And the Knit goes on....

How is everyone today? Here in Merlin, it is sunny and beautiful and not terribly hot for the end of summer. Keeping all my Florida relatives and friends in my prayers as they hunker down for Hurricane Dorian. Please send good thoughts - and as is your wont - prayers down their way.

Am having an extremely lazy Saturday.  Woke up in the middle of the night last night after having fallen asleep in the den over my knitting and found the TV on with an old version of Cinderella playing on YouTube. (Now, how do you get from The Fat Squirrel Speaks to Cinderella? That's one mystery I don't want to know the answer to.) Anyway, rather than being a good Doobie and cleaning up the knitting and going to bed, I decided to keep working on my project.  Finally went to bed at 8 a.m. and woke up when? I'm ashamed to tell you. 

So that project: 

Doesn't look like much, does it? Well, it's getting close to being half a sweater.  I am currently building up the sleeve stitches and creating a nice raglan line at the right shoulder.  It is the most unusual way I've ever knitted a sweater and I am up for the challenge.  The mad scientist behind this piece of beauty is (drumroll....) Joji Locatelli.  The pattern is Rhapsody in Cables.  It's a comfy, oversized, yet elegant, bouquet of cables and lace - and did I say unusual construction? Two hints if you are going to knit this piece: (1) For the provisional cast-on, use an interchangeable knitting needle cable as the "waste yarn" and be sure to put stoppers on the ends as shown above. (Ask me how I know!) When you have to pick up the stitches to knit in the opposite direction, all you will have to do is put the appropriate needle tip on the cord and simply knit.  It avoids a LOT of stress! (2) Follow the pattern very carefully.  It's one of the best tech-edited patterns I have ever seen - and in 55 years of knitting, I've seen quite a few.  The instructions are very clear and Joji provides schematics as you go.  It is knitting up quite quickly because I am so curious to see how the next section proceeds. (And because I rarely have to use a cable needle any more.) The down side is my sleep has suffered (see previous paragraph.)

Since I've dived right into the crafting side of my life, allow me to continue.  I FINALLY finished the Nordiska and the fit isn't too terribly bad.  I see it as a possible top over a skirt on a cold day. Because it is somewhere between a cropped and a full length sweater, I don't think it would look good on me in pants.  And that's Ohhh Kayy....

I modified the colorwork patterns due to the amounts of yarn I had.  I was concerned about the colors working together, but they've grown on me.  I rearranged the colorwork on the sleeves, which I also shortened.  All in all, it was a satisfying knit.  

I have not much of anything on the weaving and the cross-stitch fronts, so not much to show.  

Yesterday was a long day at court, broken only by lunch with a very nice colleague.  The day was topped off by a rather heartbreaking shelter hearing I won't tell you about.  As I headed home, I felt in need of some yarn therapy, so I put some stash acquisitions together for another project I've been wanting to make since it came out in the second issue of Laine Magazine: Birkin by Caitlyn Hunter, of Boyland Knitworks

There is a version from a kit made by Urso Yarns in Canada. If you are on ravelry, go to the main page for Birkin and do a search on "Urso" and you'll see them.   I love these colors - lovely mixture of warm and cool pinks and oranges and greens with a lightly speckled main color - just goreous! Unfortunately, I won't be able to match this, but am hoping to do some sort of mix of cool and warm that work for me.  I am using cream-colored BCGarn fingering weight for the main color and for the colorwork, BCGarn in a deep purple and a lavender-ish purple.  I have some deeper green and lighter green colors in fingering weight and some yellow KnitPicks Palette fingering weight yarn.  I also have a medium blue in BC Garn, but not sure if that will be included.  In no way will my efforts come close to the beautifully dyed yarn in these sweaters, but hope springeth eternal, as they say.  Watch this space;)!

Well, I have to end here - in a half hour I will be attending a 70th birthday bash 

for a dear friend and colleague:)! 

God be with you 'til we meet again+