déjà vu

Wow, it's been almost a year. I didn't knit a stitch the whole time. Funny, then that the next thing I made was a duplicate of a project from last year. Except last year it was green.

Here is another Christmas Baby Surprise Jacket:



Baby Surprise Jacket
Elizabeth Zimmermann
Lion Brand Thick & Quick Chenille
Buttons from JoAnne
Size 10.5 needles

This is a pretty fast project and it ends up being quite cute - though very christmassy.

I'm working on the Melon Shawl again, but not much more is done yet. I think I'll start posting more often again...

saltwater

Since I haven't been knitting very much, here' s another picture from the beach. To answer the comments from yesterday's post, I live near Clearwater Beach in Florida. Gleek was sort of right - it's on the West Coast of Florida. I live about a mile away from the beach, but I hardly ever go there. I was spoiled by the beach in Cornwall a few years ago, so now nothing compares. The water here is actually the Gulf of Mexico, so it's usually really warm in the summer and it feels like you're taking a really big salt bath, so it's not that fun. I also like huge waves (like in Cornwall), and there are hardly any waves here. I am jealous of Kendra - she lives in such a beautiful place.

I'm from DC, and when I moved down here three years ago I tried to figure out what I could knit and then just gave up. You can't wear hats or scarves here really, but I finally figured out that I should just make sweaters. It's always cold inside with all the air conditioning, so I wear lots of sweaters. Last night at the beach my hands were going to freeze off and it was only about 45 degrees outside - not really cold at all. I think my blood has become too thin from all the heat down here.

That sweater from yesterday is going to be of my own design I guess. It's really a copy of what I saw in JCrew, and I hope it works out. Alice - it is on small needles, they're 3mm. I'm pretty sure it's going to take forever.

slowly starting out

I finally started the Bearfoot sweater I've been thinking about since December. It's an odd choice of yarn for a sweater - wool, mohair and nylon sock yarn, but it's working. I couldn't bear to make a pair of socks that no one would see with this stuff. The colors are too beautiful to be hidden inside shoes. I'm sure that I could have similar colors in a different yarn of theirs, but nevermind. I am a little bit afraid of the mohair, after my brief encounter with KSH and the itchy nose situation, but so far it's going fine.

There was a sweater at JCrew with a beautiful big shawl collar (it was really a hood) that I loved, but it was made for those massively tall JCrew people, and was way too big for me. I forgot to save a picture of it from the website, and it is gone now. Anyway, I want to make a nice big shawl collar on this sweater. I don't think it will be hard at all (ha! We'll see about that one), at least it doesn't look like it will be hard.

It will have moss stitch edges and the collar will be in moss stitch, and the rest in plain stockinette. Hopefully it will look like it does in my head.

It's a nice break from the itsy bitsy cables. I do have to get going on the melon shawl for my mom, though. I was going to have it done by her birthday (today), but I gave up on that idea and haven't touched it since. She could have used it last week when it snowed.

Here's the sunset from earlier this evening. (I actually got my lazy self to the beach to take pictures instead of from my balcony :)

so jealous

I wish I was there.

Why can't it be cold in the winter?! At least 50 degrees like last winter. My mom called me in the middle of the day today and told me it was snowing. It was sunny outside my window, and hot, like every Sunday - no wait, like every day. I'm sure a lot of people would love to be where I am right now, but oh how I miss the cold weather. Maybe it will snow when I go up there in two weeks. :)

This is supposed to be about knitting, right? Well, weather sort of has to do with knitting, sort of. There will be knitting tomorrow - something new!

6944 stitches for 2 1/4 inches. What the hell am I thinking?



I'm certainly not complaining. I got myself into this, and for some reason it seems to be so much more work than the first little cardigan I made. Maybe I am just faster at lace than cables. Or maybe I just like lace better. I have no idea, and it really doesn't matter.

This is really just a poor excuse for a progress report. This is the only thing I've been working on, and I'm starting to think I should work on my melon shawl more instead - it seems to grow at a more rapid pace. I am afraid if I do that then I will never finish this little thing and the boy will be 10 years old and it will fit on his little sister's doll or something. (Of course he has no little sister right now, this is all made up, and I seriously doubt it will take me 9 1/2 years to finish a little baby sweater. So we hope.)

All I want to do right now is eat some chocolate - it has been two weeks since my last chocolate and I've got to last another two weeks. Some stupid thing my friends and I are doing - no sweets for all of January. But there is no prize at the end and no punishment for failing, so it is hard to explain why we are doing it. I think that my body is enjoying the break from all the torture it usually gets, as I am completely addicted to chocolate and sugar in general. I have been looking forward to oreos and ovaltine in February, definitely. :)

64 degrees

It's getting colder. Yay!

88 degrees

I got a new toy today:



I didn't have much to take pictures of before the sun went down, and the pictures of the sun going down were boring because it was mostly just cloudy and pretty much everything in the pictures were grey. Nevermind.

I've started a new sweater for Colin. It's from the same Dale pattern book as his first sweater, which apparently fit him soon after he was born, so I'm making his next sweater in the 12 month size. This means I have to finish it before September because he will be 12 months old then and it will probably be too small.



It will be a cardigan with cables - very preppy, which is sort of his style at this point (thanks to mommy). That's 224 stitches on size 0 needles. Yeah.

I used the Italian tubular cast on (thanks to Francesca) which is actually much easier and faster than the method that uses waste yarn and a provisional cast on. It did take a little while, but it was well worth it, as always. The yarn is Dale Baby Ull, just like before, so she can wash it. :-)

These little baby sweaters are supposed to be faster to make, but really it's just a trick. There are more stitches on this one than there were on my hybrid, and I've done about ten rows and it's not even an inch long yet. What the hell?

They do look cute in the end though.

I have been told that this is the warmest winter in Florida since the 1930s. It was 88 degrees yesterday, and at least 80 today. I was looking forward to some cool weather in January so I could wear my red sweater, but it's just too hot. I have the opposite problem than Kris - there is too much sun here. Maybe if this happens for a few more years they will call it global warming. We'll see.

I will end here with a funky cactus shot. I hope you enjoy it. :)

so this is the new year

I am so glad that 2006 is over. Happy New Year!