Winter Blue Hoodie Sweater

Finished my re-made Winter Blue Hoodie sweater. I used this yarn to make a sweater and a vest a few years ago and neither ever fit quite right. Finally I decided I wanted to re-use the yarn to make something I would actually wear so I took apart the original sweater and vest and re-made the yarn into a new sweater. I may also try for a vest again as well.

This is mostly a gansey, sort of. I did do some shaping in the arms and shoulders so it does not have a drop shoulder. There's also a hood but the picture doesn't show it; that came out a bit large but it's mostly decoration anyway.

Pattern: Improvised
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport in Winter Blue
Needle: 3.25mm & 3.75mm
Gauge: 22 stitches and 33 rows = 10 cm

WIPs also continue, since finishing Winter Blue I have started to make progress on Celestial, the Bunny Blanket and the Checkers Blanket. Not on the Red T-Shirt though as there's something wrong; I suspect gauge and may have to work up another gauge swatch.

Birthday Gift
My Wee Niece opened her birthday gifts this morning (her time) and immediately put on her pink sweater and refused to take it off. Win for Auntie!!

Current Weather

17C and partly cloudy. Summer, schmummer.

WIP Update

This week was all about the Winter Blue sweater. I worked on it almost exclusively, a few rounds on the socks at work but otherwise it was all sweater, all week. Both sleeves are now finished and I only have about 5cm to go on the hood and it is all done. Well, except for blocking and buttons but the knitting part will be done. Looking forward to being able to wear this.

Ahab
Ahab and his annual physical yesterday and he seems to be in excellent health for a 13 year old, medium sized dog. The vet says his heart sounds like an athletes' heart, strong and slow. Waiting on blood work just to be sure there's nothing going on he hasn't told me about.

Other News
In other news I bought a new mouse and monitor. The 32" TV I was using as a monitor for about the past 5 years finally started to die and I've been needing an ergonomic mouse for a while now so since the back to school sales are all on it seemed like a good time to go shopping.

And in honour of the recent passing of Peter Fonda I watched Easy Rider. Not actually sure if I enjoyed it or not but it was an interesting peak into the hippy culture of the late 60s.

Current Weather

19C and mostly cloudy. The hot day was last Wed when it made it to 31C, third day over 30C all year if I remember what the weather forecaster said.

WIP Update

I'm working hard on not neglecting the poor blog even when there isn't much to talk about. This week I concentrated on three WIPs for the most part. Even though I had to take pain killers on Friday because my bad wrist (shattered in a horse riding accident in 2001) was hurting so bad. I blame the rain; I guess I will always be living in a desert or near-desert for the rest of my life if that is what a little rain does to me.

First my Winter Blue Hoodie sweater; it has gained half a sleeve. This is, in fact, slightly deceiving as I originally picked up too many stitches for the sleeve and had to rip out the entire sleeve* and start again.

Second is the Checkers Blanket. Much has been added to this car seat blanket.

And third the Bunny Blanket. It's harder to see the progress on this one but if you carefully compare to last week's picture you will see more checkers above the bunny.

Progress was also made on the socks but not enough to justify a new picture.

Current Weather
26C and sunny. You could mistake it for summer out there.

* Edited to add: This sentence is deceiving, I only ripped out about 1/3 of the sleeve which was the entire sleeve finished at the time.

A Brief Update

I hate it when blogs I follow go too long without an update. But I'm also guilty of doing exactly the same thing with my own blog. Sigh.

So, here is an update on everything currently on my needles.

Socks
Urgh. These socks are going nowhere rapidly. There's nothing wrong with them; I think the problem is that I've gotten into a new series of books, the Seaside Knitters Society Mysteries, and that's what I've been doing on my lunch break at work instead of knitting socks. Unfortunately the library doesn't carry most of this series as ebooks and I find reading a pbook harder to do while knitting; they can be hard to prop up and keep open without holding on. I don't blame the library for this situation; I blame the publishers who've made ebooks so difficult for libraries. But that's another rant entirely.

Celestial
A lovely cotton/acrylic blend for a nice light weight sweater. I've already done two other sweaters using this yarn so maybe that's why this one is struggling. It's at the stage of being a good TV watching project but I have other TV projects so it gets hard to choose. It will come, just slowly.

Winter Blue

A wool sport weight sweater, I originally planned this to be a hoodie but I'm not sure I won't change my mind at the last minute. So close to finishing the yoke and starting the sleeves. Also good TV watching.

Bunny Blanket

I suck at drawing so I decided to embrace that fact and chart a primitive drawing of a bunny then knit it up in double knitting. I think it actually came out kind of cute. This will now be a slog to the end making all those checks in the checkerboard pattern. More TV watching but only shows you don't need to watch too carefully as I need to look down quite a bit when double knitting. Maybe I should try and find a podcast to listen to or something. Any recommendations?

Red T-shirt

I'm experimenting with the idea of knitting a t-shirt that will actually be a t-shirt. Possibly futile I know but I decided to try anyway. The yarn is a very light fingering weight, almost lace weight, cotton/linen blend. It feels a little rough while knitting it but the gauge swatch softened up immediately after getting wet once. Which, as I understand it, is what linen is supposed to do. And you guessed it; an excellent TV watching project at this stage.

Checkers Blanket

And because all my other projects currently under way are long and slow I reached into my stash and cast on for a quick baby blanket. One day I have got to get an Etsy shop setup or something as I'm accumulating rather a lot of these lovely little blankets. Yes, yes I could have worked on the socks and got something done right away for the instant gratification factor. Your point?

I have a few other projects lying around but they're all in a time-out right now. Some because they may not work out and some because I just need a break.

Ahab

Seems to have adjusted happily to being the only dog. Dogs tend to be very quick to recover when they loose someone. There is a lesson for us humans about living in the moment right there.

Current Weather

11C and cloudy. It's been up and down all summer, a couple days in the mid twenties and then back into the teens. I use the term "summer" loosely.

P.S.

I had a birthday over the long weekend (the first Monday in August is a holiday here) so I am now one year older than when I last blogged.