Merry March!

Do you realize that we're only one week away from returning to Daylight Savings Time? Wow! I'm sooo happy to see the backside of February. Besides the return of the sun, and the demise of the snow, there are new fish and insects to catch in Animal Crossing. I've been playing this game since we got it as a Christmas present.

During the work week I stayed faithful to this project, a sweater for my Dad:

The pattern (Ravelry) is a drop shoulder design, but Dad wants something more fitted, so I'm going to join these pieces up and make up some raglan shaping on the needles. I'd rather work all the raglans at once, then try to knit each piece separate and sew them up. I feel pretty confident about this knit after what I learned from working Durrow last year.

Anyway, by Saturday I felt like cutting loose, getting wild and going crazy. It must have been all the sunshine we had this weekend. So I cast on a bright new project:

The colors are wild, the pattern is my own design, and there are 384 stitches on that needle. How's that for knitting on the edge? And, further to tooting my own horn, there is no twist in that join. I've checked it multiple times and had Jim check it with me just to be extra sure.

Oh! but there's more... this is my second go at this. The first time I mis-read my gauge swatch and cast on 440 stitches, joined them without a twist and actually knit 3 rows. But then I noticed that my color progressions were going in opposite directions, which means that at some point, I could very well end up knitting this color work design with two strands of yarn the same color. No good, that. After I ripped out the needles, I pulled the thin loop of knitting over me and immediately noticed that I had about six inches of ease. Glad I caught that error! I recalculated my gauge and saved myself 56 stitches per row.

To fix the color progressions I decided to wind all my balls of Kauni so I could make sure they all proceeded in the same direction. I wound two and they were going in different directions. I was about to grab one to rewind it and Jim stopped me. He said, "Wouldn't it be better for you to wind them all to find out which way the majority go?" Smarty pants. He got such a big hug and a smooch for that save, I'll tell ya.

And that is the story of why I have such terrible photographs for you today. I was so excited to see how the new sweater was shaping up that I totally forgot to get any pictures during the daylight hours. I only stopped to blog because I was starting to get bleary eyed working the fine yarn in contrasting colors.

Well, back to the work week, and Dad's sweater for knitting. The Kauni will have to wait. But at least what's waiting for me is really pretty.