And it begins again....

Blogging and knitting have slowed a bit, first because of apartment hunting, and now because of moving. We found a nice apartment with heat and hot water included. (are those not the sweetest words? Well, aside from, "All yarn 50% off.") Because of this, I only have a bit of my Ribby Cardi to show.

I'm using Cascade 220 for this one, since I had it in my stash and I'm trying not to acquire anything else until we move. After I took this picture, I worked on it some more, and I'm just about to the arm shaping now. I wish I had more hours in the day for knitting!

In other news, I got more treats from my awesome Secret Pal!



I adore the Manos! I've never knit with Manos wool before, and I'm looking forward to it. What a gorgeous shade of blue! I plan to bake the scones tomorrow (I love cranberry everything), the candle smells divine, and the lotion... oh! the lotion! It's the best I've ever used, hands down. Secret Pal, you kick ass.

It was a gorgeous day today. Not quite warm enough to go without a jacket, but plenty warm enough to go get lunch at the drive-in and see some crocuses! Both cheer my heart, but the crocuses are probably my favorite sign of spring, because they remind me that color does occur naturally in nature, and the world will not continue to be gray, white, brown and black. I didn't have the digital camera with me, but I fired off a couple of blurry shots with my Palm.


You can see the bright colors of the crocuses along that wall. I can't wait for the tulips to come out!

This isn't particularly illustrative of the drive-in. I was trying to get a shot of the seagulls lined up on the roof, looking for food. In the summer time, they'll swoop right down and take your food off your tray if you don't bring it into your car. It's fun to watch the tourists lose their lunches!



Blogging will probably be pretty scarce around these parts for the next few weeks, but once we're settled in, it'll begin again in earnest!

I hate when life gets in the way of my knitting!

I haven't had much time to knit since I finished Round Trip. I've done a couple more fingers on the glove (dreams dashed of getting pair done by winter's end), but I haven't so much as swatched for the Ribby Cardi. We're getting ready to move over here, so I've been spending some time looking at apartments and cleaning out the crap. Today I went through my stash and removed everything that I didn't think I'd ever knit. Most of it was various acrylic stuff that I've had for ages and just kept thinking I'd make into something eventually. Good news, I've actually cleaned out more than I've brought in! In the last month or so, I've really only added some Cotton-Ease I got from eBay, and just a few balls of yarn (2 balls of Misti Alpaca for the Flower Basket Shawl and one ball of Dale Baby Ull I got to swatch for a project) from a new yarn store I stumbled across. I've had to accept the fact that wherever we move to, I probably won't have the luxury of a yarn room, like I have now, so organization is the word of the moment. Once I get my butt going and start on the cardigan, I will be sure to post some photos.

If you're interested, here is the stuff I'm selling.

Hey! Ho! FO!

I finished knitting the Round Trip cardigan last night, and spent today weaving in ends (I had more ends than expected, since the yarn kept breaking and I kept finding knots).

From the front. I'm thinking of finding a simple pin to hold it closed, when I'm in the mood for that sort of thing.


And from the back. I LOVE this cardigan, both for its unique construction and the way the Noro looks.



Project details:
Pattern: Round Trip, Knitter's Magazine, Fall 2003
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, #116. The pattern calls for 8 skeins for the size small, and I used almost all of 8 skeins.
Needles: I actually got gauge with the recommended US7!

I would definately make this sweater again.

In other news, last week I decided I would probably never get around to knitting an iPod cozy before it got scratched all to hell, so I sewed one.


I bought a frog applique to sew on the front of it, but I think I'll save that frog for something else. Basically this is just a piece of fleece folded over, closed with a snap. It'll do.


Because the fleece I bought for the cozy was a remnant, I now have pretty much a yard and a half of that fleece left. If I'm not careful, next thing I know I'll have a fabric stash too.

Next stop: swatching for Ribby Cardi! Thanks for the suggestions of Cotton-Ease. I plan to go the Jo-Ann's route the next time I get paid. Thanks, Secret Pal!

Picture-free post

I'm usually not a big fan of text-only posts, but I felt like taking pictures of my WIPS would be a little redundant, since you've already seen sleeve one of the cardigan, and I'm not even done with that first glove yet (I prefer to work on it when I can bug T to try it on every few rounds to get a perfect fit). I'm so close to done with the cardigan. (Only about 64 more rounds to go! And they get smaller every time!)

My most exciting purchase of the weekend? A proper iron that actually steams instead of just misting, so I can try out steam blocking. I am very excited to test it out on the cardigan!

My mind is already wandering to future projects. Ribby Cardi is definately next, but the big question is what will I knit it in? I have some wool lined up, but with spring on the way (don't shatter my dreams here, people), a cotton cardigan might get more immediate wear. I'd like to use Lion Brand's Cotton-Ease, but it is absolutely impossible to find around here (probably has something to do with my obsession with it). I won four skeins on eBay, enough for another chickami (my absolute favorite tank), but I'm not able to find enough on eBay for a cardigan. The craft stores around here suck, and the only half-decent one is at least forty-five minutes away, not including finding parking. We'll see.

Ah, the joy of the snow day....

I had a snow day yesterday, so along with playing Nintendo, watching movies and reading, I made real progress on my projects.

I got the gumption to pick up for the second sleeve. I didn't get it until around 8 last night, so I only got to work on it for an hour.

Now that the second sleeve has started, my desire to work on this project is rejuvinated! I can't wait to wear it.



The cuff was not ready for her close-up, she kept murmuring about her ends all hanging out, but I assured her you would love her anyway.

I realized I went on about how much I loved making the cuff, but never showed it in all its glory. I'm usually not a big fan of garter stitch, but it really works in this sweater.



Coming soon to a yarn store near you... it's Freddy Krueger!

I've had my boyfriend try this glove on every step of the way, because I want it to fit perfectly. I hadn't noticed the blue needles, the red and gold stitch holders, the silver of the circular holding the thumb stitches, until he said he felt like a patriotic Freddy Krueger! Which also reminded me that I've been planning to make him a Freddy sweater for years now. I'm having a very difficult time finding the right colors for it, though.

I'm so anxious to finish Round Trip because I want to get started on a Ribby Cardi. Seeing the gallery and all the great cardigans being made, I want one of my own. I've finally settled on my color scheme (navy blue and fuschia), but can't decide if I want to still do stripes on the sleeves or not. Seeing them on someone else's sleeves has given me pause. Maybe I prefer the solid sleeves. Plus I need to get the yarn soon to make Gigi. I finally decided to use baby blue and black for that (after a brief flirtation with using lime and hot pink).