Moving Right Along

Pa's 75th birthday is coming up in about a week, so of necessity his sweater vest has moved up in the list of daily priorities (yes, even higher than being the Monogamous Project). It is one of those important events-in-the-life-of-a-loved-one (= deadline, remember?)

Here is a progress picture from about a week ago. Not only does the sweater feel like it has a life of its own, but here is real, living proof that it does (at least the yarn ball) . Kinda looks like the proverbial granny, eh?

I haven't knit two separate sides of a piece on one pair of needles before - obviously time to get with the times, so to speak. The trick is to use two separate balls of yarn, one for each side. Makes sense since knitters are so clever. It always seems like it is some other knitter who is clever enough to think of these tricks. No 15 minutes of fame for me here.

The only problem with knitting both sides of the V became apparent when I was deciding how to work the second row. Did I want to turn the piece around every other row to purl? Did I want to practice knitting backwards on a real project. (Usually I try new techniques on those cute, little 'I wonder how this would look' things that never grow up into anything recognizable. Some people call them swatches.) Thinking that practice makes perfect (or close....), I decided to knit backwards instead of turning and purling every other row.

Oops. Evidently I knit backwards much more loosely than forward. Considering how tightly I usually knit, this would seem to be a boon. But no. The difference in tension does show, daggum it!










Right about here ---







Pretty quickly I decided the tension difference wasn't worth ripping out. It did take me a few rows to decide what to do (duh). Because this lovely yarn shows everything, I finally decided that purling was the way to go - Pa doesn't really need a bumpy chest. We'll leave that to Ma.

I usually take the bloggy pictures on the nice, neutral concrete walkway that approaches the front door. When we started the front yard landscaping project, it didn't occur to me at all that the photo site was in danger of extinction. But...



...no walkway.

I'll keep you in suspense as to the new walkway. Chloe the Cat (little tiny speck inside the door) thinks the lack of a walkway is quite interesting. Big, giant litterbox.


No concrete walkway, so the camera moved indoors to the kitchen table.

I finished the body of the vest this evening and knit the shoulder seams together (right sides together, pretty cool). Next comes the ribbing around the neck and arm holes. Oh, goody. Picking up stitches at an angle is my favorite thing to do (not!).



Eve and I: onto the ribbing...