hoodie frustration and hoodie elation

The zip-up hoodie is one zipper installation away from being finished. I made two attempts at the i-cord edging, but it muddled the edge of the cable too much. Since I rushed headlong into this project without really thinking, the only thing on the outer edge of the cable is one garter stitch. I'm not really sure what the right answer would have been, since I wanted the cables to meet in the middle, but wanted to prevent the edge from rolling too much. I could have added a ribbed edge, but again, I really wanted the cabled to meet in the center. So I decided to block the thing and hope for the best. I figured I would have to sew the zipper in by hand, since I hardly left myself any room to work with. I finished sewing one side last night, and was pretty pleased with how it looked. It was then that I realized that I purchased a zipper that does NOT separate at the bottom. (sigh...) This is SO like me.

My refuge from this frustration has been a lace hoodie pattern from Rebecca 32. I started this at knitting club last week, and (of course) butchered the lace pattern for the first couple inches. The pattern is knit flat, but I decided to knit in the round and my novice brain has a bit of trouble comprehending what I should do on wrong side rows when knitting in the round if it's not written out for me. The good thing about ripping it all out was that I realized that it would have been way too big, so on my second cast-on I eliminated a couple pattern repeats. It's going smoothly now and I love the way the lace pattern is shaping up.


I plan on finishing the zip-up hoodie by this weekend, as soon as I drag myself to the store to get the correct materials. I swear, this is SO like me...

snow day slippers

There's no better feeling than a snow day. It's euphoric. I know not everyone gets snow days anymore, but I am one of those people who has been lucky enough get them every once in a while, even in my adult life. Sometimes I have a hard time going back to sleep after hearing the news because I get so childishly excited. (It's true.) I love my job, but you can't beat a surprise day off in the middle of the week when you get to veg out and drink hot chocolate and watch bad daytime tv and knit.

So today, with the snow falling at the rate of 1-2" per hour, I knit myself some slippers. I found the Side Cable Slippers pattern through someone's blog or Flickr account, but of course I can't find it anymore. So if it was you, thanks! I used about 75 yards of chunky weight yarn, double stranded (150 yards total) on size 15 needles, and knit these up in a matter of hours. In my family, we have a tendency to receive really ugly handknit slippers. Of course, we always wear holes right through them, no matter how ugly they are. Anyway, although I had other color choices in my stash, in the spirit of ugly handknit slippers, I had to go for the rust orange. :)

first fair isle

It's been so long since I've learned something new, knitting or otherwise. And I'm one of those nerds that just kind of likes to learn...stuff. Well, I finally learned how to do Fair Isle. Last week I started a class at Wild Wools and we're working on the Kristin Nicholas pillow pattern from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2005. I'm so glad I taught myself how to knit continental so that I can do Fair Isle with both hands. I thought it might be too complicated at first, but I knit about 3 stitches using only the English method before I picked up the yarn with my left hand, too. There's so much to hold on to, it just made more sense. I think my tension is a little uneven, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. I can't believe it took me so long to jump on the Fair Isle bandwagon! It's fun --- and not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I can see why people get addicted to it!

the end is near.

I don't have much to blog about. I'm still working away on the zip-up hoodie...and that's about it. I almost always have a couple of projects going at once, but I've really only been working on this one lately. Although I haven't had as much time to work on the hoodie over the past few weeks as I had hoped. But I've finished the sleeves and the hood is going pretty quickly. It shouldn't take too much longer.