A bit of progress

Today I was able to sit down and work on sweater sleeve number two, and nearly finished it, so far as I’ve “finished” the other sleeve. I have just over ten more rows and then it’s time to swatch. I’m hoping to calculate my shrinkage percent by the swatch so that the sweater turns out exactly the way I want it.

Im also panicking a bit because I have only three weeks until Stitches and therefore only three weeks to knot. Hooray! I’m figuring I’ll wash and block it during Stitches, since I’ll be staying with my dad.

No progress on my wreath today. I think I’m going to go sneak off to the bedroom and work on the sleeve in psuedo secrecy because it’s what I really want to work on. I should be good and just work on the wreath, but I really want this sweater done for his birthday. Ugh, dilemma.

Getting nesty all up in here

 

 

Since I’m starting to feel the time crunch on Nathan’s sweater, I am obviously not doing any work on it at all. Sigh.

I really just need to sit down and work on it all day. I think that’s on the agenda for Wednesday, since I have the day off and the house to myself. I can probably finish up the sleeves in one day and then once I get a gauge swatch done I’ll sail right through the body of the sweater. Sunday we’re supposed to go to some sort of family gathering so if I don’t bring my current knitting love affair, I will bring the yarn for a swatch.

My current love affair started because I’m settling in to my new home quite perfectly. I love it here so much I kind of have a perpetual nesting urge. Well, in order for me to nest quite completely, I have to expunge the queen of kitsch. His ex left a lot of her lovely, kitschy, gaudy decorations. And this is partly a matter of taste, but I’ve never been one for fake floral arrangements, anything with glitter that wasn’t made by an elementary school student, and all sorts of fragile knick-knacks that are impractical when you have children. So most of her remnants are gone or are departing soon, but there’s a wreath on the door that simply must go. I’ve been eying it for months, but haven’t been able to find anything I liked enough to put up instead.

Until I stumbled onto Lion Brand’s Fall Wreath. Now that’s a lovely bit of business, I must say. So, completely unable to resist the temptation, I ran right out and bought the yarn(and it was not cheap, believe you me) and cast on. I think I’m most excited to do the felting as the only felting experience I’ve had was the little sushi wallet. So I’m rather excited to give full fledged felting a go. I’ve already decided not to use the foam wreath form in favor of the craft ring I already have, but the plans may of course change.

Since I’m so in love with the concept of my crafty wreath, I got to pondering other wreaths to make for other seasons. Thus far I’ve come up with mittens for winter and hearts for valentines day. I’ve also got ghosts in mind for Halloween, but that’ll definitely be a project for next year since I need to get my leaves done and Nathan’s sweater too. Meanwhile, any suggestions for other months are greatly appreciated.

I hope Nathan doesn’t mind yarny kitsch, because I think I just fell down a rabbit hole here.

Harry Potter at a wrestling show?

 

 

It’s started sinking in that I have approximately one month to knit the overwhelming majority of a sweater. I’m nearly done with both sleeves, but I need to swatch again before I start the body. I know that my yarn shrinks but I need a rough estimate on how much. Otherwise, I’ll be wearing this sweater.

It’s occurred to me that I should’ve picked a different color because my man really digs color. Like, really. Last week we went shopping  for some dress clothes for him to wear to my cousin’s wedding. He refused to get a white shirt (“I’d look like a waiter, don’t even try to tell me you don’t agree”) or a black shirt (neither one of us think black on black is a good wedding look). Instead he kept going back to these bright aqua type blues. Over and over and over again. In point of fact, I’m wearing one of his tshirts right now and it’s bright red. The dude likes color. Which, as a yarn geek, I like.

I think I’m still rather happy to have done the grey though because I don’t really understand his color preferences all that well. And what he considers a good color for a tshirt may in fact be a terrible color for a sweater in his mind. And that’s okay. So I like his neutral sweater. We’ll see if he does too.

Meanwhile, other than secret sweater sleeve knitting, I’ve been getting some crocheting done. I’ve decided it would be nice to finish the mod blanket I designed at some point this century and now is as good a time as any. So that’s actually going quite well. I have the first three rounds assembled and three sides of the fourth done as well. I have a few more squares to weave the ends in on and then I can finish off that round and get crocheting for the next. I’m hoping that assembling as I go will keep me motivated to push through to the end. As it stands, I’m only about halfway done, so I’ve still got a lot of crocheting to do. But I keep that project in a little basket by the couch and so it’s easy to pick up at odd moments.

Other than that I’ve made some progress on my Harry Potter scarf, to the tune of two stripes in one night. I think that means I’m up to 8 of 19 stripes so I’m definitely getting there. I love how easy  it is to knit; my progress was all made while at a wrestling match. And it didn’t interfere with my watching the matches I wanted to watch. Ooh don’t tell Nathan I actually spent time being interested in what was going on. He thinks I was bored out of my skull all night and i don’t think I can convince him otherwise since he was off doing his job during the matches I was interested in/ entertained by. I seriously love this scarf for all those true multi-tasking moments.

