My Entourage

With the weekend all to myself, I am surprised at how quickly I have gone completely feral.  I have studiously ignored ALL forms of housework.  I have eaten nothing that required the use of dishes.  I only left the house to buy ribbon for a sweater, and the latest issue of Interweave Knits.  I had grand visions of lots of self-indulgent me-time activities, like bubble baths and recreational reading, and shaving my legs and drinking wine.  Turns out all I wanted to do was work, snack, and sleep.  Having made no attempt to maintain even minimum sanitation standards in my house, I find it much easier to fight the guilt if I just don't look up from my work.

I'm not completely alone, though.  The Pets are keeping a diligent watch over me (as long as diligence includes napping)  Here's my cast of supporting characters:

Paisley peeks around a corner to see if I have noticed yet that the CHILDREN ARE NOT HERE, and what am I, DUMB or something?  She is highly agitated due to the irregularity of their absence, and as a result her nap schedule is in a complete state of disruption.

Not suffering from this problem are Hex and Jinx:

They barely opened their eyes for their photo opportunity, and are only dimly aware that they have me all to themselves.    I realize that posting pictures of my cats on my blog is a totally Uber-Dweeb thing to do, but I hope to be forgiven this once, because they are only kittens and they are so CUUUUUUTE...  Yeah, I know:  I seriously need to knit less/leave the house more.  Have mercy on my pitiful soul though;  I lack a certain perspective, due to extended periods of sweater construction.  We who are about to write a book salute you.

I completed the sibling sleeves, and presented them to my assistant for inspection:

She is not as enthusiastic a supporter of my work as I had hoped.  Maybe if I wrapped the sleeves around a pork chop or something...

As much as I crave and relish time by myself, I realize that I may not be the type of person who should be left to my own devices too often.  Lucky for me, Phillip and the smallies will be home this evening to regale me with tales of everything I missed at the lake.  And I will tell them that however much I just want to be left alone sometimes, they are the only thing I have worth being awake for.  Except, of course, for the Entourage.
 

Staycation

I have a case of the "o-woe-is-me's" because my fam went to the lake and I stayed home.  It's really only a superficial case because while I miss their guts, I know that my decision to stay home was an unusual combination of hedonism and self-discipline.  How can this be?  Because I am knitting my butt off, not to put too fine a point on it (even managed to button up a whole pattern, sample and all - yeah, it was two weeks later than I planned, but still...).  And also because I am luxuriating in the uncommon stillness of the house.  An eerie quietude that gave me the willies pretty quick, and caused me to tune in to the Nightly Business Report on PBS, just to break up the roar in my head.  So while Jim Lehrer is a real Dreamboat, he's only white noise to me tonight, because I discovered a way cool trick.  Okay, I didn't discover it, so much as attempt it for the first time, but I am still pretty jazzed that it worked just like all the books said it would:

So the trick is this:  If you change needle sizes, you can get really useful gauge changes that cause things to have shapes that totally look like they were on purpose.  Yeah, I know:  That's only like rule number 3 of knitting (the first 2 are: 1. Get some String-Like Substance, and 2. Throw the cat/laundry/spouse off the Comfortable Chair) but sometimes I go back and make friends with the basics after missing the point, say, a kajillion times.  This is one of those junctures, and I am totally blissed out.  See the curviness on that neckline?  Wicked!  And I didn't even have to throttle block it into submission!

In case you are like me and called in sick/bored/hungover on that day at Knitting School, I will outline the technique in a technical but impressive fashion; to wit:

The top edge of this neckband was worked on a size 1, the middle three rows on a 2, and the last three rows on a 4.

Then, just to be a total sassy-pants, I did the bind off with a 5, in case the excitement over my impending success caused me to tighten up my tension and wreck the whole thing.

Okay, here's a sneak peek at the right side, just so I don't forget how to take pictures of the fronts of things.

I held the completed project up to the TV to show Jim Lehrer, but he didn't seem too impressed.  One great thing about my family is that they can't knit as well as me, so they always act super-impressed when I finish things.  Evidently the esteemed Mr. Lehrer is totally bored by my needle-size-changing-gauge feats, because he just went droning on about the Middle East when I showed him.  I am totally unappreciated in my living room.  So much for hedonism.  
 

One Sleeve, Two Sleeve, Watch Me Knit a New Sleeve

Here is the elder of two sibling sleeves.  Actually, it's the wrong side of the elder of two sibling sleeves.  I am showing it this way for two compelling reasons:

1.    I think the "wrong" sides of things are really interesting:  Who's to say my wrong side isn't somebody else's right side?  It's like the difference between Flowers and Weeds.  Ask a child which is which and they will surprise you...

2.    This is supposed to be a titillating sneak preview, not a full-frontal sleeve expose', otherwise you would just read my blog and not buy my book.  Or so the theory goes.

I suffer from clinical bouts of Second Sleeve Syndrome.  It's the same malady that keeps me becoming a respectable sock knitter.  The crushing realization that I have to start all over again tends to suck a lot of the joy out of the completion of the first unit for me.

Here's a closeup of some groovy floats.  They don't call it "Stranded Color Work" for nothin - once you have the first sleeve done, you are marooned on the Island of the Second Sleeve until you gain the fortitude to either wait for your rescue or swim to safety.

Swimming to Safety:  Here's the hem facing of the second sleeve.  Yeah, sure I started, but it's a long way to the armhole.  The thing in the foreground is my stitch marker that fell off.

The body of this little gem is all done, so I have no excuse not to wail all the way up the sleeve and have it all over with.  This is also a benchmark project:  The last of 5 cardigans in my book.  Lots of people have stopped to talk to me as I worked on it in public, which I take to be a good sign.  Of course, it could be just the screaming green wool that I'm using for the main color (of the outside, that is).  It's a perfect example of my trademark subtlety and restraint.  Kinda like a freight train at a prayer meeting.