The Sweater Gets Redder, and Other Developments

See?  Now it's way more of a red sweater.  I always think sweater tubes look so weird at this stage:  A testament to the many wonders of blocking, I guess.  It looks like something a boa constrictor would wear. 

My horses don't look much like the Dala horse I looked at for inspiration:
 

but they feel like her, so I guess that's enough for me.  Here is something I betcha didn't know:  It's danged hard to take pictures of your own hands while you are knitting something:

This is one of my attempts at a photo of binding off the top of a sleeve steek.  Doing it is way easier than writing down how, and photographing it is way easier than sketching it.  You may remember that my excuse for making this sweater is that I need to provide illustrations that support the techniques in my book.  The hope is that the illustrator who will actually be making the drawings has a clear idea of what I'm talking about.  So far I'm not sure which is harder; the showing or the telling.  I'm supposed to have all the pictures done on Friday, but true to knitting, this project has expanded to fit the time allotted to it.  I have no idea whether I'll make it or not.

Speaking of ongoing projects, today is the 10th birthday of one of my favorite people:
 

which means that while I wasn't looking, she managed to swallow a decade, whole.  I'm not very good at math, but Phillip explained to me last night that we have now been the parents of this particular smally for more than a quarter of our lives.  Quantifying things is hard when you are not good at math, but what this means to me is that if my life had only four phases so far, they would look like this:

1.  My own first 10 years, spent mostly running, jumping, singing, and knitting in trees.
2.  The second 10 years, spent acting on stage, railing ineffectively against various unfairnesses, and forgetting about knitting in favor of boys.
3.  The third 10 years, spent forgetting about other boys in favor of the one I married, and remembering about knitting.
4.  The last 10 years, since meeting this wee person. The time it took her to go from throwing up on me to rolling her eyes at me was a lot shorter than I expected.  She still looks cute in sweaters though, so I think we'll keep her, at least till adolescence.
 

My Red Sweater

This is a red sweater.  The red part has not been made yet, but it's all up here in the cranial attic, poised to come out onto the needles.  I'm not sure if I was really anticipating how wide the lower border would be, but once I had all those killer kool-aid colors, I wasn't about to leave any out.  My favorite is the swimming-pool blue (Kool-Aid flavor "Berry Blue" x 2, plus a tiny dash of "Grape" for depth). 

I am in love with this yarn to a degree that borders on unreasonable.  It is so wicked, so sproing-y, so affordable!  I have begun to fear that it will be discontinued, just because its wonderfulosity might offend the knitting gods, causing them to smite it down in a fit of jealousy.  Or else maybe I'm just a spaz.  Probably that.  It's made in Turkey, you get it from Jo-Ann.com, where it is nearly always on sale, and each skein has like a jillion yards.  The availability of the colors varies greatly, so I am thinking I will have to start checking more regularly in order to truly hoard it properly...

Honest though, The Dala Horse Sweater will be substantially more red when you see it next, because I'm fixing to launch into some serious Dala Horsiness.  Dala Horsing Around.  Looking a Gift Dala Horse in the Mouth.  Beating a Dead Dala Horse.  You get the idea.

Live And Let Dye

So there I was, wondering why this yarn that I'm crazy in love with only comes in such limited colors when I remembered:  This is why God gave us Kool-Aid!

After a 90-day (give or take) hiatus from colorwork, I have decided that it's time to return to the Mother Ship.  I've been invited to appear on Knitting Daily TV, and heaven knows I don't need a better excuse than that to make a new sweater.  I also have been asked by my editor to provide some swatches and photos for the illustrator to use.  Since I'm not much of a sketcher,
 
Phillip: "Oh, that's a cute unicorn." 
Me: "It's a horse."
Not kidding.  This was last night.
 
I decided photos would be the way to go.  I'll take pictures in progress of all the techniques the illustrator needs to see, and I get a sweater at the end!  What could possibly go  wrong?  Of course, the deadline for this little project is completely unreasonable, but I wouldn't know how to live otherwise.  Care to join me as I play Beat-The-Clock (again)?  I have until 01-23 to provide all 30 photos.  And do a bunch of rewrites, too.  Did I mention there seems to be a lot of WRITING in this book-writing gig? Strange how it keeps coming up.

But back to the yarn:  I started off with yarn in red, pink and cream.  Knowing that would never be enough color variety, I dove into the trusty Kool-Aid stash and pulled out my favorites: Berry Blue, Grape, Lemon-Lime and orange.  The colors are so clear and gumdroppy - just the kind of naive, folk-art look I need as a jumping off point from this:

I know - How kitsch can you get?  I SO love the Swedish Dala Horse.  When I asked myself what I could do with Red and White, this is the first thing I thought of.  So this will be my Dala Horse sweater.  I'll make notes as I go, in case anybody wants me to write a pattern for this someday.  The chart in the first picture is only the lower border - the really red and white business will come after that.  Wait till you see it!  The whole thing makes me want to buy a Volvo and drive it to Ikea.