And it fits!

The boys can't believe it, and neither can I.



My cardigan is not only complete, but it fits! I completed the knitting on Saturday and the little amount of finishing on Sunday (weave in ends, graft armholes). I did a 15 minute soak in wool wash (Kookaburra) and laid it out flat on the carpet in my room. By Monday morning it was almost dry, so I carefully laid it on the sweater rack in my dryer and gave it a little heat. Perfect. I waited to sew the buttons on until it was blocked and that seemed to work out great.

I recruited our fledgling photographer (Emmett) to take a couple of pictures, and this was the best shot:



Just kidding. The light was bad and I looked awful. I tried again with the self-timer and the result was only barely acceptable. I'll hopefully enlist Ryan and the weather (it's been SERIOUSLY nasty in Seattle this week) to get some more flattering shots this weekend. I cropped one so that I could share:



I also did a preemptive strike on the bottom hem to keep it from folding inward and upward. It involved a crochet hook and more yarn. I'll give details once I can take a detail shot.

Other than that the week has been spent entertaining boys with dribbling noses and ear infections (Emmett, but not Leon). Here's a good moment from Monday:



As for what I'm knitting now; I've picked Ryan's socks back up and will dedicate myself to them until completion. (I swear.) I'm knitting heel flaps now. Yippee!

Productive, not so much

I started on a new post on Tuesday, got one sentence into it and had to stop because our keyboard broke.

Yesterday, while Emmett was at school, I sat down to finish one of my 3 designs; it looked good for a bit, I completed the plant layout and labeling. After getting the plant list generated and placed (my software does that for me) I saved it and printed it to pdf. Yippee! Then, I looked closer at the plant list: 14 Luzula? There are only 5 on the plan. 2 entries for Panicum? What's going on? Turns out I've got some phantom plants on the page that I can't seem to delete. Rest of the day was spent troubleshooting. Bah.

This morning I put a call into customer support (on the east coast). I've done this before; I leave a message and in an hour or so get an extremely helpful call back. Problems are solved, work resumes. So after my call and message, I thought "what harm can come from uninstalling and reinstalling the software?" Bad juju. Lots of badness. Now, after 2 more calls to support, no return calls, 3 attempts to uninstall/reinstall, and 2 tries with a windows update, I'm worse off then before. My drafting software is actually 2 programs working cooperatively, the drawing interface and a database. The database is not seeing any of my saved plant information; and in order for me to actually complete a design, I need that plant information. And I still have the phantom plants.

Hopefully I'll get a call from support in the morning. Otherwise, I might drop-kick my laptop off the deck.

Worse yet, with this work load looming and customers waiting, not much knitting is getting done, either. I feel guilty sitting down and working on the sweater. And I'm so so so tantalizingly close to finishing. Maybe tonight with absolutely no chance of work happening, I won't feel (too) guilty to knit as I watch some tv.

A Sweater for Myself

I've got a lot to show you today. First is the sweater:



I'm just a couple of rows shy of the arm-hole and boy am I excited! This is only my second sweater knit for me and I'm thrilled with how quickly its come together. I'm loving everything about it: the color, yarn, pattern, speed, you name it, I probably like it.



I am also pleased with the cables. There are 2: one on each edge of the cardigan. I have some experience with cables, but this "double fantasy" cable is my most complicated one to date.

The whole sweater is going to need a good blocking when I'm done, and all the sloppiness will (hopefully!) disappear. I am especially concerned about the 2x2 ribbing at the bottom edge. It folds up pretty determinedly toward the inside. Blocking will fix, right?



Pattern: Asymmetrical Cabled Cardigan by Yahaira Ferreira
Yarn: Jamieson's Shetland Heather in Seabright 1010
Needles: 5.5mm Addi lace 80mm
Size: 39 (I hope for 0 ease with my nursing mommy cup size.)

Speaking of kids, here's a couple of pictures of both of my big guys hanging out on the couch last week:





Get outta the picture, Emmett, this is all about me.

Oh, and guess what we started this week?



Mmm mmm! Solid foods! We've tried two so far, rice cereal (which got a big thumbs down) and sweet potato. (Yummy!) Like with Emmett, we'll be introducing one new food every 5 days; so if Leon has any sensitivities, we'll know what it is right away. Next up: avocado, peas, bananas?

Sun is out and the baby is hungry, gotta go!

Seed-Stitch Jacket

Are you ready for cute? I mean, are you READY? 'Cause I'm about to hit you with some serious cute.



See what I mean?

We had the reprieve from wetness on Sunday and that was the last Seattle has seen of the sun. As a result, Leon's seed-stitch jacket took two days and a trip on the dryer sweater rack before it was finally dry. Oh, but today I made him wear it all over, finally taking it off around 2 when I laid him down for a nap.



Stats:

Seed-Stitch Baby Jacket by Elinor Brown
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted by Brown Sheep in "blue heirloom"
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) circular needles
Mods: I knit the sleeves in the round, 2-at-a-time.
Additional photos on my Ravelry project page.

I need to research some optional cast off methods. When I cast off the sleeves, I thought I did it loosely, but compared to the stretch of the seed-stitch fabric, it was tight. It made setting in the sleeves a bit hairy, but the results are still good. I love the finished results.



