Hoodwinked

It's still all sweater all the time here at chez woolly.  And while I recognize that weeks of updated shots of the same knit aren't any fun for you, dear readers, it's no picnic from where I'm sitting either.

Last Saturday saw the completion of Rowan's second sleeve.  When I did the first sleeve I popped a removable stitch-marker at every decrease (following the excellent example of Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls.)  The markers, in combination with a 22 row stripe, meant that the second sleeve went "Whoosh!" -- I didn't need to pull the tape measure (or the pattern) out at all, I just matched the second sleeve to the first, comparing markers and stripe row counts, et voila. Sleeve!

The dude approves.

Once I got him to try it on and we didn't have use our imaginations to add in the sleeves anymore, it was easy to see that a collar wasn't going work.   See how loose and low the front of the sweater is hanging? The collar would have just made the sweater look like it didn't fit.  (Also, I want you to know that it is taking every ounce of my maturity and will-power, not to mention that fact that we're talking about my kid, to keep me from making a "your mom" joke right here.  Loose and low.  I'm just.  I can't.)

So anyway, after some discussion we decided to add the hood after all. And by "discussion," please understand that I mean that I said, "Hey we should do the hood, I think a collar would look weird," and he just shrugged and blinked at me. 

Whatever.  I do what I want.

What the heck else was I going to do with leftover Wool-ease anyway?

Don't fret though, hood notwithstanding, I'm still on track to be done in time to count the yardage for Stash Dash on the 14th.   I'm about half done the hood, and then it's "Pick up approximately nine-billion stitches and K2P2 rib for three years or one inch...whichever comes first."

So no problem.  And man, it's a good thing I just read back through this before I published.  Do I look like the kind of knitter that would throw down a gauntlet like "no problem" in front of the Knitting Goddess when I'm on a deadline?  Nosirreebob.  I am cautiously optimistic.  At best.

In non-sweater related news, I've done some more work on Trillian and Carl's sock.  They both look exactly like they did before, only more so.  

I could not get the color and light right the day I took these pictures.

Okay, so I might have lied before.  I may have stepped out on the sweater just a little.

On Saturday I cast on my birthday Hitchhiker in some Wollmeise Twin that I had marinating in the stash.   

Gratuitous yarn pic. 

I'm not far into it yet, but I wanted to get it on the needles on August 1.   I turn 42 in a couple of weeks, and I can't think of a better way to mark the occasion.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Friends reassure me that knitting the same pattern four times is not actually excessive.  Though in a few of their cases I think it may have been an "if this is wrong baby, I don't want to be right" kind of situation.