apparently, elves have a lot of knitwear

HEB: "What do you think, buddy?"
T: "It's my elf sweater!"
[Pauses to put it on.]
T: "When are you going to knit me my elf pants?"

It may have been a complete failure of an idea, but he didn't seem to mind. It's the Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. This is the third Placket Neck Pullover I've made him. Given the fate of #2, I stuck with the old standard of Blue Skies Dyed Cotton for this one, just like #1. As always, it comes through beautifully for kids knits.

I measured my nephew and knit the sweater to his measurements since he is tall and skinny. But I should have made it one size larger since I couldn't manage to finish it promptly. Maybe it will be a cold spring in Wisconsin and he'll be able to wear it a lot before growing out of it...

we'd better stop before this story begins

Once again, I am neglecting all the knitting I need to do simply because I'm too fascinated by watching this sweater grow. So hold me accountable, blog: I will not knit another row on this sweater until all the finishing is done on the knitting that I'm supposed to gift tomorrow. I will not.

Or, at least, I'll only let myself knit rows as a reward for filing my taxes...

so lost on a trail walked by so many

I took more pictures of sheep in the last week than I have in the rest of my life combined. (And all of them were basically in one day.) However, since this is a knitting blog, I'll try to limit the pictures to the ones that are slightly less tangential to knitting.
Despite its clear proximity to our hiking trail, Wamps did not pick up any of this fiber to spin at home.

(Apparently, animals are allowed to graze on the National Parks lands during the winter.)

Even almost on-point: That's a cowl that you've seen briefly before, knit out of Plucky Cashmere Fingering Weight in an improvised pattern (colorway: London Calling). (I did sew in the ends just so I could wear it on this trip.) And a Wispy Cardy in Plucky Merino Lace (colorway: Summer at the Shore). Plus the wristwarmers that Wamps made me years ago. (See their first trip to the UK here.) Here's to traveling knitwear!

All These Days

I've actually finished knitting this baby, but do I have a picture on my computer to show you?  No, no I don't don't.  "In motion" pics to come. 

whatever name it's got, it's got me circling

note to self: Think through whether color-block raglan sleeves can be knit in the round before you knit the body and sleeves of the sweater in different colors. Although, really, just having that thought process before the join round would be an improvement next time.

Winter Knitting

My needles have been flying! I finished the Malabrigo Rios sweater (Indiecita) that I fell in love with in an ad in Interweave last fall. (It actually called for Silky Merino but I couldn't find any at the time) One thing I love about this sweater is that it is oversized and stretchy. Really comfy.




















I interupted work on that project to knit a hat and scarf for Emily's birthday. She found the pattern from a friend whose hat she admired and we picked out the yarn together online. It turned out oranger than expected but looks good. I designed the scarf from the hat pattern.




Then I finally found a pattern I liked for the Noro Silk Garden yarn I had bought when I was looking for the silky merino and decided not to use for that sweater. I am really pleased with the short sleeved cardigan even though there are only about two days a year that are right to wear it. Today was one. Thanks to a weekend train trip to New York, a flight to Texas, and a two day off-site meeting where I could knit while listening to presentations (honestly - less rude and distracting than checking a Blackberry constantly!), and the fact that it was mostly stockinette stitch, I finished in three weeks.

Mama said there'd be days like this....

I am having a totally fed up with the world kind of week.

Tuesday a 2 hour bus ride took 6 hours. Yesterday I had a conference call that was uninterupted by Harvard's snow day (a once in a decade occurrence, apparently). Unfortunately, instead of the scheduled 2 hours, we went for 4+ hours. When a meeting will stretch to fill the time it has, and everyone is snowed in... well, you get the idea. Today, more frustration and bad mood. I decided on my work break this afternoon that perhaps posting some knitting pictures would put me in a better mood.

I was going to go through my yarn this weekend and basically thought I should get rid of it all since I haven't knitted in months, and my yarn is just cluttering up the closet. Then I saw my pink scarf. It's the scarf that was my first knitting project. It taught me that knitting a single color scarf is actually a horrible beginner's project, because it takes so long!! I never finished it. I saw it this weekend, and decided to finish it. Voila! (Still need to sew in some ends)

The most amusing thing is that my gauge has clearly changed since I started knitting. Much larger now, and (thankfully) more consistent. I tried to show in picture the line where you can see the gauge change, but not sure it came out.

Next I saw some cotton yarn. A look through Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I found little kid cotton hats. Perfect! I started this a few days ago, and knitted like crazy as stress relief last night. I'm quite happy with the result, given I thought I had sworn off knitting.



While I'm not really one to distinguish "boy" and "girl" things for kids (we get enough gender indoctrination in life), I am thinking of making one of these for my friend's son who is 12 mos, and I'm not sure how she'd feel about the bow. Any thoughts on making it more baby-masculine?

I also wonder you thoughts on i-cords. This was my first two stitch i-cord, and I didn't like it. I think the 3 stitch i-cord looks much nicer, and I can make it much more consistent. Your thoughts?I definitely have an improved mood from posting this! Yay for happy knitting blogs!