That’s all I’ve been working on lately. I have another baby blanket to make this fall, but I’m not going to cast on until after Stitches and until I’ve finished Nathan’s sweater. Pleasantly, I’m making a second blanket for Katie, who I made the Cozy Luxe throw for last year. She’s having another girl so I asked her if it would be all right if I made the same blanket and she said yes. The real joy of the situation is that Katie actually asked me to make a second blanket. It’s really nice to know that the first was appreciated to the extent that she wants another for her second baby. How could you say no to a request like that? :)

I am posting from my phone today so I will try to do a spell check but I don’t know how well it will work. My apologies, of course.

Happy yarning!

Eep!

I am only two days away from trying to knit Nathan a sweater right under his nose without him noticing.

Wish me luck.

The downside to spending time with your man

I cast on for my first sleeve for Nathan’s Durrow sweater on Monday and despite having no idea how to do a (k1tbl, k1) increase I’m loving it. I’m taking her gauge of “slightly stretched” at face value because unstretched it’s teeny. When I do give it a gentle tug it easily matches the size of the sleeve on his fave sweater. So I guess we’re good? I dunno.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the couch next to him and I really want to work on it, but alas I cannot. And that was really the point of this post. Want to knit, can’t knit the thing I want. Boo.

 

Sweater briefs

Well, I received the yarn for Nathan’s sweater on Friday, so I cast on for a bit of a swatch. And then realized I need to knit it in the round. So I knit my swatch in the round, but it’s not very big, so I’m not sure if it’s going to tell me much.  Really I just want to know if it shrinks or stretches, so I can plan accordingly.

I’m almost done with the baby sweater I started on the 16th. I’m gunning to finish knitting the hood today and then I have to seam it. Headed to mom’s later since I haven’t seen her in over a month. I figure that will be plenty of unobstructed knitting and seaming time.

Well, I was going to post more but I’m actually going to run because I need to eat lunch and take care of some other things before I go.

Sweater, sweater, sweater

Okay, so here we are again.

Job interviews seem to be coming my way from nowhere. No complaints. :)

My socks are going okay. I finished the cuffs yesterday and am on the leg. I’m not sure I’m going to do all nine inches of leg/cuff, especially since I haven’t worn anything except no show socks in years. But I’d like them relatively substantial. Of course, I’m also lazy and wouldn’t mind finishing them sooner rather than later.

My yarn is on its way to me for Nathan’s sweater. I’m going to knit the Durrow sweater. As previously mentioned, I stole his favorite sweater from his closet the other day. It helps when silly boys tell me things like “this sweater is my favorite; I love the way it fits.” So I stole it and am going to use it as my guide to knit my Durrow. I was just going to knit him a sweater that was essentially a duplicate of his favorite, but the Durrow is actually darned close. I liked the idea of the ribbed body (which his fave has) since he’s trying to lose weight. I’d hate to knit him a sweater that fits now and is too big at the end of the winter. And then my sizing doesn’t have to be very accurate, because it stretches and shrinks to fit. Huzzah! But the best part of the Durrow is the complex cabling on the sleeves. I absolutely love that the cables don’t go up all the way (not sure why, it just really appeals) and the cables themselves are gorgeous.

So I’m really excited to start this sweater. More excited than I was to cast on my dress. Which I still want to make, I just need to do some pattern work. I’m going to knit the sweater in the round, because although I’m a competent seamer, I’d prefer not to have to do it on a sweater. For someone else. Yeah, no, not okay. Somehow one side would be bunched up like nobody’s business. So yes I’d like to do a seamless construction for the body. Other than that I don’t think I have any mods I want to make to the pattern, except that I’m using a dk yarn and I need a 42″ chest, rather than 40″ or 44″. But since I’m knitting it to a sweater, I should be fine. Gauge swatch to know what happens to it when it gets wet, some measurement, then cast on. Easy peasy.

Deadline? Of course!

Nathan’s birthday is October 14 (the last day of Stitches East!). I’d love to give him his sweater for his birthday. If I can have it done by then, I can probably also sneak his sweater back into his closet without him ever noticing it was gone. Which would be ideal, hehe.

He’s already suspicious of me, haha, knowing that my inclination is to knit for the people I care about. Thankfully I think I convinced him that I had been planning to make him a scarf. Unfortunately the bobo doesn’t wear scarves, so I asked him if there is something I could make for him. Apparently he wants an earwarmer band. So I’ll look into a pattern for that and I’ll probably leave that project at his place. I was just thinking this morning that I’d like to have a project to leave there. Just in case I guess, lol.

I still have a couple of washcloths I’d like to make, but I kind of feel like I’ll probably always have a washcloth on the agenda.

I’m not sure what I’ll tackle once I finish my socks. I fully intend to cast on for Nathan’s sweater as soon as I receive the yarn, especially since I’ll have to knit it in secret. The hard part will be making progress on something else so that he doesn’t know I’m working on something else. You can’t very well tell your boyfriend that you spent all night knitting and then pull out a project you’ve made no progress on.

Maybe if I try really hard I can finish knitting my socks before his yarn arrives. Still doesn’t solve the what to make next dilemma. I would really love to make my dress but I don’t think I want to tackle that and a sweater at the same time. But then maybe I do, since really the sweater is just k4, p2. Or something.

Damn, I just want to start knitting it right now, lol.

Okay, so maybe I’ll work on something that’s sitting around, like my Harry Potter scarf when I’m done with my socks. I have another baby blanket to make this fall, but I probably won’t start that until after Stitches.

I think I’m going to stop rambling and whining that I want to start my sweater and go knit my socks now.