Junuary Sweater

I guess the only thing good about Junuary is that it might actually be cool enough to warrant a big thick wool sweater such as:
However at the moment it's over 80° inside and that doesn't really make me want to wear this bad boy at all! Might have to wait for JAnuary...
I love it!! See?

Well, ok, the buttons aren't so good, but they will be changed. I would love to be better at choosing buttons, but it's like choosing a good birthday card. It can take me HOURS. Will need to get Martha's crafty eyes :)


Quick Specs:
Pattern: Cable Sweater; Knit.1; Spring 07
Size: Small body, large sleeves (I don't have twig arms, ok?)
Yarn: 60% wool, 22% silk, 11% alpaca, 7% cashmere; it's something I scavenged at Ross, so not really available. However, the original designer was David Bitton and it started it's life as a rectangle w/ sleeves and a hood... snag as many as you can if you find them
Approximate Quantity: 1 original sweater
Needles: 6US Addi Lace (started w/ 6US Clovers, but I wore the points off)
Time: 2.5 months
Damn I'm good!

Oh, Drew and I also hike in style. I proposed a night hike on Saturday to christen my new pack. We went along Ingles Creek for about 1 mile, threw out our sleeping pads and bags, and promptly drank a bottle of wine (note unbreakable wine glasses!) and ate 1/2 a box of grapes. Perfect Saturday night :)

Sockotta!

Oh man, it's finally nice outside! It's been rainy and barely above freezing for the last eon.* I hope this nice stuff holds cause I'm more than ready for it, my tomatoes are more than ready for it... and I think the whole valley was done with winter and nasty weather 3 months ago.

Just in time for beautiful weather I finished my 1st pair of Sockotta! Holy cow are they comfy and cute! See? (Your eagle eyes may notice that they don't match. You're right. They'll be in my shoes...)

I've got a dress on, but I don't know that I'll take the socks off quite yet :) They only took me 2 weeks to knit - one week a piece and almost exclusively knit on the bus.

I did a very nice looking eye of partridge heel, but it knit up tight and stretchy. Does that make sense? Regardless, I knit until the heel flap was 2" long, but it probably stretches out to 2 1/2" and it's so tight that the pick-up edges pucker a little. Why am I not so bothered by this that I'll reknit? Because they'll be in my shoes (again). And no one I know will be concerned with the fact that the heel is a little funky; they'll be excited that I made them! On the other hand it does mean that I'll do things a little differently next time.

I've got another ball of Sockotta in a pink/orange colorway and am thinking about an afterthought heel to avoid disrupting the pattern. Just knitting a short row heel in might be fine too, as I don't notice the disrupted pattern much on these. Of course the other colorway has different patterning too. I may also do another heel flap, but knit it either in a standard k1, sl1 for each knit row so as not to have the offset of eye of partridge. Though I LOVE how the EOP looks! I'm not going to block them, though, and I'm certainly not blocking a heel flap while they're on the needles, so the option to block it to the stretched size is NOT happening! So, we'll see. I guess I could just plain knit a heel flap w/ only slipped stitches on the edges for pick up. Who knows I could even do a contrast heel and toe. Tons of options, I guess :)

I'll be hiking in these babies ASAP and while I'm hiking I'll have more sock knitting in my pack for snack/meal/camping time knitting! Three cheers for portable knitting!
Hurrah portable knitting!
Hurrah portable knitting!
Hurrah portable knitting!
And the crowd rejoiced.

*It's been above freezing, but so windy it's been too cold to leave the house w/o long sleeves or some type of jacket until today. And it hasn't really been an eon, just an unbearably long winter!

The Dumb

This is how I've felt at work lately... Bad news, I know.

A big sweater

At the moment I believe the sweater is at it's biggest. It's taken over my living room :)

Today Drew & I went to visit Camp and then for a walk up to Hidden Lake. It was a complete blast! Soon we'll be to the camping-and-knitting stage :)

We even saw something I've never seen before. It's a Fairy Slipper wild orchid.

I knitted on my newest sock most of the weekend and Drew thought it was adorable. I'm not sure how long that attitude will persist, but I'm milking it for all it's worth at the moment! I suppose it means I need to knit him some socks, though... I needed to take a break from complicated projects so I got going on Sockotta from Plymouth in a green/blue color way. I love that it's self striping even though it's not coming out exactly the same with all of the stripes. I'm excited for some cotton socks to hike in :)