Pause!

Almost all of my knitting is paused right now. I have an incredibly busy few weeks coming up and will not be allowing myself to procrastinate through knitting until I'm through it. I'll be back in March!

I say *almost* all of my knitting since there is a lecture that I go to every Monday and Wednesday that is important enough that I need to be there and pay at least some attention to (i.e. I can't read during the hour) but rudimentary enough that I start getting itchy if I'm not doing something else. So all signs point to knit. And knit I will! It's the one respite from the more general knitting ban currently in effect.

In other news I've been daydreaming about spinning and have toyed with the idea of getting a drop spindle and some fiber as a congratulatory gift to myself to play with in March.

Syvlia's dress

How cute is Sylvia in her little dress?? She's only the cutest baby girl on the PLANET!

smooshy

smooshy, originally uploaded by vildishknits.

Yes, this is an old FO. But the old photos just didn't do this delicious yarn justice. I need alpaca on the needles again, stat.

tickland

tickland
Originally uploaded by vildishknits

This thing is growing! I keep waiting to hit the spot in the sweater where it seems like all progress stops, but I'm not there yet. I'm halfway through the tickstitch portion of the body. The last time I knit a norwegian sweater the tick section seemed to take a lifetime! Not sure what all is different this time (other than about 5 more years of knitting experience under my belt) but this has really been a more pleasurable experience overall.

I'm waiting for the braiding to arrive by mail so I can double check to colors and be sure I want to use it. Until then, I'm holding off on starting the sleeves since if I'm using the braids I'll use some at the cuffs. This has nothing to do with my generalized avoidance of sleeve knitting. Nothing!

I've made some more alterations to the chart for the upper body and will probably keep altering it until I'm actually knitting the stitches. That's all part of the fun!

The start of a sweater

WIP - Dad's sweater
Originally uploaded by vildishknits

Here we go! I have about 3 inches done of the bottom of the sweater body, plus the bit of ribbing that will fold to the inside. So far I'm loving the pattern and the color combinations. What a fun project to be working on!

My latest revelation is that I can knit while I read. This is HUGE! I can knit and knit and knit while I read my endless pages of school work. Maybe I'll finish the sweater quicker than I'd expected!

Figure figure figure

Swatches are done - gauge is measured - I'm all ready to go. Now comes the number crunching phase! How many patterns can I fit into the space while centering my big motive and keeping a nice proportion of pattern to flea stitch? If I take out that pattern and shift the whole thing up ten rows, would the pattern look better? It goes on. But I'm about to commit to this pattern and I want it to look snappy when it's done!

I've knit the bit that folds under the bottom and knit the fold stitch row, so the very next stitch I knit will be part of the front of the sweater. Here we gooooo!

Slowly Sock

january 046, originally uploaded by dejarlids.

I'm almost to the point on Alex's socks where I start working the heel. I'm loving the yarn and enjoying watching the handpainted patterns develop.