And now that I've finished, I've cast on a sweater for me! Yippee! I've got no progress photo to show you, but I'll lay out a couple of dets: I'm using some lovely Jamieson's Shetland Heather in a gorgeous color called "Seabright." Yummy. And the pattern? Check out the designer's page. Looks fun, huh?

As a send off, check out this shot of what Emmett got to do this morning...



Yea Whirligig!

Growing

I'm back. I've been intending to blog for some time now, but have been waiting for one of two things to happen: plant some of my vegetable garden or finish Leon's jacket. Can you guess which one got done?

Here in Seattle we have had what seems to be a prolonged stretch of gray and wet. Ha ha, you say, isn't Seattle always like that? We'll yes, it can be both gray and wet quite often, but we do usually get a break of at least dry and sometimes dry and sunny in March. (We are grateful and awed when the holy trinity of weather happens in March: dry, sunny and WARM.) Well, on Friday the wet held off long enough to finally motivate me get to the garden soil and start some seeds for the flower and vegetable beds.



For vegetables I've started salad greens, cauliflower, and watermelons. Last year I had no luck with my watermelon starts; this year I plan on direct sowing as well and see which way works better. Emmett would LOVE some home-grown watermelons! I plan on purchasing 2 tomato plants and a pepper plant at the farmer's market sometime in May. Since I don't have space to grow several tomatoes in multiple varieties, its actually more cost effective to buy 1 each of two types already started; so that's how we'll go this year.

I stopped by West Seattle Nursery this week and was able to buy seed potatoes, onion sets, as well as starts for broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cabbage. Friday I got the potatoes in the ground: 4 plants of a type called Russian banana. I've never grown potatoes before, so it should be a big learning curve to figure out how to do it. I think Emmett will love digging them up, though.

After that, the rain started back up and didn't let up all Friday through Saturday. Ugh. I think we saw 37 F midday on Saturday, which seemed so cold! But this morning, yippee, the sun was out. Ryan and I practically ran outside to get going. (Thanks to Grandma for being here and watching the boys.) Ryan and I first got a new raised bed installed and ready for drip irrigation. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough garden soil to fill the bed.



Later on in the day, Ryan brought home enough soil to fill it. Since it is in a pretty shady spot in our vegetable terrace, I plan on using this new bed as our lettuce bed. We were also able to get the onions, b.sprouts, broccoli, and cabbage planted. I'm going to try my best this season to really keep things moving in the garden so that as crops finish out (like all I planted today), I'll get new things in the ground. If the rain continues to hold off and all things work to my favor, Emmett and I will get out this week and plant lettuce, carrots, peas and beets.

It feels so good to have the garden started! Now if I can just get to the rest of the garden, because it is a mess.

And lastly, I'm proud to say that Leon's jacket is finished and blocking! I'll write more about it soon; in the interim, here are a couple of teaser photos before it got buttons and a wash.



yummy, yummy toes in sunshine, outside!



my sweet guy.

Progress

I'm really trying to get this little sweater done. Leon has sweatshirts and jackets, even a couple of sweaters, just no hand knits. It's gotta change.



As of mid-day yesterday, I had completed the body up to the arm holes and had begun work on the right front. Since the photo, I've completed that front and moved on to the back. I'd like to see this section off of the needles and progress made on the sleeves in the next couple of days. We'll see about that.

The pattern is still enjoyable, with the exception of the buttonhole directions. They are fashioned after a style written by Elizabeth Zimmerman - and I just didn't get it. Maybe I've made them right, maybe I haven't, but they look like buttonholes, so I'm not going back.



Looking closely, you may see the buttonhole in the midst of all of that seed-stitch.

I've got 45 minutes before we pick up Emmett from school, and Leon is asleep in the swing. I better get knitting.

of baby things

Leon has grown out of his newborn sweaters. The "baby surprise jacket" that I made him last summer can still button, but the sleeves are ridiculously short. Here's a picture of the bsj:



So, on I go to knit a couple more for him. First up is the seed-stitch jacket by Elinor of Exercise Before Knitting. I'm finding the seed-stitch to be really slow, but I'm liking how the piece is knitting up. The progress so far:



Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in "blue heirloom"
Needles: Addi size 5
Pattern: Seed Stitch Baby Jacket
by Elinor Brown

I'm still working on Ryan's socks, but have put those aside (briefly) to work another piece. A friend of my approached me at the NW Flower and Garden Show this last week and asked me to knit up a baby hat for him to gift to a friend's new wee one. Since my friend is also a garden designer, I immediately knew what pattern I wanted to knit.



This sweet thing is the Koru hat by Just Jussi. I knit this up quick on Saturday using Ultra Alpaca and tried it on Leon. It's WAY too small, even for a newborn, I think. The circumference would be fine for a new babe, but the crown seems really short. On Sunday, I started again; this time with larger needles, adding 6 more stitches, and doing twice as many rows before the fern pattern starts. The result is a hat that should be plenty big for the baby until maybe six months...



Here's the two hats together. I just need to finish the second one and off it will go.