Hoodie has a hood!

I FINALLY finished the hood! Things I'm happy with about it include:

• The cables really do meet up and look continuous
• I used the 3-needle bind-off for the seaming and that worked nicely
  
• It seems to look good from the front and sides
  

Things I'm NOT happy about are:

• The grafting of the center stitches was a little iffy
• The hood over all seems a bit large

Anyway, as I told Jess, who has been an immense font of knowledge on all things related to sleeves, Rogue is not going to be a work of art. I think this pattern was a little beyond my knitting abilities, which makes it a great project for me to learn from. She'll look beautiful unless you stare at her seams, and I know I really need to work on the seaming things. I'm at peace with the flaws, though. And I'm really glad I have such good friends to help me through the rough patches, like the NYC Jess and the Granger Jess. And of course, my guru.

Now I need to tackle the sleeves, not in the round since they are set in. Yikes!

OK, one problem I have seriously been baffled by...I was weaving in a bunch of ends when I noticed a single stitch marker hiding at the very apex of the v-neck. I thought it was just an extra that had fallen off my needle when I was grafting/binding off. I went to pick it up and put it away. OMG, it was stuck to the sweater. I pulled. Nope, not coming off. Then I noticed -- It was ATTACHED to a single live stitch. Right there in the middle of the neckline. WTF??? I now remember doing this and wondering why I was doing it. I know I did it for a reason, trust the pattern, etc., but I couldn't find the place in the pattern that told me to do this ridiculous thing -- put one single stitch on a holder and leave it there until you're almost done with the whole sweater and about to rejoice and then you realize you have a live stitch in the middle of the neck and no way to make it "un-live" (what's the word for an un-live stitch?). No friggin' way I was going to frog this baby. I did what any short-cut loving imperfectionist (don't read this, Claudine) knitter would do and I use a short length of yarn to weave the live stitch into its rightful place among the other properly behaving stitches. Pray the ends don't come out, okay?

Last bit of news, I hung out with some knitting and spinning friends on Tuesday night and met an amazing spinner/dyer named Elizabeth (aka the Chocolate Princess). OMG, her stuff is so beautiful. The colors of her sock yarn were just lovely and I wanted to scoop them all up and roll around in them. Unfortunately I hate knitting socks. It's not really fair that there is so much wonderfuly colored sock-yarn out there that gets me all hot and bothered every time I see it and then lets me down when I realize what it is, i.e., not suitable for my knitting needs (I usually like yarn a little bit thicker than the sock variety). But, you sock knitters will love it. She dyes roving, too. And started an etsy store -- check it out!

Rogue Update

As promised, here are some progress shots. The body is all done and the hood is more than halfway there. I am so in love with how the Celtic cabling is looking, I can't believe how nice it is! The hood is pretty easy -- you have to pay attention at the ends, where the cabling is, but in the middle you can just purl or knit along happily.

After this I have 2 sleeves to do. The pattern says to knit them flat and "set in sleeves" -- but I'm wondering if I can't do them in the round? So much easier than seaming -- especially since I've seen how bad my seaming is on the shoulders. I'd just have to treat each row as a RS row and reverse the WS instructions where the cabling is, right? Anyone have any warnings about why I shouldn't do this...? Please speak now to save my sanity -- I'd say you have until the weekend, when I should have the hood finished and be ready to start the sleeves. Thanks!

Sam is the Jester

Sorry for the lack of entries lately. I've been busy -- family, baking cookies, shopping, holiday stuff in general...among other things. I was very happy to finally spend some time with my family in CT last weekend. Sam was as cute as ever -- here she is sporting the jester hat I made her. It's really cute, but if I make one again, I plan to tweak it a bit so that the "peaks" are not all on the very top, coming out of the top center -- I think the hat would work better if the top were rounded a bit, and the peaks coming out of the top sides more. Does that make sense? Anyway, I made this with a bunch of leftover yarn bits, and it was fun, quick and easy and fit her surprisingly well. As an added bonus for the adorable wearer, the chartreuse base of the hat is made of Morehouse merino...yum!

During my visit, Sam made some cookies, which were good even though she ate a bunch of the dough and I don't really know where her hands have been...actually I do know where her hands have been, but I tried not to think of that while enjoying the cookies.

Brady is just as cute as Sam, but at this point in his life he really doesn't do much except look cute and smile. I'm sure he'll forgive the lack of attention, I'll make up for it when he has better control of his arms and legs and can make them do funny things like his sister.

Rouge update tomorrow, I promise -- almost halfway done with the hood, which is taking a lot longer than I expected!