First Finished Sweater!

It's dry, the ends are woven in, and I am finished with my first sweater! I did the large size on the pattern and I can't believe that it fits me so well. I love it. I went to the KAL a lot for the modifications to the pattern. Here are the specs:
Yarn: 2 1/2 skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Robin's Egg Blue
Needles: Size 4 and 6 KnitPicks 32" circulars
Started: July 26, 2006
Finished: August 28, 2006
Modifications: Added extra waist decreases and spaced them out over 5 rows. Added hip increases and added 3 rows of stockinette before ribbing on sleeves. That's it!

I really liked how easy this pattern was, but the rounds of stockinette did get kind of tiring at the end. And like many at the KAL, I screwed up the lace pattern a couple of times and had to rip back. The only thing I'm worried about is if it will ride up too much when I'm wearing it. If it does, I'll just add another inch or two to the bottom. Now I need to find another sweater project.

Stash addition

My yarn from Blue Moon arrived today! I asked for color #2, Love-in Idleness, since the one I named, #6, is the next choice in the club. I absolutely love this color. Even more than Peaseblossom. I am thinking about ordering 2 additional skeins to, maybe, make a clapotis out of it.

And I am still debating whether or not I want to learn how to spin. I know my personality ( I tend towards obsessive/compulsive), and I am afraid if I started spinning it would cut into my knitting time. Right now, surfing the internet is the big competition for knitting. You know, looking at blogs, looking at yarn stores, finding new patterns, all eat into my knitting time.

Well, I am almost done with my Green Gable, just the sleeves left. So a new post and pic in the next day or two. Have a good weekend!

Knitting Injury

Today is my son's 12th birthday and I can't believe it. I know it's trite, but where does the time go? He is so funny, he's telling me he's bored! So I better make this quick...

I have been knitting on my Green Gable because I really want to finish it and wear it before the weather turns cool. My new Knitpicks needles have been great, but I have fallen back into my habit of pushing the needles. I now have a small hole in the tip of my right index finger that hurts like a *&%$#%@! I've been benched!
So I have to take a break until I can get one of those nifty finger protectors at Hobby Lobby or Michael's. I have actually knit about 4 more inches since I took this picture, so I think I'm about 60% done.
Since I can't knit, I am on the internet. I might as well look at yarn, books, patterns and blogs. Well, stores should be open soon. And maybe that will relieve someone's boredom.

Can't leave well enough alone

Wellllll... Remember how I finished my Cedar Creek socks and I was so happy to be finished? After wearing them a couple of times and looking at them A LOT, I realized I just wasn't thrilled with the way my picot edge had turned out. You see, originally the pattern was written for top down and I wanted to do them toe up. So I had to improvise on the picot edge and I ended up with an edge that flared out a ton. This was also my first try with EZ's sewn cast off and that ended up both too tight (on the first sock) and too loose (on the second)!

So, I ripped it out and redid them because, YES, I am that picky! This time, though, I did plenty of research on the internet and found out how to do them properly. My first mistake was making the cuff too short, so the revised edition has a 6 round cuff before the picot round. On the picot round, I went up a needle size (size 2) from what I had used to knit the leg (size 1). Then, on the private side of the picot edge I went down a needle size (size 0) from what I had used for the leg. I gave up on the sewn cast off that was too difficult for me to tension right. So, I followed the advice from this site and picked up stitches from the beginning round with an extra circular needle and did a 3 needle bind off with the bigger needle (size 2) for a wonderfully stretchy cuff that doesn't curl over! Yea! I love them!

I WON YARN!

I can't believe it! I won a Rockin' Sock Club contest! I will definitely post a picture as soon as I receive my yarn, both here and at the KAL. Talk about getting me out of my funk! Thanks to the wonderful ladies at Blue Moon and all the wonderful people at the KAL who voted for my choice of names!

I think this is a record for the number of exclamation points in one post, but what the heck.

Ugh!

My kids have been ill, so this has not been a fun week. Also, not a lot of knitting going on. I have been crazy tired trying to keep things going. And my grandmother has been ill and is now in a nursing home. So now I'm on marathon phone calls with my mom back in Texas. So so tired. I'll post more when I have actual knitting content.