Last weekend the weather was typical November weather for Washington, wet and windy. We even had a tree blow down over the driveway. This weekend it's fall-the leaves are beautiful, the skies are clear and there's just a nip of coolness in the air. Perfect yard cleanup weather.

I finished the Sitcom Chic from Knitty.com. Fun, fast sweater to knit. Feels good on. The only thing I had to redo was the front edges. The first time I picked up about 120 stitches along the edges and it was just way too many stitches. Also, I bound off loosely. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I frogged and picked up the recommended 101 stitches, actually went back to my picked up stitches and knit 2 together, mostly at the sweater bottom since that's where the flairing was, to reduce to 101 stitches. Bound off snuggly and I am much happier with the finishing.

I have been asking family members who like handknits (and will take care of their handknits) to let me know if they have any requests for Christmas. My mom is always so reluctant to say what she wants, "it's so much work!" But, knitters know we just need an excuse to buy yarn and we have to knit something anyway. She stopped by last night and tried on my Sitcom - she liked it. It fit her well, she loved the yarn, the sleeves were long enough. She said if it were hers she would want the neck to be a bit higher. I'm tempted to take out the neck and front edgings and make that neck a bit higher and voila! Christmas for mom done. And, I made a long sleeve version and once done I wished I had gone with the more fashionable 3/4 length sleeve.

So, while I ponder which way to go on the Sitcom I am knitting a Baby Dale of Norway for our newest family member. It's a fun, fast knit and the yarn is very nice to work with-albiet a bit splitty- but I can handle it.

Spater...

Good Morning,
I just finished a baby sweater for my nephews baby. I used self striping Plymouth Encore to make a one year size sweater and hat. The hat is Mrs. Dashmore from the knitty.com website. Both turned out cute as a button.
Now, I'm ready to move on. I'll post pictures as soon as we locate the digital camera.

Does anyone remember the Inverness Guernsey #763 from Penny Straker? I love that pattern! I knit that sweater for mother in law back in the 80's. It took me a long time to knit. I discovered another knitter at work and we had both decided to knit this sweater together. There were no graphs, I followed the patterns line by line and had to have a very complicated system for tracking my rows. The patterns used in the sweater did not "jive", one pattern was an 8 row repeat, another was a a 12 row repeat, another was 6 row repeat. Anyhoo, I like knitting sweaters for other knitters because they appreciate the time and effort that goes into knitting a sweater and who knits for them?? No one.

So, earlier this week I stopped by mother in law's house and she told me she was thinking about dyeing the sweater ( it was knit in an off white natural wool.) She had talked to the people at the LYS and they told her they dye sweaters all the time. Then she told me she had washed the sweater and brought it out for me to see. She had it cloths pinned to a wire hanger and it had obviously felted. I asked how she had washed it and she said she had washed in the washing machine on gentle. She said it hadn't shrunk at all, I had to bite my tongue, I could see that it had! I didn't give her any advice at all. I vented to my husband later and he said "you gave it away, you have to let it go." I am venting here because I am so sad about that sweater. I loved that sweater.

If I rationalize this, I have had awful things happen to stuff given to me. Like when the BEAGLE chewed the binding on a quilt my mother made for us. I was torn between telling her or not, and now I'm thinking not, ever. Has anyone else had this happen. I think this will be my motivation to knit the Inverness Guernsy for myself.

Reality check!

The first SwallowTail shawl I knitted I gave to my mother in law for Christmas, I finished it at the beginning of November. I had a second shawl about 3 movies away from finishing that I planned to give to my mother for Christmas. I had the 24th of December off from work and truly believed that I could finish her shawl in time for our Christmas day exchange. And then reality set in, I had to let the shawl go. Instead I spent Christmas eve day cooking and wrapping, It was a good day. I was fortunate to have had a great necklace I had purchased for myself and never worn stowed away - a beautiful bead and cedar rose creation... she loved it!
If I play my cards right, I'm only 3 movies away from a headstart on next years Christmas knitting.