pepperknit

Have you all seen this? I could just die, it’s the cutest thing in the world. Cuter even than baby bootees.

The Penguin Jumper Project was getting folks to knit sweaters for penguins who’d suffered after an oil spill. But now I just want my own penguin so I can dress him up.

I’m home! It took me 4 forms of transportation, 8 hours, and 2 days to get home from Portland. But it was all the expected travel time, so though I dragged myself home dead tired and dirty this morning, it was all part of the vacation. I just woke up from a 5-hour nap; let’s see if I sleep at all tonight!

I have no knitting news to report. None. I finished Cirque right before I left, and didn’t have time to come up with something else to do. That was ok with me, though, and I don’t know how much knitting I’d have actually done anyway. On the way home, I thought a little about the color pattern I’d like for my new hat and I had an idea, finally, so I’m going to play with that a bit.

Thanksgiving was fabulous–why don’t we cook this meal more often? Heritage turkey (apple cider brined), two stuffings, cranberry relish, brussels sprouts, salad, my awesome gravy (see above), lots of pinot noir, two pies, homemade vanilla ice cream, and three of my best friends. (This year it was a girls-only event.) We’ve rotated hosting from year to year and have pared the menu down to only our essentials. Hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday.

And as a birthday present to myself, I made a totally ludicrous hat, in about three hours. I’ve made the hat before, but I gave it away. I call it “Cirque”:

I look horrible in hats, so the boy offered to model it for me. It’s my first piece for the Cover Your Head knitalong!

I was born on a Wednesday exactly 28 years ago!

Still without buttons, because I’m sick of sewing things on. But lookit! Lookit!

It’s done! I did buy buttons (it’s the only time I left the house today, and it left me tired), but they’re just going to have to wait. Tomorrow. Or maybe later tonight, if I get the inspiration.

I’m really happy with this cardigan. It’s comfy, the cables give it a cool feel (like, the tactile feel—not that I’m suddenly some cool chick or anything). And it’s pretty warm, too—but still breathable. Exactly what I look for in a toss-on cardigan.

I’ll do a full wrap-up once I’ve got shots with the buttons. After all, it’s not entirely done. But all the ends are sewn in (amazing) and all the parts are attached (finally!). I think I’ll wear it over Thanksgiving, so hopefully I can get some shots of it in use—in another state and everything.

Looks kind of like an FO, at least this in this shot:

But in truth, it’s only half the cardigan. And none of the ends are sewn in; I’ve merely tucked them aside for the photos.

I’m getting there, though, and I’m home sick today so I hope to be able to get the rest sewn up and the collar added. The pattern calls for you to knit the collar separately and sew it on, but I really detest sewing and so I decided to use short rows instead of the stepped decreasing the collar called for. I’m still doing the collar one half at a time, as called for, but I have no problems sewing up knits next to knits for the 20 rows or so of the collar. Going along the edge of the work, however, to sew the collar on, would have been torture. And amazingly, I picked up the correct number of stitches on the first try. I’d done some counting and some vague visual mapping, but didn’t know it was going to work exactly until I got the stitches on the needles. I think the outside edge, which should have been the cast on edge if I’d done the piece separately, looks nice and neat as a cast-off edge.

Being home sick means that I have time to get to fabric row while stores are still open to buy buttons! This is an unexpected perk of being sick, I must say. I think I’ll bundle up and go out soon, before it’s supposed to rain. I seem to just have a cold–though Thursday I had all-body achiness, that’s subsided greatly. Now it’s mostly runny nose, stuffy head, etc. That I can handle—but I need to nip in the bud before my flight to Portland on Wednesday!

No knitting occurred last night, because I spent the entire day suffering some kind of all-body achiness. I got home, layed on the couch, and eventually got into bed at 8pm. Asleep by 9. Feeling much better now. But Pam has been totally derailed. Since I haven’t posted a picture of these damn sleeves, I figured I would right now.

It’s a little blurry, and the morning light isn’t all that bright, resulting in a slightly too blue image, but there you have it! Two sleeves about 4 centimeters from completely finished. Huzzah!

Damn you Peachy, for noticing my silence on the subject of the USMP.

I finished knitting it while on my vacation week. But I haven’t done anything with it yet. I have this fear that the arms aren’t going to match up with the armholes, and that that line won’t really go away, so I’m avoiding the pieces like the plague. I’ll get around to them again, I swear.

Right now, I’m so excited to almost be done with Pam, I honestly don’t think I’m going to balk at sewing it up, despite it being a cardigan with many pieces to attach (including the collar, which can’t be picked up from the edges). My goal is to finish that this weekend–I think I could finish the sleeves tonight; I’m at 46 cm (goal is 48 before I start shaping the tops, and that’s only like a 6-row process). Unfortunately, we have a long car ride on tap for the weekend but I’ll be driving, so no knitting then.

I could take a picture and post it, but what would you see? Two sleeves getting imperceptibly longer as the hours progress.

I’m knitting both sleeves of Pam at the same time so that I can be sure the two sleeves will be identical. It’s a common enough method, I know—my mom always did it this way, too—and it only slightly goes against my ‘one thing at a time’ mentality. But it means progress appears slow. I keep trying to remind myself that “hey! when you’re done, you’re done!” but that is little comfort when I’m now squeezing a million stitches onto these small circulars, and I think I’m still miles away from finished.

One thing that continues to fascinate me: The circumference of sleeves at their widest is about the same as the full width of the back! I think sleeve and I think little thing hanging off the side of the body. But what I forget is that sleeves are actually significant pieces of the work! They’re not like the two fronts of the cardigan, which each knit up in two nights. They’re like doing the back all over again, almost—and twice! No wonder it’s taking forever.

Plus I occasionally manage to get confused, and it’s because the rows are so damn long: Am I still really only on row 1 of this repeat? Or am I on row 3? Because it feels like it must be row 3, I’ve been at it for so long.

Well, thanks for stopping by! I hope you’ll enjoy what you see here.

Thanks for the compliments, and to all of those who have pointed out that low-rise jeans require larger belts: You are totally right! Thanks for reminding me. I reminded my mom (who had been horrified when I gave her the measurement I’d prefer) of this, and she felt a lot better. I also talked to her about adding to my addi stash, or a gift cert to knitpicks, and she ultimately decided that she would just write me a check. So I’ll have to be good about applying the money toward personal purchases, not groceries.

I had a dream last night that I went to yoga and rolled out my mat, and it had cables and moss stitch all over it. Someone nearby asked me if the texture was good for stickiness or bad for it. I didn’t know! (What’s odd about having had this dream last night is that I started the sleeves for Pam, and so I’m smack-dab in the middle of k2p2 rib—no cables yet.)

A response to Rachel’s comment, which made me laugh out loud, is warranted as a full-on blog entry.

I did not know all that info about 28! And since yes, I am turning 28, this is exciting to know! I’d never even heard of this perfect number phenomenon before. I’d intended to be a physics-math double major in college, but dropped the math pretty darn quickly (after linear algebra, which kicked my ass second semester of freshman year).

I am a big fan of prime numbers, though, and will be psyched for 29. I once went to a talk by a friend on happy numbers; that was something I’d never heard of before the talk. Turns out 28 is also a happy number! Boy next year is going to be good :)