Show and Tell!

I've spotted a couple of goodkarma pieces around town and I thought I'd share...

First up, we have a lovely picture of my sis, bro in law and niecie Alyssa at bro in law's swearing-in ceremony for the police department. We are all so proud of him! And then we notice that niecie is wearing her Christmas pressie! Look at the yummy Karabella Aurora 8 yarn and how it matches her cheeks. Holy cow, I want to pinch them as I type. Lucky for her, she's walking all over the place now, so even if she were here she would be able to run away from auntie.

Then, while I was looking through photos from our school's Lunar New Year Multicultural Parade, I noticed that Luna was wearing her Haiku! Here she is with her gorgeous mama.

So, okay, neither sweaters fit their intended lovlies just yet, but they're growing so stinking fast that the next time I try to get a picture, the sweaters will be too small.

More sharing to come this weekend, I promise. I have a yucky cold and all I want to do is stay in and knit. I'm a bit stalled on Mariah (want to re-check my math before I get too deep into the yoke), so have got a bit of progress going on Lucky.

You Must Be Yoking!

This has been a really sucky week. I'm a teacher in the public school system and we've been having yucky, horrible budget talks all week, which have been stressful, emotional, and frustrating.

Although much of my stress was relieved with great workouts, I can almost scientifically attest to the wonders of therapeutic knitting. Exhibit A: Mariah. In the past week, I've finished up all of the pieces, connected them, and knit a couple of inches of the yoke. Much of this was done during American Idol (Why did Mario have to drop out?!), I must admit, and various and sundry DVDs, thanks to Netflix.

So far, this has been a really interesting project. I've become very comfortable with the cabling pattern and doing it without a cable needle. It's the first project I've done like this, knitting the pieces from the bottom up and then connecting and knitting the yoke as one. At first, each of those rounds felt like it was 8 miles long (and the thing weighs 50 pounds!), but the raglan decreases are helping to speed things up, I promise. I hope to finish the yoke this week and then I'll have to make a decision about the hood. Do I want a hood? Do I want a collar? I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am!

I also cast on Lucky and have knit the ribbing for the back. That's all. I really want to finish up some of my other projects before starting something new, but all of them are so ginormous that they're not practical for bringing places, like awful budget meetings.

So I bring you my lovely friends, Julian and Lennon. They make me happy when skies are grey. Truly. They follow me around the house -- well, Julian does -- and we have kitty conversations. Meow? Meow!

Julian says, "Hey, mom, put that camera away
and play ribbon tag with me some more!"

Lennon says, "Hey, why ya gotta wake me up?"

I'm sure this week will be better!

The Manolo No-Poncho Pledge

Oh yes. I do swear. I will nevah nevah be seduced by the poncho.

Baby Cashmere

I just noticed that elann has more Baby Cashmere.

The peacock color I'm using is more of a blue teal; on this page it looks more greeny.

I feel Lucky tonight.

I think I'm suffering from Start-itis.

Ever since the Lucky Along started and everyone began talking about the pattern, showing their pictures, etc., I've been eyeballing those 18 balls of Peacock Baby Cashmere set aside for my own Lucky.

I swatched tonight. The pattern calls for #3 (3mm) needles. My #3 (addi turbo) needles are 3.25mm. So I gave 'em a try. It felt loose and baggy, like the way your fat jeans feel on you after you've lost a bunch of weight. So I switched to my #2 (3mm) addis... so amazing what a difference .25mm made! That felt much better.

Lace pattern? Fun! Baby cashmere? Delicious! It's so soft and yummy, I want to kiss it. I think my husband would give me weird looks though. Ah, what's new?

Here's a scan of my swatchie.
The top part is knit with the better fitting #2 addi. Too bad the scanner doesn't fully appreciate the beautiful color of this yarn. It's more of a dark teal, hence the name (Peacock). That's okay, my digi camera understands my sense of color much better and I'll take photos later as I progress.

Mariah Progress Report

You know that part in the sleeve pattern when you take a break from cables for a few rows and then increase and start cabling again? Well, that part with the multiple increases always gets me. I have to be *really* paying attention or I have to rip back and try again because I goofed up and didn't increase enough times. That's the only part of the whole graph that's still challenging for me.

But sleeve #1 is almost ready to be put on a holder... then all I have left to do is sleeve #2 before I connect all the pieces and knit the yoke! Yeah!