Knitting, Unknitting, and Reknitting.

I think I've already used that theme in a post before.  Oh well.  It comes from the speech the University President made our first week at school.  He was talking about building, unbuilding, and rebuilding something.  We found it very amusing.

At any rate, Jeff and I went away for the weekend as the girls had gone other places and it was our anniversary weekend.  I took his sweater to work on, since I had finished Middle's hat and felt guilty about neglecting the sweater.  One the way home, I was working along and I stopped to look more closely at the sleeves.  I held one closed, the way it would look all sewn up, then I looked at Jeff's arm, and I looked back at the sleeve.  I had Jeff put his arm out, and there's no way that sleeve is going to fit comfortably on his arm.  Sigh.  So I unraveled the sleeves.  I will do some careful measurement and then start again.

In the meantime, I'm still working on the Bright Stripes blanket for Middle when we watch TV (up to season 5 of Game of Thrones), I still have the Swirl sock in the car for when I'm waiting for things, but I need something else to work on during dance classes and the like.  A friend of mine has an Extremely Cute Baby, who is huge and lives in Seattle.  Clearly he needs a sweater!  So through the magic of Facebook, I got his nanny to send me measurements and I bought some yarn.  With the Jeff sweater out of the way temporarily, I think it's a good time for a baby sweater!  Especially since the yarn for Xmas presents hasn't arrived yet.

Here's the pattern: the Kris Sweater, and the yarn is Schoppel Wolle Edition 3 in the Strandcafé colorway.  It was less expensive than the yarn recommended for the pattern, and I thought it looked cute.

I started on Sunday while Smallest was at her YAGP dance lesson.  I worked about an hour.  Today (Monday) I've worked about 18 rows during lunch.  It's fun to work on something cute and tiny, and on straight needles!  I'm curious to see what happens to the stripes when I get to the body of the sweater.

2 hours on this one.

Margie

Hat = Love

Don't tell Middle, but the hat I have just finished is secretly filled with hugs and love for her.  She is in the midst of teenagerdom and doesn't let me hug her much.  She's heading up to Canada this afternoon to spend the weekend with her dad, which gave me the perfect opportunity to make this hat (which she had picked out a while ago, and I bought yarn for also a while ago).

I started Tuesday during a class on writing grant proposals for non-profit organizations (I thought it would be more interesting.  I finished the folded brim during the class.  Then, it was parent observation week at Smallest's dance studio this week, so that's many hours of dance to watch and knit through.  Three hours on Wednesday night alone!

I have only been knitting a little at work, most has been done during proper hours.  However, last night I got to the end of the regular pattern and just had the decreases left to do.  It only took about 15 minutes to finish up and now it is complete!  I pick her up at 3:00 to head for the airport, so two hours to spare.

The pattern is Wurm, a free pattern on Ravelry!  It was super easy and the hat is really cute!  I am still amazed at the magic that is hats that fit, so that was fun to do.  I made the middle size and it fits both me and Middle just right.  The first picture is from Wednesday, from Lunchtime knitting.  The last two are the finished product.  The yarn is a Blue Sky baby alpaca-silk blend and it is soooo soft and squishy!  Now Middle just can't lose it.  That would be sad.

I know the modeling picture is rather stark, but I wanted to get the top of the hat, it's a little longer than it needs to be, so it smooshes down at the end.  Very hip.

Now I'm feeling guilty about all the things I've made for Middle without making anything for Smallest (except leg warmers).  I asked what she would like and fingerless gloves were the request.  I bought a pattern last year from Churchmouse Yarn & Tea for just such a thing!  How handy.

I wish I had kept track of the hours!  It went really quickly.

Margie

Stripes Away!

While Catherine is wheeling her way from Boulder to San Francisco, I have an update on the stripey blanket.  Oh, also, Catherine made this for the baby of some Boston friends:

Lucky baby!

I don't have a photo update, but we were driving up to Dallas this past weekend for Smallest to participate in a ballroom competition up there.  On the way up, I got some knitting in and finished the last of the four colored stripes.  I've also picked up the stitches for the last tan band along the edge, so once that's several inches long, I'll pick up stitches along the long edges and knit the final two tan bands.  I am very concerned about running out of yarn, so I might look into getting some more with enough time to blend old dye lot with a new dye lot.  

Smallest was the only one in her division at the competition, so she won, but she was uncharacteristically nervous about the competition.  In retrospect, she was wearing new shoes, a new dress and dancing choreography that they hadn't practiced as many times as they probably should have.  We'll make sure she feels more comfortable the next time around.  She also wasn't wild about her make-up, so perhaps we'll see if we can tone that down a bit next time.  

Here she is with her make-up on:

I'm off to Savanah this weekend with Middle to look at a college.  I am hoping for lots of knitting time.  I've switched from using the cable needle on Jeff's sweater to the trick stitch, and it seems to be going much more quickly now.  I'm almost half way through the increases on the sleeves.  I'm doing both sleeves at the same time.  Shortens the suffering and makes sure I do them the same way.

Margie