what to do?

The body is finished - but none of the edges are and it's starting to drive me a little crazy. The original plan was to do hems like this one, but when I made the first hem on the sleeve I hated it. It's too thick and it makes a weird line where it's connected to the sleeve. It looks cool on Jared's sweater, but not mine.



So, I tried 2x1 ribbing, an idea I got from a sweater I bought this weekend. I hated it. Then I tried a hem again, hated it, then 2x1 ribbing again tonight and remembered that I hated it. So, you can see the hem I tried again in this picture, the white, but it's just pretty awful. I don't know what to do with all of the edges now, and I think the sleeve I've been experimenting on is starting to look tortured. I don't like rolled edges, so I can't just leave it as it is and cast off. I like the edges on this sweater, but that means hems again, and I think this yarn is just too bulky for hems. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

For Alice:

Not complete, but at least it fits.

random bits about nothing

I'm getting there. This picture is before about 3 hours more of knitting. The first saddle is done now and I'm working on the second one. It's a lot of fun, back and forth, back and forth, taking up one stitch for each row. It reminds me of knitting a border on a piece of lace, except it's all stockinette.

I got a haircut on Saturday morning, and feel compelled to share some pictures with the five people who read this. The curls are natural, though possibly enhanced a bit that day by the very fine Elie. He is the only person in 23 years who has given me a hair cut that I like. (Besides maybe when I was a baby - some of those hair cuts were super cute.) Also, apparently people fly from all over the country to see him.

The picture on the right was taken at 1 am, so I'm sorry for the bad lighting and tired eyes.



I came home on Monday from Florida and found my brother now has a beard. And it's red, which I don't understand and it creeps me out a little bit. He's still cute, though.




I love the fall.

the fun part

I finally finished the sleeves to the red sweater. I kept wanting to wear them while I was knitting them, so sometimes it was hard to keep knitting.

The body and sleeves are all connected now:



I wish I had a better daytime photo, but it's 11:30 at night, so that's not going to happen anytime soon.

The weather is so nice up here (in Virginia). It's such a great change from 85 degrees and super humidity. My hair doesn't know what to do with itself, so it's just fallen down limp. Usually in Florida it's big and poufy all the time. :) I have been trying to get some good pictures of the trees, these are the best so far:





My favorite season. I got here right on time.

alexander, where are you?

Hmm.. not so sure about this one. We'll see.

Tonight I found out that I can watch the recent episodes of Grey's Anatomy on abc.com. It's great because I am never home on Thursday nights to watch it. Well, some Thursday nights I'm home on time, but I'm not very good at keeping a TV watching schedule.

slow hands

I have been super busy lately, home around 11 every night last week until last night, when I started the second sleeve:



I won't be done by next Sunday, but that's okay. Maybe I can finish this sleeve by then at least.

I was hoping to do some Christmas knitting, but I haven't figured any of that out yet, and it's almost November. Maybe some small gifts or something. I'm not really sure yet, but I know it's getting pretty late for it. If anything, I want to make something for my mom. She hasn't gotten anything knitted from me in a long time.

On Friday night, my friends suckered me into watching the stupidest movie ever made - Employee of the Month. They were all excited because it had Dane Cook in it and they told me he was really funny, etc. I didn't know what the movie was called until we got there. I just wish we saw The Departed instead. I'm making them go to that this Friday night, I can't wait!

nice day for a sulk

The body of the sweater is done to the place where the arms are attached. So I started an arm:



This is the third try. First one was too small, then on the second one I realized that I didn't like the cast-on. So I ripped them both and started this one with a provisional cast-on. I'm going to make a hem, but I want the fabric to just fold in without different stitches on the edge, like this:



The cream cashmere will be in the inside of the hems. I can't wait to do that part, but I'm saving it for last. Once the sleeves are done, this sweater will be a lot more fun. I can't wait to make the shaping and saddles on the top. I have something I want to wear this to in two weeks, so that's my target finish date. We'll see if that really happens. Maybe in two weeks it might be cooler outside and I can actually wear this outside instead of only inside.

This morning I went for a walk to Starbucks and it was cool enough that I walked up the hill and didn't break a sweat. By the time I was walking back it was warming up and getting uncomfortable. I can't wait to go home to Virginia and see the fall and wear a sweater outside!

wander the halls

13 inches - need three more and then I can start the arms. This is turning out to be a 34-inch sweater instead of 36 inches, with a 29-inch waist. It fit me quite well after dinner tonight, so I'm doing alright, but it probably won't look good with too many layers underneath. It looks extra fuzzy in the dark blurry photo (it's a light cashmere halo, ahh softness).

I went out for sushi tonight for the second time in the last few days. I have always thought that I didn't like it, but recently found out that it's pretty good. I can eat a lot of it and it doesn't make me tired at all. Most other food makes me very sleepy unless I only eat salad or fruit. Anyway, I have some new friends who are sushi chefs.

I think one of the only things I really like about Florida are the skies. They are always beautiful, especially the sunsets. This was the sky when I got home tonight:

miles of stockinette

It's a beautiful Sunday again. Most Sundays here are beautiful days. Yahoo tricked me this morning - the weather said it was 68° outside and I was all excited until I realized that it was set to Virginia, not Florida. It's 86° today, as usual. The humidity isn't so bad, so that means it must be fall.

Some sweater progress:



I've got about 8 inches done so far, which is nearly halfway until I join body and sleeves. There are some decreases in there for waist shaping (that's what all the stitch markers are about). I've tried it on a few times so far and it seems to fit pretty well. EZ doesn't really give shaping instructions, so I made something up. I measured myself to find out where to start decreasing (my current favorite sweater doesn't have any waist shaping, so I didn't have anything to compare to), and it's working well so far. It's very stretchy, too!

This one is much nicer than the first sweater I made in the round. About five years ago I made a raglan sweater and it ended up quite stiff and very uncomfortable. I never wore it for more than fifteen minutes. It's in England somewhere, maybe in a landfill by now, I'm not really sure. I only have one picture of it and it's a really crappy webcam picture, so I won't put it up here.

I finished the knee-sock and really didn't like it at all. So I took the second skein and tried something out.




The colors are gorgeous and the way the stripes are coming out are really lovely. I like this much better than the stockinette tiger stripes. The two pictures are the two different sides. The purple runs throughout and the green and rust sort of pool on the different sides. The Jaywalker pattern is a really nice showcase for this colorway. It's been quite neglected since the red sweater started, though. I'll get these done someday.