Sleeve Labor

(Sorry. You know how I am...)

Though I also thought of "Sleeving is Believing." And "I'll be sleeving you (in all the old familiar places...)" And the ever-popular traveling knitter's song "I'm sleeving on a jet plane."

It's the fever. It's making me light headed. Really.
That's my story.

So, in between naps today, I got some knitting done. (Yeah, sleeves. How'd you guess?)

Whenever I'm knitting sleeves flat, I like to do them at the same time. This way, I know they end up the same length, with all the decreases/increases in the same places. You can see where I've got a safety-pin holding them together about 1/3 of the way up. (There would have been another pin or so, if I could have found another one. Way too much effort today.) By linking the two sleeves, I can keep track of which direction I'm going. The trick is to never ever ever stop at the gap in the middle. If you have to set the knitting down, either stop a few stitches before the gap, or start knitting a few stitches after it; then, when you pick it up again, you don't have to guess where you left off.
The two-at-a-time thing is an especially good solution if you're making mods. By knitting both sleeves (or both fronts, etc) at the same time, you don't have to worry about keeping notes to help you make the second piece to match. (I usually manage to lose the notes...) (Note to self: find better way to keep notes to self organized.) (Um, wait...)
So I'm at the point where I start decreasing for the raglan shaping. That will be tomorrow's project. Then on to the fronts!

Happy Blogiversary to Me - a day late. (Story of my life...)

My second blogiversary, and I forget it. I'd been meaning to check, the last couple of days, thinking that it was coming up soon. But I haven't been feeling well. In fact, last night I felt bad enough to Go To Bed Early. I never do that... (I've always had a really hard time letting go of the day.)
This morning I woke up chilled to the bone and shaking. A quick check of the thermostat showed that it wasn't actually cold in the house.
Uh-oh.
Running a fever. Feeling ghastly.
I called in sick (something else I never do), and headed for the couch.
Here I am, wrapped in every afghan we own, knitting the sleeves for my cabled coat, in between fever chills.
*sigh*
At least I'll get some extra knitting done...

Perhaps there's something to this "Project Monogamy" thing...

Finished the godet.


And have cast on the sleeves. (Do the rest of the boring part, then I get to do the interesting part again. Carrots on sticks are so important.)

Not a great picture, but the camera and the editing software seem to be fighting with each other. I'm just the innocent bystander...

Onward!

Woohoo! The back is done!

That's the end of boring for a while. Until the sleeves, that is. I'd better make them before the fronts...


Starting the godet. I'm on the 3rd skein of yarn, and loving the knitting so far.

Still carless.
*sigh*

And another thing...

The other thing I did Sunday, besides doing ninety-two loads of laundry, washing a mountain of dishes, and baking a loaf of bread and a big honkin' pork roast, was to cast on a sweater. For me. Hallelujah!
I'm making this cabled coat, by Norah Gaughan.* I fell in love with it the first time I saw it in Vogue Knitting. I'm doing the boring moss stitch backs first, knowing myself as I do. Otherwise, I'd knit the technically interesting cabled sections and never get around to finishing it. (Moss stitch, like its close cousin seed stitch, is fun to knit, but vast amounts of it can be tough going. I'm using the cabled parts as the carrot on a stick...)
I started with the Right Back - which was actually a large gauge swatch. When I saw that my gauge was spot-on (I went down a needle size from what was recommended. Loose knitter, here.) I immediately cast on the Left Back and knit it to catch up.

Now I'm knitting them simultaneously, just like I knit sleeves two-at-a-time, linking them with safety pins so I don't lose track of which direction I'm going. (That's Sunday's photo above. I'm now about 6" along.)

* How is Gaughan pronounced, anyway? Rhymes with Vaughan, perhaps?

Busy Sunday

I seem to be running behind in my posts. Yesterday's was about the days after Christmas; today's is about yesterday. Give me another day or so, and I'll finally be running in real-time...
So, anyway.
I finished (finally!) plying the merino-tencel.

Spinning was on hiatus for the Christmas season. Part of it was running low on time, the other part was my (hopeless) attempt to toddler-proof my house for the visiting grandchildren. (I wasn't home when my daughter arrived with spouse and children in tow. She might have screamed "Oh my God! This place is a toddler death-trap!!" but, since I wasn't there, I can pretend it didn't happen. After a certain point, I had given up. I ran out of high places to put breakables, and since everything else I own could potentially maim a busy grandson, I finally decided we could just keep an eye on him. Four adults, one toddler. Seemed like about even odds...)

After the spinning, I got to play with my new toy!

My much-beloved mother-in-law gave me this for Christmas. With our steady flow of eggs, a pasta machine seemed like a good idea. (Pasta is a very practical way to store excess eggs. Pasta's shelf-life is much longer than an egg's!)
My first efforts were a little funky -

but I got a little better as I went along.

Madman, meanwhile, was out ice-fishing. Look at these beauties:

Northern Pike. Tasty...

There was also a lot of fun

Lest you think the whole trip to my dad's was a disaster, I should share some of the good stuff...

I got to meet the two new alpacas. Dad and Wicked Good Stepmother now have 6 (six!) alpacas. The little guy is Max - he's a runt. Two years old, and looks like he's half-grown. But what he lacks in size, he makes up for in personality.

Here's my grandson (aged 2.5) 'reading' a story to his great-grandpa and the dog. (The dog was a little bewildered at being read to... She finally took refuge in Dad's lap, and little Mr. C followed along with his book, enjoying the larger audience.)


There were piggies to admire:

The boy was a good little helper, come chore-time. Though it takes a long time to fill a trough, a dozen kernels of corn at a time...

And he got to meet a pig up-close. (That's a very alert Great-Grandma hovering over him, ready to whisk him up and out of the way if the pig got grumpy.) Check out the bottom left corner of the picture - you'll see 2 very tiny piglets. My favorite was the pink one with freckles!

Alpacas are big fans of corn, as well.

The Divine Miss L, my granddaughter, stayed in the house - she'd spent a couple of weeks on the farm last summer, so doing chores wasn't near the attraction for her. She had happy Christmas loot to play with, which beat the pants off freezing outdoors.
Meanwhile, little Mr C was being followed by the paparazzi - his grandmother, mother, and aunt were all trooping along behind him with cameras...