Waiting for snowflakes

It's been a pretty unsnowy season this year. Not what I was expecting when we moved to Truckee, the 5th snowiest city in the US. I've been watching the crazy weather in all the other places I've lived, and have been pretty glad to not be dealing with their winter - I'm looking at you Ohio! We have some snow forecast this week and next, so I'm really hoping that it comes this time! The dog and I need more snow to jump around in. The snow that is outside, while still very deep, is old and gross now.

The migraine that started last Thursday when I was driving seems to have broken finally. I got a fever in my sleep two nights in a row, which only leads to more tossing and turning and bad sleep. I slept for about 18 hours on Friday/Saturday. I was exhausted, but even when I woke up, I was still exhausted. Migraine sleep sucks. I never really fall all the way asleep. It's like my body keeps tense and always bracing for the next wave of pain. 

I've been reading A Life in Stitches. It's very good. I'm enjoying the way she writes about knitting and her cat. I'm not a cat person, but Digit sounds like the best cat ever. I've never read her blog Yarn-A-Go-Go, but it's being added to my blog roll now! Her stories about being cold all the time and just knitting, knitting, knitting really inspired me. I am a cold person and don't seem to own enough sweaters! I'm not really sure how that is possible when I have been knitting since 2001, but whatever... We won't talk about the 4 or 5 in pieces, half-knit and scattered all over the stash... Shh...

I cast on for Cadence last night. I got the yarn (Sirdar Denim Chunky) at Saver's for $5 a few years ago. I think there were 7 or 8 balls originally. I used some for a hat and really enjoyed the feel of the yarn. I'm hoping I can get through this one quickly! Everyone on Ravelry seems to enjoy knitting it.

FLS

I was supposed to start this sweater last year around this time... but never got around to doing anything except salvaging the yarn. It's from a very large Men's J.Crew jumper that was very square and boxy, but such a lovely color. Purple, plus, grey, white, black all heathered together. So nice!



I made a failed attempt to start in October, but I had an old copy of the pattern and could never really get the yoke started because the pattern made NO sense. I put it on my project cards for the year, not really expecting to start it any time soon... But on February 1st, startitis struck and I wanted to knit something, but couldn't decide. I shuffled my cards and got the FLS. I wasn't super thrilled considering I had had so man difficulties getting started the first time, but I sat down and started again... And no luck...

Finally, I figured out I had an old copy. I downloaded the new one, loaded it on my kindle and also printed it out and I was ready!

I got through the yoke fairly easily until the YO round. I didn't get them spaced in a way I really liked the first time, so I pulled out the row and re-did the numbers so I could spread them out in a better way. (All the details are on my project page on Ravelry)

The next hard part was getting the lace to fit well. I had done the sleeves in a normal raglan fashion, measuring as I went to make sure they would fit around my arm, but when I got to the right size for my arm, I didn't have the right number of stitches to spread the lace evenly over 7 stitches minus the 16 for the edge. I couldn't really figure out how to fix this. I eventually just pulled back the first repeat of lace that I had done and a few rows of the garter stitch, and magically had a number that worked! I ended up with 270 sts. I have 56 sts across my sleeve, 72 across the back, and 43 on each front. (43-8 for the button band is 35). It worked out perfectly and made my life so much easier.



I'm just going through all the lace repeats now. I'm in the middle of my 6th repeat. I'll be adding buttonholes all the way down too. I just don't want a boob tent sweater, which is what this one will do with the buttons as they are now.

Westward ho!

The sleeves are cast on, knit to about 10 inches and moving along quickly. I need 9 more inches before I can start the cap shaping so I'm hoping to get that done tonight.

Keep on waiting.

My sleep schedule is all kinds of frakked up. I forced myself to stay awake so I can call the doctor's office in Ohio the second they open. I can't wait much longer for surgery. I need to feel better. I need to be able to go places. It's making me crazy. It's utterly exhausting to be in pain constantly.

I started the sleeve shaping on the Sesame tonight. It's moving along very quickly. I really like the pattern and the stripes keep the stockinette from being too boring. I don't mind stockinette too much, it's good mindless TV knitting, but sometimes it can get boring.

Hourglass Sweater: Part Deux

I frogged the sweater Monday, being a good little knitter and winding all the yarn into nice loose balls as I went. Go me! Then I put all the balls into a bag so I wouldn't go insane trying to find them later on. Another go me! Tuesday I cast on again.

I did manage to twist my cast on row, but I caught it in time and since the edge gets folded over and sewn up, no one will ever notice the tiny little bumps from my twisted knitting. :-) I got through all the decrease rows last night. I added a bit of length (5 rows) to the bottom before I started decreasing. I added some length last time, but I was a big stupid head and didn't make notes about that, well, not notes that could ever be read by anyone ever.

Overall, it's coming along nicely. It's much easier and faster to knit the second time around.

*twitch*

Which makes a knitter more crazy: tinking back 8 rows of knitting on a sweater, knitting a very heavy piece of fabric on metal needles, OR an endless scarf of seed stitch?

I'm currently rotating through the three of them right now. I had to give my hands a break from the hand towel after using metal needles all day yesterday. And my eyes needed a break after hours and hours of tinking Sunday night.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get really crazy and pick up the Log Cabin and give it some much needed attention. I'd like to finish it sometime for the year 2015.

I'm dumm

I can't read apparently. I messed up my Hourglass royally.



I did 8 decrease rounds in a row. Yeah. I should read a little more closely. I'm in the process of tinking back. I just can't bear to rip it out and start over from scratch.