Knit One, Purr Too

Is it an afghan yet?

I've been knitting with more cat help these past few days, but it's a bit harder to show you a picture. This is because Rosemary tends to prefer to snuggle *under* blankets rather than sit on top of them, so all you'd see is an afghan-covered lump. If I could include audio, of course, you'd figure out quick enough that there was a cat in there somewhere by the steady purring that would be emanating from that lump.

I'm nearly done with the first one – only one more stripe of the dark blue and one more skein of the lighter blue to go. Then to figure out what to work on next. Do I drag out Seabreeze again and at least finish up that last shoulder on the front, or do I slog on through nubby blue yarns and start afghan number 2, or for a third choice, do I go buy myself some needles small enough and dig up the easiest pattern I can find, and start in on making myself a pair of socks, now that there is a skein of sock yarn screaming my name from my yarn stash?

Oh, choices, choices. I have a number of projects I *must* complete this year and the afghan isn't on the list at all. Nor, as a matter of fact, was my pretty purple T3, but that certainly doesn't seem to stop me from gleefully veering off track and trying out new things. With the exception of the sock yarn, however, I have, at least managed to refrain from making any more yarn purchase. And the sock yarn really did not count anyway, because it wasn't a new purchase, but instead a trade for leftover yarn from an earlier project.

Helping

Wow - how did an entire week pass since I last posted?

I've been working away at this afghan, and it is *slow* going. I'm using Lyon's Pride 'Homespun' yarn, which has lovely colors, but is a royal pain to work with at times. The yarn is lumpy and bumpy, which is exactly what I wanted for an afghan in a house with seven afghan-loving, fully clawed cats, but it tends to separate if I look at it cross-eyed, and I am forever catching strands that don't belong to the loop I'm working with.

I'm using this pattern, but with only two colors instead of three, and with modifications to the pattern such that I do an entire skein of the lighter blue, then 10 rows of the darker blue. This is because I have 12 skeins of light blue and only 2 skeins of dark blue, and I intend to make two of these things eventually, so I had to make the dark blue stretch.

I'm home sick today, so what else could I do but either nap or knit? I laid the afghan in progress out on the bed, and then got sidetracked checking my email, so by the time I came back, I saw this:

Sebastian has been oh-so-helpful for most of my knitting, mainly because he wants so desperately for me to give him that lovely soft fabric I'm creating so he can knead it and purr lilke a rusty motorboat. Usually I don't let him, since I really don't want cat claw pulls all over what I'm making but I picked this yarn deliberately because it's so lumpy and wavy that a few extra pulls will never be noticed. You can see it's already won Sebastian's approval.

Back to the basics

Now that both the shawl and T3 are done, and also now that I have that third skein of yarn and no more excuses, I really ought to be returning to work on the Seabreeze sweater. However, on a whim I decided to get started on an afghan, since I've yet to knit an afghan and thought it was about time. I knit all the way through a marathon Dungeons and Dragons session on Saturday (while another player worked on a chainmail piece and two others sketched - we're a crafty bunch of nerds, we are) and kept on knitting last night while watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD.

Seabreeze languishes, untouched for weeks, in my knitting bag, but I am over a foot into what is going to be a small but soft and warm afghan in a fairly simple wave pattern. There's enough of this yarn to make two of them, but I think once I've finished the first I may be so sick of the pattern that I will have no other choice but to bury myself in Seabreeze for a break.

T3 - A done deal

Look what I wore to work today!

Yes, T3 is done - although sorry for the quality of the picture - this was me trying to take it myself, so that's the flash you see reflected in the mirror. Mostly. I'm realizing that I need to do something about the little holes left behind in the back from the shortrow shaping, but otherwise it's done. Thursday night I tacked on the sleeves and then gave it a good soak and laid it out to dry flat.

It's looser than I was expecting, but I think that's because there's no ribbing on the bottom to bring it closer to the body. Otherwise I'm quite happy with it. The yarn is all soft and snuggly and it's pretty and purple and I think one of these days I just might make another one. Maybe. Some day.

Which end up

I've known pretty much since I finished the front section that my T3 was just too short. It might be appropriate for a skinny young thing, but really, I don't qualify as either any more, and didn't really want to go around flashing my belly button. But I figured I'd just yank out the bottom and lengthen it that way, because as I mentioned in the last entry, we are all about learning the new techniques. Gah.

Here it is in its current glory, by the way. The sleeves look funny because they are not yet attached, but I stuck them onto the sweater just to show that I've made them. Also, you're seeing only the back, since that's had some major surgery recently.

By the way. Just in case any of you were wondering, while it is a piece of cake to rip out a knitted section from the top, it takes FOREVER to do this from the bottom. This is because you have to unravel every single stitch separately. Thank whatever deity might be around that I only did the recommended four rows of ribbing; I think if I'd had to rip out any more I may have been reduced to sitting in the corner of my room, smacking my head repeatedly on the wall and sobbing quietly to myself.

Of course, when I was whining about this to my boss, who also knits, his immediate response was 'well why didn't you just cut it?', to which the only response I could muster was to feel really, really stupid. I'll admit that the thought of cutting something I've knit gives me the shudders, so it had honestly never occurred to me to go at it with any sort of sharp object. However, I've still got the front half to redo, so what do I have to lose by giving it a try? I know enough that if I cut it, I cut it a row or two below where I want to end up, so all I have to do is pick off the loose bits. This is my current theory at any rate - if any of you know any better, please tell me!

Anyway. It took me hours and hours to pull out those piddly four (well, five, if we count the cast-on stitches) rows, and then I whipped up the replacement section in a blissfully short time this evening. I've enclosed a not-very-good close-up of what I added below - it's just a border pattern I liked from another sweater pattern I've got, that I figured would work for this one too.

I'm actually quite pleased with it. The addition of the pattern to the bottom completely changes the whole feel of the sweater, plus you really cannot tell that I was knitting in the wrong direction unless you look very, very closely (all those little V's from knitting are upside down - I think it would be next to impossible to tell on the purl side). So while I might not have *intended* to make T3 a tad bit fancier, I think I'm glad it's ending up this way.

However, next time I make a sweater there will be none of this 'hold it up to the shoulders to measure' silliness. I solemnly swear from this day forward I will be all about the measuring tape. Measuring tapes are our friends. Oh yes.

Seamly

I would have likely gotten much further along on T3 tonight, but I had a really good excuse. The woman who hosts the monthly craft night (which was tonight) also occasionally fosters kittens. Right now she's got two - a little grey and white tuxedo with a cloud of whiskers, and this scrappy little tortoiseshell. We spent the first half hour of prime craft time just sitting around the dining room table watching these two tiny balls of fuzz bounce around at random, attacking wiggled fingers, purse straps, and random dust molecules in the air. Really, bringing yarn out within their reach would have been pointless, even if we weren't so enamoured of their cuteness that we were incapable of doing anything else. There were kittens to watch! Kittens!

However, despite the presence of kittens, I did get something done. I can now proudly say that I know how to do a 3-needle bind off, because we are all about the learning of new experiences, yes we are. I zipped up sleeve number one and then stared crosseyed at the directions for probably far too long until my friend took pity on me and helped me figure out just what the heck I was supposed to be doing next - picking up stitches for the neck. Things went a lot quicker once I figured that all out, and I then seamed up shoulder number 2, just to be consistant.

So here is my lovely T3, still showing inexplicably in pictures as blue instead of the truely deep purple-blue that it is. I've started the sleeves and am doing them both at once as per the recommendation on the instructions. It's getting somewhere. Slowly but surely, it's getting there.