Post-Christmas knitting

Hi all,

It's been a little bit since I last posted, but for longtime readers, not necessarily a surprise, I think. I thought about posting last week, leading up to Christmas, but in Denver, we had a major snowstorm(read: blizzard) and of course I still had my crappy camera and wasn't wanting to deal with that. Now after that holiday, got a new camera (thanks M!), but of course had to figure out how to use it and then I decided to switch over to the new Blogger during the second blizzard in a 7-day period (insane!). After fiddling with Blogger for the past few hours, I'm still missing some things on my sidebar, but hopefully the HTML/XML knowledgeable among us may be able to offer me some help or it just won't make it on the page, definitely not the end of the world. I'm very excited by the new blogger and the functionality of using labels and such.

I meant to answer Sheila's question from my last post, whether or not I finished the sweater for M in time for Xmas and the answer is yes. And Sheila, I did not stick to my schedule of finishing it at all. I started seaming one side last Monday. Put it down, hardly knit for the next few days b/c I felt guilty for not finishing his sweater. Ooops, I guess I did finish another spiral rib hat out of some Malabrigo that Nachaele gave me. But I made myself sit down Christmas Eve and weave in all the ends on one side and then after Christmas Eve dinner with friends, around 11:30 p.m., I seamed up the other side and wove in all the ends there and finished at 2 a.m. Christmas morning. I blocked it with my portable mini-steamer and boxed it up for M to open. I have other news to report, but for today, I must show you M's finished sweater. He's a bit blog-shy, so his face will not appear on the blog.

from the front:


side:


back:



Project Specs:
Yarn used: Steinbach Wolle Merino Soft in olive green (#18 color)
Needle size used: sz 3 US(3.25 mm) for ribbing and sz 5 US(3.75 mm) for body
Pattern: Port Orford Pullover Sweater from Oat Couture
Modifications: one, which was on the front of the sweater, where you do the pattern stitch to delineate from all the stockinette, M decided that he wanted it all in stockinette, so I obliged.

I really like how the sweater turned out. I still don't like the dropped shoulders at all, but he does and it's for him, so that's all that counts. Now he wants to know everything that I'm knitting if it's for him. And the second part of that is now M2 has asked that I knit him a sweater (with argyles). Why is it the kid that always asks for the hard stuff?

Since finishing Hourglass and M's sweater, I've still been working on accessory items. Although it was nice to not have almost the pressure of working on sweaters, save for baby knits, I'm getting the urge to cast on for a new sweater. Some of the accessory items will continue to be worked on, but on the side. I really need to get cracking on the other two baby sweaters. I plan to cast on for one of these by tomorrow.

I expect to post at least once more over the long weekend, as I don't return to work until Tuesday, January 2nd.