It's finally dry and nice enough to get a couple of pictures of my February Lady Sweater on me instead of on tape-igail.
Stitches West is over. I am sad to see Kristi go (and Jeni, but she's here for another week) but I am kind of relieved that it's all over. I didn't even go at all on Friday and it still felt like a packed weekend to me. I handed out a bunch of my business cards (seen below) to various yarn companies and designers. Hopefully some of them will need my services.
So, what did I buy? The first day, I bought buttons for my February Lady Sweater. I walked up to the Button Lady booth with the sweater and said I needed buttons and she pulled out the most perfect green/brown horn button from her vintage buttons box. Fifty cents each!
Perfection. Thursday, I also bought the Woolly Thoughts book on modular knitting ideas from the Village Spinners and Weavers booth.
I was ogling Norah Gaughan Vol. 4 and the flower child sweater. Foolishly, I didn't pick up the yarn for it right then from WEBS. I did get the booklet and on Saturday I ordered the yarn (in a lovely teal color). The other yarn purchases happened at Bobbin's Nest Studio's after Stitches party. I got one ball of Panda Soy solid to coordinate with a variegated color that I have so I can use the solid for the toe, heel and cuff. My impulse purchase was ten balls of chocolate brown Vickie Howell Craft yarn. It's really pretty. I don't know what I'm going to use it for yet. I couldn't not take it though. I love that color.
After all of this my stash number is now at 44394.5 yards or 25.2 miles of yarn. I just finished a whole sweater, but that's still up a mile since my last calculation. That's somewhat disappointing! Ah well, head down, keep knitting!
I decided at the beginning of this month that is an ideal time to knit the February Lady Sweater, since it's February and all. I also seem to like to set an unrealistic goal of finishing a sweater for myself the month of Stitches. I don't know why I do that. In any case, I'm actually close to my goal this time. The body is all knit and I am close to being done with the first sleeve. At a suggestion from Mary I wet the sleeve and hung it up (on my new duct tape torso replica) to see if it would grow. I'm glad I did, the sleeve was 1 inch longer in the morning! I might atually finish it by Thursday. Or at least Saturday.
Stefan wanted the baby tree kangaroo to be in the picture. I love this color of Hempathy. There are a lot of stitches in this sweater, at 22 sts to four inches, but it's going to be lovely and drapey, I am pretty certain.
Now, the only thing I need to remember is that I have homework before my Stitches class this weekend. I might have to use All Seasons Cotton for that, since it's the only sock-appropriate light colored yarn that I have in a heavier weight. I think it will work.
Karen noted today at BobaKnit that I haven't posted much recently. It's not because I haven't been knitting, I have! Niels is out of school and Stefan didn't go anywhere, and is napping even less since our schedule has become more loose, so I haven't had much online time. Sorry about that! Here's what I've been up to:
1) In the past week or so I knitted a Baby Surprise Jacket for my cousin Betsy's baby. This yarn started out as a February Lady Sweater (more on that later) but it just wasn't working, which is too bad. The yarn itself (All Seasons Cotton, of course) is so nice and squishy in garter stitch, but that variegated purple just wasn't working for me. Now I know why you can still get the variegated shades even though they have been discontinued for a while! Anyway, it makes a darling baby sweater. I might even knit her another sweater, or maybe one for Vibble, because she certainly knows how to rock the hand knits, since I have six or so balls of this yarn left! Remind me not to buy a bag of yarn just because it's cheap when I'm not sure I like the color, okay?
So the sweater just needs some buttons and I'm not sure I love the crochet button hole I added at the top after I realized that I started too far down with the buttons. We'll see if that changes. (Ravelry project details)
2) The Ribby Pulli is almost done. I need to weave in some ends. Something about this yarn does not lend itself well to ends being woven in, or rather, ends staying woven in so I'm splitting the plies in two, tying a well placed (I hope) knot and then weaving in the split plies in a way that they won't show on the front. It's tedious to say the least. Also, I'm not sure my bod can handle this sweater. It's very va-va-voom, which is good on some parts and not so good on others. I know you all get my drift, right?
I am, of course, changing the pattern a bit. I'm making it a v-neck instead of a crew neck. I'm also adding more stitches to the front with the v-neck and I'll decrease them away under the bust. I'm lengthening the garter stitch section over my bust instead of ending it right above, or in the middle. I think that's it. Is that enough? (Ravelry project details)
This picture also gives me a chance to show off my adorable Ravelry Daily Dose of (plant) Fiber bag. I really like it. I think I'll get more use out of it than I would have out of the shirt, since I wasn't fast enough to get the shirts when they first came out.
In non-knitting news, I'm preparing for our trip to the Netherlands. We leave in just over a week. Well, there is some knitting news there. I was debating which projects to take. I think I'll take the Lady Sweater, a couple of sock projects and then some of my oddballs that I've gotten for swatching and my Barbara Walker treasury. I want to design a sweater for myself from scratch rather than constantly changing other people's designs.
I was going to say that I had truly non-knitting news: I'm trying to get myself to bike again. Lisa, a BobaKnitter, recently upgraded her bike trailer and generously passed on a Burley trailer that someone had given her to me. She thought she had forgotten a piece so I hadn't tried it out. She looked around for it and told me recently that she thought that the piece must be in the trailer itself, so I gave it a shot today, and it was in there. Last week when Niels was at my mom's I had taken Stefan to the library in the bike seat but he didn't like that. I'm not sure if it was my backpack in his face, the fact that I was really low in air for the first half of the ride or the wobbliness of riding on the back of a bike pedaled by someone who hadn't ridden a bike in (oh my god) 13 years. In any case, he wasn't interested in getting back in that seat but he and Niels were both excited to try the trailer. Its tires needed air too, so our first stop was the gas station and then I just rode around our neighborhood a bit, trying to get a feel for the bike again. It was fun. I'm going to try to bike over to Niels' gym camp tomorrow to drop him off. It's right by his school so it will be good practice for the fall! I have been eyeing the Xtracycles (I like the Electra Townie one) and I still think I want to get one eventually. There is not much room in that trailer for both kids, besides, I really like the idea of having them closer to me.
The way all that is knitting related is that I'm hoping to lose a bit of weight and then the above va-va-voom-y sweater might fit me better and I can wear it in public! Wish me luck.
the sheep free knitter 