A Little Yarn On The Side

The new scarf is done, which brings me to 9,742 yards of yarn for the year.  I'd like to say I didn't sort through my yarn stash looking for a quick project involving a skein of 260 yards, but I'd also like to be able to eat chocolate without putting on the pounds--and that certainly hasn't happened.  My fantasies obviously have NOTHING to do with the real world. In the end, I opted to cast on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Epaulet sweater: I'm using Lion Brand Wool-Ease, which isn't my favorite for sweaters, but I had bought a couple bags of the stuff when I was trying to convince myself to learn steeking, thinking that I'd rather cut up cheaper yarn than nice stuff, but I did learn to do it anyway, and have had this yarn lurking in the closet for a while.  This is a brilliant but complicated pattern, so the odds of me making a mistake are pretty high, so I thought this would be a good project/yarn match.  It's another of her seamless sweater ideas...

Scorching heat aside, I still love this project.  To be fair, it wasn't until after I started it that I discovered that the "yarn needed" notes on Ravelry aren't accurate, so I made a shorter shrug than the pattern called for, and if it looks odd on the right, it's because my mattress stitching there is so wonky that I'll be ripping it out and starting over, so it's only partially done.  BUT it still counts as finished sweater number FIVE.  Yay!!!!!!!!!!  When we get out of the perpetual state of sweat, I might even be willing to try it on.  It's supposed to "only" get to 104 today.  Whew!  Good thing I have wool in such a break from heat! Aside from having a new finished sweater, I am tremendously proud of myself for this sweater because I used gift yarn for it .  I struggle with using up any really great yarn in my stash--you know, because then I won't have the yarn any more--but I become a positive maniac over gift yarn.  RobinH ...

According to the news, Boise just set a record high temperature today of 108.  I know--that's a refreshing day in Arizona, but this is IDAHO.  We're a northern state.  We get winter and everything.  This is crazy hot for us. I am hosting my knitting group tonight, and I have already notified everyone that the air conditioner is on full blast and that the house is livable, though if it gets any hotter, I may have to relent and make it "clothing optional."  Meanwhile, I need to go find a non-wool project for tonight.  Even with the air conditioning blasting, it is STILL too hot to handle wool.  Argh!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I just say that??????????????????

Okay, so in one light: Tonight, however, when I was showing the sweater to Andy, it looked more like this: NOOOO!!!!  A cheap, mass-produced acrylic yarn had dye lot variations!!!!!!!!  I'll admit, I have gotten very lazy about checking dye lots on big commercially produced yarns, and this stuff is TLC Wiggles which was made by Red Heart--the kings of the mass produced yarn!  I don't imagine ANYTHING in their yarn process is done by humans--how does this still have dye lots? Sigh.......I'm going to send the sweater as a gift anyway and just hope they don't notice.   If they notice, I'm going to blame it on all the nifty drugs.  Or age--does 41 count as old enough to be "slightly batty" to those in their 20s?  Would it help if we got another cat?

Sweater number 4 and hat number 6 are done! That makes me still behind, but it is done BEFORE the birth of its destined owner, so still an improvement in my normal program. The Ravellenic games are coming in a couple weeks, and I'm going to try to finish a couple sweater WIPs during the games (which have nothing to do with any televised events of any sort), which will bring me closer to being on schedule, and maybe if there's a quick shrug in bulky yarn and big needles before the start, I could actually be on target for the 12 sweaters for the year.  OK, I didn't begin the year planning that 3 of the sweaters would be baby or toddler size, but I pride myself on my ability to disregard rules flexibility.  I didn't actually say they couldn't be baby-sized, though I'll admit that I do have enough pride to be unwilling to consider doll-sized.  One has one's limits........or at least until December............

Always have a very simple knitting project on-hand for the 4th of July, so when our nitwit neighbors are still shooting off illegal fireworks until well after midnight, I have something simple to do when I can't sleep.......

 Thanks to a rather persistent wake-up kitty, I was up slightly before 5:00 AM this morning, so I've had lots of time to do stuff today.  I even did an early morning grocery run and managed to be in, out, and home carrying groceries in by 7:30 AM.  Not that I'm agreeing that this is a good program or even tolerable, and I might have disrupted a few of Theo's naps today in retaliation, but it did give me some extra time today.  So, the 9th Christmas ornament is done, all the knitting on the new baby sweater is finished and I'm down to just sewing seams, I've started the matching beret, and.... a few more things are in the sewing room!  While not very attractive, this is the best way to get the yarn tubs in the room without blocking anything.  I won't swear how accessible that bottom shelf will be, but everything else can be reached.  And the top tub contains this which is all the yarn I hope to use up from stash before the end of the ...