Autumn Sweater

Oh noes!

Still Playing Catchup

Well. I just stopped by Bloglines and found that I have 342 updates to read. Yowsers!

There have been a few hints over the past year that I should knit a hat for the Boy's mom's boyfriend. (side note: Why oh why isn't there an easier way to say that? I realize there is, assuming both couples involved were to decide to get married, but in the unmarried state, what a mouthful!) So, after confirming that the Boy must help me to select yarn, we were off to Purl, and happily fondling alpaca.

After a bit of stripe experimentation, I went for the very subdued option you see here. Finished a whole day in advance! Yeah!

You might remember that I was knitting a sweater. It now has two sleeves! Tada!

I think a bit of blocking is in order, to remove some of the excess curling at the edges. The expression of the model is, I think, due to being dragged outside for a photo, not a reflection on his feelings about the sweater. We hope...

And that wraps up Xmas '05. Happy New Year everyone!

Virtually Phlegm Free

Well, this month just got away from me, huh? I had mostly kicked the Cough From Hell, when we got the great NYC Transit Strike. One little day of biking and I had swapped in the Cough for the Head Cold From Hell. Let's just say I'm not winning any awards for above and beyond performance at work this month.

Anyway, I'm back on the mostly healthy side. I've done some knitting and a LOT of TV watching. I used to read all the time, but now with the knitting, TV has taken a much larger role in my life. Luckily there are much better shows out there these days. Or my standards are slipping. Either way, you can read thoughts about TV at Everybody Loves Saturday Night, where a group of us obsessed folks are obsessing in public.

Oh yeah, and the knitting... Christmas and knitting got along rather well this year. I did rip out the sweater I had started for my mom, re-did some math, moved the shaping to the princess seams rather than the sideseams...

changed the rib sleeve cuffs to bell sleeves with the lace edge, and modified the collar to make it more of a shawl collar. Besides that, and the creation of a new size, I just followed the pattern, I swear!

More Christmas Knitting to follow...

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone for all the comments on Tubey. Wow! I tried to answer all of them, but I realize I failed in this. Still totally surprised here! Thank you!!

Hardest thing to photograph EVER

So back in early November, in a strange fit of proactive-ness, I asked my mom and my sister if they had any need or desire for any handknitted items. I expected to hear that they were covered in the handknits, since I have gifted them with several in the past, and since they both know how to knit too. Surprisingly, they both wanted more!

My sister's scarf request has already been covered (yay!), and now I am working on my mom's gift. Mom knows about the blog, and now knows that all posts are written by me, after I cleared up some early confusion about Cassie Too Much Wool being a different person from me, but actually having the same first name. However, due to the excessive conversations we have had on this gift, I can't very well surprise her, so it seems this is fair game.

Mom has, for reasons too lengthy to get into, massive quantities of Tahki Baby. Now, Heather has been trying to use up massive quantities of Baby for pretty much as long as I've known her. So when Mom asked if I could take the yarn and make it into a sweater for her, I instantly thought of Honey. I've been wanting to make this ever since I saw Heather's, and yet I realise that I am far too sweaty a person to ever wear anything this chunky.

Mom brought the yarn over, and we started discussing sweaters, and her very specific list of requirements for sweaters. After a few false starts, we agreed to use Honey as the starting point, but with a wider collar. (and no pompoms, of course) Then I started taking measurements. Whoa!! Mom is not big, but she has some boobs! Suddenly, none of the sizes in the pattern seem like they would work.

After a whole bunch of math, here's where I am. I think this is looking too short and wide, but I have to remember that Mom has 9" more chest than me, and a more normal torso. (I have the longest torso ever! Seriously, I once dated someone who was 6'11" and I was taller than him sitting.) So whenever I hold this up to me, it is just desperately wrong looking. Hopefully I can venture over to Mom's soon and try this on her, because I fear I need to do some more math and start over. And yes, I realise that this photo looks like a huge mass of chunky black wool, with few discernable features. I tried!

One down...

My sister requested a dark colored textured scarf, on the thin side, not too long. So here we have Branching Out in Charcoal Heather Zara. She is unaware of the existance of the blog, so this is one of the bloggable gifts.

The rest of my Holiday Knitting List is scaring the @#&*!! out of me, so I'm just taking it one project at a time. As usual, the weather changing has resulted in me getting ridiculously sick for 2 weeks. Yes, this happened at the same time last year. Yes, I'm boring myself with this too! This past week was my first vacation all year, and I was in bed, too sick to knit. Wah!! I'm going to go hack up some phlegm now.