a third sweater finished

I've now finished the dog sweater I've been working on. The link is for details of how I made the sweater. I'd like to post a pic here but have decided against it. I tried the sweater on my cat just before it was finished. It was, of course, big for her. But, it did look nice and made me decide to go with single crochet around the leg openings instead of ribbing.

I probably could have taken her picture in the sweater, but I promised her I wouldn't. At best, I'd have a picture of an annoyed cat -- ears slightly back. At worst, I'd have an action picture of a cat jumping out of a sweater. She jumped out of the sweater almost immediately after I tried it on her yesterday and then disappeared until I told her that I wouldn't do that to her again.

On another note, my mom turns 93 tomorrow!

two sweaters finished

My Washburne raglan and BSJ are now finished. I like how both of them turned out. Plus both of them were fun to do.

Here is a picture of the raglan taken in dim light. -- And, it didn't snow the day after I finished it. -- It took 7 1/2 skeins of Vanna's Choice yarn on size 10 needles for a 48" chest size. (Each sleeve took just over 1 skein.)



It turned out that I didn't need to purchase a second skein of Bernat Satin Sport aran to finish the BSJ. I had enough already. I finished it up with a k2tog bo instead of the recommended one and used a 3-needle bo to "sew" the sleeve together (starting at the neck and finishing at the cuff in order to add some ribbing without breaking yarn). The last bit was the collar.



The Möbius cowl is still coming along nicely. I thought I was just about ready to begin the edging until I reread the directions and discovered that the edging starts after 5" on each side of the center instead of 5" across. On the bright side, it looks as if this will finish off both skeins of Hand & Hand instead of just one.

And I've started on the dog sweater -- in Vanna's Choice yarn and size 9 needles. It's just over half done now. I started out with a pattern but am now just winging it.

sweater update

Monday, I was again reminded that I'm terrible at remembering shades of color. I went to the store on Monday to get another skein of yarn for the Washburne raglan and another skein of yarn for a BSJ. As I was waiting in the checkout line, it occurred to me that I'd gotten the wrong color for the raglan. So, I went back and got the correct one. Then after I got home, I discovered that I also had the wrong shade for the BSJ. I wanted aran and got white. So, I went back the next day and got the correct color. It's not as if I had just started the projects. I was over half finished with both.



And since I didn't want to work on cables while watching tv Monday evening, I started on Birgit Freyer's Wave of Color. I first tried Magic Stripes denim stripe and decided two things. First, the pattern didn't work for a yarn with such a short repeat of color. It would work much better with something like Noro sock yarn. Second, this is a really nice pattern. Mobius cowls are in style now (though they're called snoods, for some odd reason). So, I switched to a color that I'd enjoy wearing -- a tan, Hand & Hand accent sock yarn. I used this version of the Mobius cast on.



Here is the BSJ so far. Knitting-and.com (and also the wiki on Ravelry) is proving invaluable in figuring out just what to do. I'm using the suggestion to start the middle section with a new skein. The double increase I found while aimlessly web-surfing is also proving nice.

I'm now on the second sleeve of the Washburne raglan for my DS2 (and will end up using about 7 1/2 skeins of Vanna's Choice yarn). DS2 called me this morning and said he could tell that I'm about finished with the sweater. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground. ;) -- There was a heavy snow the day after I finished the sweater I made for him last year. It kept snowing more than usual for here until I finished a sweater for my mom about a month later.

Halloween

We had 165 kids come by for Halloween candy -- down by about 40 from last year. It was a nice Saturday afternoon for Trick-or-Treating. (The official hours were from 2 to 6 pm.) Maybe they had other things to do that afternoon.

The Washburne raglan is coming along nicely. It's based on Wash's sweater. I hate piecing and seaming and so decided to rework it as a raglan from the top down. I'm almost done with the sweater body. I'll have to get more yarn (Vanna's Choice chocolate). I'd forgotten that cables take more yarn than regular stockinette.

I'm slowly getting Inconceivable finished. I'm over half done now.

And, I'm getting ready to knit a couple of things for friends of my DS1. I'd been wanting to knit them (a dog sweater -- though not with fancy fur -- and a BSJ -- just because I heard it was fun) for a while but hadn't had any reason to. I'm hoping to get them done by Thanksgiving. I'm going to knit just a regular dog sweater but had been wanting to knit one ever since I saw this Tubey post -- even though I hadn't had a dog around the house since I was a teenager. Since then, all we've had were cats.

Also, I'm tempted to start a couple of lace KALs. Birgit Freyer has an interesting Mobius pattern, Waves of Color, in her Yahoo group, Knitting Delight. Moni, one of my favorite lace designers, has a triangular shawl, Windsbraut Spitzbergen, in her Yahoo group, Klabauter. Both groups have German as the main language, but the really important info (such as patterns) are also translated into English.