10 day work week

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This week seemed like it was 10 days long.

Yay!

I had a lot of hurry-up-and-wait stuff going on at work this week.  I had to put together 10 binders of materials for a meeting Wednesday evening I was not attending.  Most of the documents needed updating and I had to wait for those to be done before I could print.  I filled the copier with paper before I started printing the materials and it holds 3000 sheets of paper at a time.  I refilled it yesterday.  That’s a lot of paper.

I’m headed to my daughter’s right after work tonight.  She and one of the twins (Z to be exact) have bronchitis.  Her husband has to work this weekend so I’m going to help her do whatever needs done.  I’m even taking dinner.

And Irish soda bread.  It’s only available around St. Patrick’s Day and I love this stuff.

I hope to have some time to knit so I’m taking a few things to work on while I’m there. 

  1. The neckwarmer.  (See the last post.)  This has been slow going.  Of course, I have been pretty busy every evening this week: laundry, Zumba class, running errands, laundry again, packing.  So you can see I haven’t worked on it too much.
  2. A new sweater.  Tangerine Twist from Knitty Summer 2007.  I bought yarn last summer for a project that escapes me so I have enough yarn for this.  I think this shape will be much better for me than the papaya cardi fail.
  3. Mitts for me.  Treads, Jiffy Mitts, or Fetching using yarn from my stash with enough to make all three pair but I’m not going to cast on all of them.  Treads has a new stitch to learn.  (Thank you Cpeezers for this great tutorial on the lateral braid.) Jiffy Mitts uses fingering weight.  I’m still not over the two pairs of Music Mitts I just finished.   Fetching has cables which I’ve never done.  I’ve been knitting off and on since I was 10 years old and I’ve never done cables other than a swatch.
  4. Seamless slippers.  Pattern on the right.  Mindless knitting and one can never have too many seamless slippers.

Have a great weekend.

Neck Warmer

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Last Friday I stopped at my LYS (local yarn store) to buy something to make the Herringbone Neck Warmer.  They don’t carry Malabrigio so I bought something else.

Araucania yarn

The red one didn’t have the depth of color I wanted but I didn’t know that until I took the hank apart to roll into a ball.  (side note: I don’t have a ball winder.  I prefer to do that myself.  Really.)  The red was dull.  Anyway, I put it back into the twisted configuration as I intend to exchange this for something else.  It was a little too pricy to keep in my stash.

I love the blues, purples, and greens in the other hank and the Herringbone stitch is beautiful.  And dense.  Eventually I will be able to knit it without saying the directions aloud.

One thing I haven’t figured out is how to correct a mistake using this stitch.  This stitch involves slipped stitches and psso (pass the slipped stitch over) and I’ve ripped this back many times…like about nine times.  I have 24 rows knit (about four inches) and I know I made a mistake way back around row 6.  I knew it as I was knitting that row.  It adds character.  Besides this is for me and I’m ok with some character.

If there’s enough light when I get home, I will show you my progress.

In agreement

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Ta-da

I think we are all in agreement that my papaya cardi is a fail.  For me.  I still like the sweater but not on my body.  I should have known that I don’t look good in a swing-type style.  Loose and swingy is not me.  Tight and ultra fitted isn’t me either.  Shaped with a little ease, now that’s me.

Looking back I think that’s the reason I was having such a hard time finishing it.  Deep down inside I knew it wasn’t right for me.  I knew from the schematic that it wasn’t the right shape but I started it anyway hoping it was more fitted as I knit. 

I am looking for a pattern that has more shaping through the waist, not too long and not too short, shawl collar (V-neck), 1-3 buttons to define the waist and can be made with the amount of yarn I have. 

Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, worsted weight, 10 balls, 110 yds/ball.

I’ve found some that are close to what I want but not quite there.  Maybe I should design the thing myself…

In the meantime, do you hear frogs?   Rip-it, rip-it, ribbit?