A Little Yarn On The Side

The revised version of Andy's birthday sweater is zipping along, and everything had been going reasonably well.  I'm knitting it in the round, and aside from the occasional need for a purl stitch or two, it's pretty mindless.  So mindless, in fact, that with the aid of my little Bookmate helper to hold my book open, I have polished off two books and am on to my third ( The Know-IT-All , about a man who sets off to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica--who frankly sounds like a man after my own heart).  I was even pretty cheery considering that until I finish knitting up the rest of the yarn from the back that I'm frogging, I don't get to count ANY of this yarn on the stash-busting tally as it's already on there.  Still, I've made it through the yarn from half a front and more than half of the back--helped of course by the fact that that bottom edge is STILL rolling and always would and there would have been no point in deluding myself any longer. BU...

....and I swear I have been doing things.  I'm sure I have.  Obviously no sewing things, but things.  I just may not remember exactly what those things might be......... Why yes, we did have wine with dinner.  Why do you ask?

My Husqvarna dealer called yesterday, and Jeeves needs a new circuit board, which has been ordered and Jeeves should be back fixed and happy in a week to 10 days.  AND the circuit board is still under warranty, so I just have to pay for the labor.  Whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!  Seriously, when was the last time you had a product that was still under warranty 4 years after you bought it? In the meantime--now that I've gotten over my separation anxiety--I thought I might work on the sweater that I'm making for Andy's birthday, which is next month.  The back is done, and the Cambridge Jacket is mostly stockinette, but I found myself wanting to do ANYTHING but work on the sweater.  In spite of changing the pattern to add 4 rows of ribbing, the back was still rolling, and I was finding the pattern instructions really fussy for a really simply-shaped sweater, so yesterday I decided to chuck the pattern and design a similar sweater, though knit in the round and with ribbi...

Jeeves is ill.  This is as far as I could get on a set of towels last night.  He keeps resetting himself while embroidering, and at first I thought it was just something I have done, but then it happened every time I changed thread, but I was hoping I could at least get the towel done, but once I reached the strawberry stem, he started resetting himself WHILE embroidering.  NOT a good sign.  The good news is, the sewing side works fine.  The BAD news is, the sewing part and embroidery part are in the same machine, and both are going to have to go in for repairs. ARGGGGGHHHHHH!!! So, I have 49 projects for the year.  One more, and I'm on track for June.  Fine--maybe I can finish the scarf by the end of the month.  What if Jeeves has to be gone for a couple weeks?????????  I need eight finished objects for July as well!!!!!!!  Or he could be back in a week and all this worrying will be for nothing--but you know that isn't going to s...

Remember how I said I was going to work on the mitten garland this month? Obviously, that is not working out for me.  I have become OBSESSED with this scarf!  I wasn't sure if I would like the pattern in merino as well as I did the alpaca, so I steamed it a bit to see how it would look when finished--AND I LOVE IT!  I am a knitter obsessed! And meet projects 48 and 49: which is a shirt & cropped pants, not a shirt with bloomers, no matter what they look like in the picture.  I am rather proud of finishing up this fabric, as it was one of the first pieces of material I bought when I decided to take up sewing 5-6 years ago.  It MAY have been the oldest fabric in my stash--which gives me hope for the rest of the stash.  Theo was, of course, on hand to help, but I think a project with THREE drawstrings AND buttonholes was perhaps a bit much for him.......

IF Finishing Friday hadn't been the first nice, sunny day we've had in quite some time.... IF the sleeve I cut out for the shirt had actually been of the same pattern as the REST of the shirt..... IF Theo had been just a little less "helpful...." IF I had chosen to work on knitting that was farther along, rather than the new Ostrich Plume scarf that I'm currently obsessing over...... IF I hadn't left my camera plugged into the computer and run the battery down.... This would be a MUCH more interesting blog post.........

This scarf is actually very simple, but I'm trying to make the directions as thorough as possible.  It has a moss-stitch border of 6 rows on top and bottom and 4 stitches on each side, and uses the stitch pattern KNOWN as Ostrich Plume (hence the name).  There's a 3-stitch decrease using a slip 2, k1, pass slipped stitches over, which creates a nicer look than the traditional slip 1, k2tog, pass slipped stitch over technique, but feel free to use the more traditional decrease if you choose.  I used a shorter bottom and top edging to allow the wavy stitch pattern to pull the border into the wave effect, but you could certainly add a few extra rows of moss-stitch to the top and bottom if you would like. I have written this to slip the first stitch of all but the very first row as I think it makes a nicer edge, but you may choose to simply knit them.  As a matter of personal preference, I never slip the first stitch of the first row--it doesn't work with some cast-o...