Big update after holiday weekend!

I had a great weekend. We had dinner with my parents (who are travelling to Israel tomorrow), had meals with several friends, watched videos, took a nice long hike down by the river mouth. I worked on Grasslimb — it was so beautiful outside I put a picnic blanket down under the pine tree and read submissions outside. I did some gardening (raking, weeding, cutting flowers). I read a fun book (Bust, by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr). I read knitting magazines. I even cooked dinner on Sunday (sauteed beet, turnip and spinach greens with tofu on pasta). And I knitted.


These are a million shots of my completed Rib & Cable Fingerless Mitts from the Spring 2006 Interweave Knits. I love, love, love them.

Some of the reasons: Fabulous Sundara yarn (sport merino in Galaxy) with Rowan Cashsoft trim. Colors came out just the way I'd imagined them. Beautiful rib and cable pattern. Easy and fast knit — so satisfying. Warm. Soft. Comfy.

Even in this lovely warm weather, I don't want to take them off!

One of them is blocked in these photos, the other isn't. There's a slight difference in the sharpness of the cable. The yarn softens in the wash/block process, mmmm.

Pattern changes: I inadvertently made the thumb gusset shorter (7 rows instead of 14) in the first glove, and had to backwards-engineer my error so I could make it in the second one, too (they fit fine). Made two extra stitches when I picked up for the thumb, because I have fat thumbs. Made the thumbs and overall length shorter, because I have short hands. My guesses were good ones. They fit perfectly.

Here is my progress on Mariner. The picture came out too blue — yarn color is more magenta. This is the bottom of the front; I've just split off for the pocket (that's the hole, it'll be sewn up later). I'm on gauge, this SHOULD fit, but I can't figure out how a medium can ever fit me. If it turns out too small, though, it'd be easy to make side panels that look like they belong on it, so I'm not too worried. And I have tons of yarn, because I bought this yarn on eBay and it came in a bag of 20 balls. Even for size L, I'd only need 14.

Here are the completed last two pair of CIC socks. They're on their way in the USPS. I love them much more, now. And, they are very very soft:

Can't go without sock-knitting so I've cast on for some socks for Rob. I'm going to mess around with a couple of patterns in the Nancy Bush Vintage Socks book. This will also be my socks for the Trek-along.

And here's where I am on the baby sweater. Nearly ready to do the bottom rib! I might try a little short-row shaping on the shoulders just for practice, though technically I should have started that sooner given that it's for a baby, not a linebacker:

Do I have sore hands?
Well.. yes.