The Third Finished Item of 2010 . . .

. . . may well be a sweater that's been in need of seaming since last May:

Just referring to Grumperina's zipper installation instructions--that's all that's left. Frieda is clearly unimpressed.

Please Seam This Sweater for Me

Sometimes the best photos of Frieda and Gretel are those where they are caught doing stupid things--closed eyes, tongue out, sneezing.

It's a beautiful, sunny day here in the PNW, which may explain why I'm having trouble working on a bulky wool sweater. However, I'm determined to get at least one sleeve sewn in today, and here's the proof that I've started:

There's so little left on this sweater, but yet still so much. I want the finishing to look good, but I've never been good at seaming, and last week pretty much kicked my ass so I don't have a lot of mental energy for it, either. Maybe a nap is in order--the sleeve will still be waiting for me.

When I'm Two Rows From Casting Off . . . .

. . . this is not what I want to see:

About 10 rows down, stockinette instead of garter--hard to see close up, but from a foot away it would be obvious to even the least observant, non-knitter among us. Time to take out the crochet hook.

Green Green Rocky Road

I've been trying to think of a way to make knitting these sleeves sound or look interesting, but even Frieda isn't all that interested in them. I've been working on a lot of other projects in the meantime, but have been trying to get through a minimum of four rows (that's one set of increases) per day. It's paying off--I'm only a couple of increases away from the widest part of the sleeve, and then I can stop counting rows until the sleeve is long enough. These should fly by after that, and then it will be time to make the final zipper vs. button band decision and finish this puppy off. That's when it will get interesting again, I suppose.

The spring cleaning that I semi-started last weekend in the sewing room continues. I realized this week that my car is unacceptably dirty on the inside, and that I need to do more work in the sewing room before I start messing it up with new projects. Oh, but you know how I love new projects . . .

Down on the Main Spring Listen to the Tick-Tock

The Green Chill sweater is coming along so quickly that I haven't had time to write a series of repetitive "I've got three more inches now!" style posts--the first front was done on Monday (I started it before the Spring Training trip), the second front was done on Wednesday, and the sleeves are well underway. I'm knitting both sleeves at once so that the increases will go on the same row for sure--for some reason, I wasn't worried enough about the fronts to do both at once, probably because there's not a lot of shaping to keep straight.

I'm hoping to get this finished before it gets too warm for a wool cardigan (though this may not happen for months yet), and before I start another new sweater. This project has come along so well that starting a new sweater feels imminent--even though it would make more sense to go back to sweaters that are already started.

The biggest issue that I forsee with finishing this sweater is that I keep mentally picking out buttons for it, even though the pattern calls for a zipper--I may end up adding button bands, or if not I will need to find the right zipper and install it (or have it installed) which could take as much time as it's taken to knit the thing! Opinions, advice? Buttons or Zipper? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Note in the photo above a guest appearance by the Hulk Smash socks, which I've been wearing around the house all week. They turned up when I was packing for AZ, and as soon as I put them on I ordered more of this yarn (Cashsport String by The Yo Yo from the Loopy Ewe, this time in a pretty light blue) because it's so comfy. I'm hoping that it arrives today--it's my birthday (which one? It ends with a zero, and it's not 30) and if I want to start some birthday socks I will. Startitis has free reign today--I'm hoping it will quash the urge to buy a sweater's worth of yarn when I'm in the big city later today, but I'm not convinced that it will.


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Down on the Main Spring Listen to the Tick-Tock: "New Amsterdam", Elvis Costello. This video version is poor quality but hilariously "of it's time" (while the song itself holds up really well)

Long story short . . .

. . . I didn't run to the finish line on the Red Hot Chili socks on Saturday, so they're closer to being done but still not quite there. I did work on them, but there were other things on the agenda as well, and 45 rows on size 0 needles does take a bit of time.

Somehow, it was easier to work on a project I started a few days ago, Chill by Sarah Dallas, from an old Rowan magazine. I'm using Louet Riverstone Chunky that I bought a month or so ago when Webs sharply discounted it--less than $5 for a 100-gram skein. I was planning to knit this Vine Lace Cardigan with it, but it would have required either a lot of recalculating, or using a gauge that felt too "holey" for this yarn. I've had my eyes peeled for a 14-stiches to 4 inches gauge sweater (and went through hundreds of patterns on Ravelry) before realizing that this sweater would work. It's from Rowan 32, which was published in 2002, so it's not a very "Ravelable" project. There's one other project in process on Ravelry (or maybe it's finished), and mine is the only project with photos. In fact, I only pulled out this magazine after reading about Pearl from the same issue on the Mason-Dixon blog--without that prompting, I might still be looking!

The pattern has an intarsia design option, but the photo that really sold me on it is the plain grey version that Sarah Dallas is wearing in a photo in the magazine. It's cozy, it's got a zipper (which I may replace with button bands, and I've got more than enough yarn for it. So far, it's coming along very well--I'm almost to the armhole shaping on the back.

I know I have a bad track record with finishing things (see aforementioned socks), but I'm feeling pretty good about this sweater. I don't think that I've finished a sweater since before the turn of the century, but if I could just finish and wear one that either fits well or at least doesn't look ridiculously bad, then maybe I'd turn over a new leaf. There are soooooo many inspiring patterns and yarns available now, it seems a shame not to give it a try!