightened up the lines of the sweater for these pictures. It's not really all slanted and off-center. Sorry about that.

Green Gable

Green Gable is finished. I could have made it a size smaller, but I really am happy with how it turned out. I think I may still modify the neckline a bit. We'll see.
I used the recommended yarn, Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. I love it. This has become one of my favorite yarns. This project was started on May 5, 2007, finished June 29, 2007.

P.S. Happy Canada Day, Peg!

Destruction and progress

Dear friends,

Here is our bathroom as of Monday morning.


This was 24 hours later.

Rose's bedroom is right next to this destruction. She has been taking her naps in our basement in a playpen, sorry, "playard," this whole week.

The first day was a little rough. It took us two hours to get her to sleep. It got better as the week went on, though, and today she dropped right off. Men are tromping all over the house above her head, dropping humongous pipes, sawing walls open, and she's curled up like this.

Bless her little heart.

Green Gables is almost done. I'm over on the other side of the basement in our little computer area, knitting away while she sleeps, and it looks like this:

I'll do three rows of ribbing after Rose is in bed tonight (her real bed, since the men and the saws will all have gone home), wash it, and put it on the blocking board. I can't wait to wear it. I tried it on one last time just before I took this picture, and it feels so good! This yarn is so soft and cool against the skin. I love it!I was bored of all the stockinette on the body, so a couple of nights ago, I skipped ahead to the sleeve ribbing and got both sleeves done in an hour or so. It doesn't pull in as much as I thought it would. I really like how this sweater is turning out. I just hope the rolling neck blocks out.

A new gadget

Something came in the mail last week.

It's not a strange new hair elastic for Rose. It's a nifty little dpn holder.I really, really like it. It was mentioned in the current issue of Knitty, in the Cool Stuff column (scroll way down), and I ordered one as soon as I saw it. I've been looking and looking for something to keep my needles under control, and this is it. Now I won't poke any more holes in my tote bag.

I've also begun Kiri.

This is the first chart completed. The yarn, Kid Seta, is not the easiest I've ever worked with, but the resulting fabric is just heavenly: light and fluffy, like knitting up a cloud.You can really see the leaf shapes coming out. I'm afraid that after blocking, the leaves end up losing their teardrop shape and start looking more like diamonds. At least, the photos of finished Kiris I've seen make it seem that way. Perhaps if I don't stretch it too much during blocking, I can keep the leaves looking like leaves. We'll see. I've got a lot more knitting to go before I start thinking about blocking.

My DH Andrew is home for summer vacation, so I'm looking forward to lots of knitting time as he and Rose spend the days playing together. I love being married to a teacher!

When I'm done with the toe-up socks (soon, please, soon!), I think I may start a pair of Monkeys. Cara at January One has been crazy about them lately, and I dreamed one night that I was knitting a pair. They're very cute.

I've finished the waist shaping on Green Gable and am just going around and around and around to finish it. That's my mindless, too tired to think, don't have to look at it knitting.

As regards the "mall hair," I'm going to scan a couple of the best pictures to share as soon as I get over to my mom's house to do it. I need to buy a scanner.

Socks, Sweaters, and CDs

Well, I'm up to the ribbing on this toe-up sock. I still like the pattern, and the heel went a lot more smoothly than the toe. Jo, I did use the double wraps. They were much easier after I realized I could scoop up the wraps and put them on the needle, then knit them together with the stitch. Sometimes it takes me a while to catch on...
Here's Nuala again. I think any cat owners out there know exactly what she's after.

And here's a better look at the actual colors of the sock. This pair will be for my sister, who has adored the color green her entire life.

Green Gable progresses. It's a nice, easy knit.

I've tried it on twice -- once when the lace section was completed (I couldn't tell much from that experiment except that it wasn't too small), and again when I was past the arms. It definitely is not going to have negative ease, like the pattern calls for, but I don't think it will be too droopy. It's such a pretty, simple little pattern. And I love the yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. It's the first time I've used it, but it certainly won't be the last.

I do feel I need to start something a little more complicated now, you know? Peg, like you said, it's good to have a bit of a challenge going as well as something mindless and easy to pick up (and put down) at any time. I've got two easy ones and no tough ones. It might be time to get the Kid Seta out of my stash and try Kiri! *tremble* I don't know if I dare! ;)

Another fun project I'm working on this week is related to my other life -- what I actually do for a living, LOL! As part of my job as music director at my church, I work with the choir at our parochial school. We rehearse once a week and then sing at the school Mass each week. They've really blossomed musically this year, so I recorded them singing ten of their favorite songs and put them on CD. I'm going to give each of them a copy inside a custom made CD case. Now that the music is recorded and the CD cover designed, the hard part is over, but it's still very time consuming to print out each cover and copy each CD. I'm really proud of them and their hard work this year, and I'm trying to make this little treat very special. So I'm making five a day; then I'll have enough by Friday morning, when I see them for the last time this school year, to give them out. That's been a lot of fun.

Slow

Knitting has been going slowly lately. Part of it is the warming weather, I think, and part of it is that other things have been taking a lot of my time and energy lately. I thought I had gotten rid of that cold, but it came back with part II last week -- lots of dry coughing and little good sleep. At the same time, I had to spend a lot of time at church providing the music for a week-long retreat. Now I'm trying to get my house back in order, but wanting to be outside playing with Rose in the sunshine seems to be taking more priority. And I haven't checked my e-mail for a week.

I did start Green Gable, and now that I'm about halfway down the yoke, it seems that I'm actually getting gauge. Sigh. I was counting on the loss of two inches in the body measurement through that extra quarter stitch per inch, now it looks like I'm going to really be knitting the large size. I'll wait until I get to the underarms and see how it looks on me before I decide to continue or frog it.

More later,

Kim

Sidetracked

Indulge me in a bit of a fashion show.

I wish these pictures showed how close the sweater color is to the color of Rose's eyes.

She likes it so much. The day I took these, it was fairly warm, but she didn't want to put her t-shirt back on. "No, I wear sweater!" So she wore it for the rest of the day.

In the meantime, I've been sidetracked from Green Gable by a few different things.

a) So far, I have not been able to get gauge, which is 5 stitches per inch. This will definitely affect the look of this sweater, so I have had to do some thinking. If I use #6 needles, as the pattern recommends, I get 5.25 stitches to an inch, not 5. If I go up to #7's, I get a little less than 5, and the fabric is a bit untidy. Now, I did some math, and 200 stitches (the body stitches in the large size) divided by 5.25 stitches per inch is 38 inches. That would make a pretty good fit for me, not too loose, and not too tight. So I keep asking myself, do I trust my math? I haven't decided yet, so there's always...

b) Wendy's toe-up sock. So far, so good, but I'm reserving judgement until I finish one. In theory, you can try it on as you go to get a better fit. But as long as I accurately and honestly count my stitches per inch, my top-down socks fit me just fine. I'm not sure I like the sides of this toe. They're not as neat as the decrease, knit, knit, decrease on either side of a top-down toe. Of course, it could be my sloppy short-rowing. :P

c) The "celtic cable" from A Cardigan for Arwen in the winter 2006 IK. This is a reversible cable, the first I've ever seen, and I couldn't for the life of me wrap my brain around the idea. I've done more than a bit of cabling, and I just did not understand how a cable can have two "right" sides.

Here it is, front side and back side (sorry, they're not the greatest quality pics, but you get the idea -- you can see the pattern on both sides!!).

I still don't understand. But it works.