The Last Cast

Mission accomplished - Kaffe is back on track! I guess . . . it kind of looks like poo to me, but I'm sure blocking will do wonders! Right? I can't even really tell you what's going on - there's a bit of Whiskey, Felted Tweed, Drops Alpaca, Rowan Scottish Tweed, and bits of other things in there - and as for the pattern, I'm just winging it. A little light here, a little dark there - throw some medium in - it's kind of the way I cook (which is probably why my Super Bowl chili, while absolutely delicious, did cause some digestive havoc). It's quite the hodge podge. I took it off the needles, and with a good blocking, it's going to fit - I think. If not, it will be a great gift for my skinny sister-in-law.

And, I finished my Elizabeth Zimmerman Yoke Sweater. Can I tell you how warm and yummy this sweater is? And how EASY PEASY this sweater was to make. Start with some Cocoon, throw in some colorful Polar and Cascade 128 and voila! Originally, I was inspired by Kate's Cold Hearts Warm Hands Cardigan. I loved the yarnny yarn - nothing fancy, just natural wool, with natural colors. So, my original color palette was all Cocoon - Tundra (the main color), Chocolate, White, Beige, Light Grey, and Dark Grey. I don't know what came over me, but I actually swatched the fair isle on one of the sleeves, and decided that the colors were too subtle, and while I was trying to be au naturel, it needed some color to make it pop. We had some Polar in the sale bin (the pinky purple color), and I threw in some Cascade 128 in a magenta - and here it is - and it was so EASY. There's nothing like going round and round on 9's. And, it's the exact fit I was going for - oversized, but not ridiculously gigantic. I've been practically sleeping in it for 3 days.

Anyway, that's Mr. Tall standing next to me - as you can kind of see, I come up to about, oh, his shoulder - it's like walking next to a wall sometimes, but I'm getting used to it.




















I was so pleased with my first Knitting Workshop excursion, that I've started another EZ extravaganza. As I started talking about below, this is going to be a saddle shoulder sweater, with fair isle sleeves, and a solid body. While the finished project looks fanastic in my head, I haven't quite visualized how I'm going to get there - as you can see, I'm going to have decisions to make when I get to joining the sleeves to the body. Am I going to do Intarsia in the round - I've been carrying an article from Interweave around in my bag all week, but I'm too scared to look at it. Or, will there be one long float across the sleeve, that I'll tack down as I go across the row. Or, will I knit flat, and sew the saddles in. I don't know - right now, I'm leaning towards the long floats that are woven in as I knit.






















The sewing - that's run far behind in third - dreaded seams!

And, this Saddle Shoulder creation, my friends, is going to be the last thing I cast on this winter. I mean it, truly. I went through all of my unfinished projects, and while I'm not nuts enough to believe that I can get them all done - I've made a queue, and I'm determined to clear some of them out - Monster Manos Blanket, the Tangled Yoke cardigan, stalled midway through the second sleeve, Martha, in a holding pattern 3/4's of the way through the back, a slipstitch cardigan from Vogue that I started years ago, that is only 2 inches away from being finished, the Anemoi mittens, and the Frankenmitts. Oh, there are more - but that's the finishing pile - by June. Of course, there's always that Maryland Sheep and Wool excursion that could throw me from my course - but that's still a good bit away. And, since I did the Auto Show with Mr. Tall this weekend, and I don't drive, I think he will be doing MSW with me in May - and that will, alas, probably curb my spending. Well, not so probably, probably definitely . . .