Review of a good book

It's kind of a blur, but I think I finished Yarn Harlot: the Secret Life of a Knitter on Friday morning. I practically ate it up - it was really, really good.

The book is basically a series of individual stories (grouped into topic categories), covering interesting events and aspects of the author's knitting life. The stories range the gamut of laugh-out-loud funny, sad, eye-rolling, poignant, meaningful, informative, all that good stuff. It's a wonderful read.

The only thing I didn't like about the book is actually a testament to how good it is. 'One Little Sock' made me cry and cry and cry. It's still haunting me, actually. So, some advice: if you are pregnant, DO NOT READ 'ONE LITTLE SOCK'. Heck, I would also recommend avoiding it if you are the parent of a baby who is still in the SIDs-risk age range. It is a beautiful story, extremely well-written, but it is very sad and upsetting.

So...all in all, a highly recommended read. I can't wait for her third book. :)

Striped socks for moi

On Friday's morning commute I cast off for sock #1. Oh, the triumph. When I arrived at the office, I whipped it out and tried it on while my computer was booting up.

It took me over a minute to force the thing over my heel. Not good.

So I shall have to frog the cast-off and re-do it more loosely. I only hope that I made the cast-off tail long enough that I won't run out of yarn during the re-do!

PonChew

Friday at lunch I knit the body of the poncho. This took longer than I wanted. I started out with a fancy-schmancy cabled design with some moss stitch edging. Halfway into it I held it up to admire my handiwork and discovered that the variegation of the yarn (and the brightness of the colours) completely obliterated the cable.

Riiiip.

So instead I just went for a plain stocking stitch dealio with YO increases. Unsurprisingly, it knit up super-fast. It fits Chewie very well - he tried it on. Now I'm working on the fringe.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

Friday I made some good progress on the second sleeve. I'm close to finishing the underarm gusset. Flushed with this success, I really hoped I was going to get a lot of time to work on this over the weekend.

Hahahaha.

Firstly, I was planning to get in a lot of knitting time on the way to an SCA event on Saturday. However, we discovered on Friday night that DH was far too tired and busy to go to the event, so I was on my own with DD. And as much as I wish I was able to drive and knit at the same time, it just ain't so. And the amount of pre-planning and packing I had to do to make going to the event possible ate up my knitting time on Friday night.

Sunday, my MIL and BIL were planning to visit. This meant hiding the sweater away so that BIL would not see it and ruin his own surprise. (Sadly, only my MIL ended up coming - my BIL has just stopped doing a nightshift job and discovered that morning that he was completely jetlagged and feeling too awful to come. But by that time I'd already pulled out some other knitting, so the sweater lost out again.)

The second part of Sunday was devoted to attempting to finish a weekend's worth of household chores in a single afternoon. (No, I didn't succeed.)

Result: I am so not done half of the second sleeve. But I'm definitely getting there.

Secret Garden cardigan for niece

I wanted to make absolutely sure that my next attempt of this project would actually produce a garment big enough to fit my niece. To that end, I've been emailing my SIL to get an idea of the right measurements. It turns out that although my niece is tall enough for the 4-5 year size, her chest will probably be swimming in it. Sigh. However, as I told my SIL, better too big than too small. I know she's gonna grow, but she sure as heck ain't gonna shrink. :) So I decided upon the 4-5 year size (the cardigan is for the child's third birthday, by the way - she came out at 10lbs 1oz and just kept going) and cast on this weekend. I'm not quite as far along as The Schedule says I should be at this point, but I'm not too badly behind, either.

Things are going well.