Oops I knit it again

Don't adjust your monitor. I wore the other sweater a couple of days; mmmn...snuggly warm; and decided that it needed to be bigger (read...less form fitting). So I ripped it and reknit the front and back with more ease and added some short rows to the back.

Just another pair of socks

I cast on another pair of socks, and in a moment of whimsy I decided to get out Little Loopy and take a picture of the toe, since I got the yarn from The Loopy Ewe.

However, Little Loopy seems to think it would be a better winter hat than a sock toe.

Sock-ra-tee

Yes,I went there - it was a good day for a bad pun.

There has been a recent thread on Ravelry about Frog it or Finish it. I didn't join into the fray, but it did make me think about UFOs that are languishing. Among them was a 1/3 done shrug in The Knittery's Merino Cashmere Sock. Great shrug pattern, some nice examples finished on Rav, but really...would I wear it? When it's 8F outside, 64F inside; I'm not wearing a lacy shrug, I'm wearing polar fleece lined jeans, REI basegear shirts and a windfleece sweatshirt. (If I'm going to the basement, add wristwarmers and a hat.)

Looking at the middle ground between la girlie and le popsicle, I decided to knit a long sleeve Tee. I wanted something snug fitting to function as a baselayer, yet pretty under a cardigan. It took about 750 yards of sock yarn. I love it, but if I were to knit it again I think I would do seamless circular knitting with raglan shaping because the arm seams seem just a widget tight. Oh well, that can serve as motivation to shape up! The cashmere adds just that touch of mental shashay - mmmn, cashmere, yet the sock yarn aspect makes it more wearable - oh no, cashmere!

How about y'all? What do you have languishing that could be something useful?

YogaWarmers

Remember my Alamo Souvenir? I had a hard time reconciling myself to gasp walking on cashmere, but didn't want a shawl/scarf either. So I knit these.

Close fitting legwarmers/footless socks that I am calling YogaWarmers. They have too much negative ease to ever do that weird bunchy thing that legwarmers did in the 80s; which I confess I never mastered, instead feeling like I just had really fat ankles.

They're for yoga in that I can pull them on under my workout pants, perfect for early in the morning before I've warmed up and then as I heat up slip them off easily, and just as easily slip them back on for corpse pose.



The cashmere makes them decadent, the merino makes them smooshy, and the nylon means they'll snap back. I cast on at the ankle on US 2s, worked 2 inches of 2x2 rib, increased to a 2x3x2x2 rib which carried me up the calve to almost the fullest part, then upsized to US 5s for the last 4 inches and bound off. The odd purl count kept them from being true rosary knitting, but they were good for "not really watching what TAO wants to, but TV too loud to read" knitting.

They would have been finished more quickly except for that whole monogamous-knitting-failure thing I have going on.

Chasing the Frog

This week I picked up a tiny deep water frog for our dining room tank. Now when you research this breed there are oodles of things you're supposed to do to ensure their health and safety. So I came home and promptly set about performing all of them; nevermind the logic that points out that frogs live without this stuff in the wild and also that when the government intervenes in health and safety guidelines it's usually impracticable..

I built a little habitat within the larger tank which the frog steadfastly refuses to live in. And spent a fair amount of time dip netting and chasing, trying to corral him toward it. A few days later I shifted it to the area he seemed to prefer...he promptly moved to the corner it had previously been placed in. All in all he seems more content to burrow his head into the rocks and moon us. I finally decided to let him be, if he dies, well, he dies. At the same time, I wonder if my recent struggles have been someone dip netting my personal aquarium, trying to guide me in a certain direction, while I just burrow in and moon the universe.



This is the Rib Yoke Cardigan from Summertime Knits by Classic Elite. Knit in New Tweed by Takhi and since I've previously shown my gorgeous seaming I won't show it again. My modifications were few, I changed the buttons to accomodate 3 bigger buttons on top. In the Stash and Burn group on Ravelry there is a thread about 3 button cardis. And it is true that certain cardigans lend themselves well to this treatment, keeping your clavicles warm while letting out that "over a certain age" heatwave. At the same time, there are those occasions when I want full torso warmth. So I put three eyecatching buttons at the top, then used buttons that blend in completely for the rest. Voila...I can wear it either way.

This project was also an object lesson in why you should swatch, wash & dry swatch, then measure. My washed gauge achieved I set off on the project. And spent the whole time thinking...this is too small, this will never fit, I will have to lose my twinkie arms to wear this, etc. Finished it, blocked it, and it fits great!

Hope I remember that lesson.

Finishing in the New Year

Holding with secular tradition...I chose not to do laundry today...and I worked on finishing things. One thing I finished....

Damson by Ysolda Teague in Butter Peeps colourway of Dream in colour Smooshy.

Now I'm off to finish last nights bottle of Belgian Lambic. But before I go...does that look like the Millenium Falcon to anyone else?