Reverse-engineering (literally) and a contest!

As you know, I've been knitting an afghan out of lace panels:

I'm planning on a 6-panel throw, and it occurred to me it'd be nice if three of the panels slant the other way, for symmetry. I might even pair them. But to do that, I had to reverse the lace pattern. As well as putting the yos at the end rather than the start of the first row, and progressing right instead of left, the decreases (on both sides) had to be changed, so they'd slant nicely.

Fortunately for me, the original decreases were a skp and a p2tog-tbl. That made the reverses of them k2tog and p2tog — the easiest two (imo) to execute! Because the yos aren't reversed, there is a slight difference in the appearance, but honestly I think this is not too bad so far (note it is stretched out here, because still on the needles):



As for the contest: Leave me a comment telling me one challenging thing you've attempted with a craft, and I'll enter you in a drawing for a copy of the February 2009 (click here for an overview of that issue) Knit'n'Style magazine. I'm destashing five magazines over the next couple of weeks so you'll see more of these opportunities. I'll draw a name next Saturday, February 27 morning so get your comment in by Friday! But don't worry, more mags being offered soon.

Words probably not necessary.

I do still maintain I have a gift of picking awesome buttons.

I finished something!

Stop the presses! Although... to be fair, it's not quite finished. It's blocking at the moment, after which it will get buttons. But.. 95% done!



That's Carson's, er, Christmas sweater. Oops. Starsky Jr. is the pattern, knit with US size 5 (3.75 mm) needles on Cascade Superwash. I made the arms a little extra-long, adding most of the length in the ribbing, so it would be easy to fold back for now and then wear a few more years, I hope, by rolling down the sleeves.

But I had one problem I didn't think of — on which side do you seam the arms? I did it the same way the whole length of the arm, but now when you fold back the ribbing, you see seam. Of course, if I did the ribbing with the seam out, then when you didn't fold it back, you'd see seam. If I were knitting this again I'd probably knit the sleeves in the round, at least for the length of the ribbing.

I had a lot of trouble with the shawl collar/short rows. I have a rather haphazard method of picking up wraps — I use one method sometimes, another method others, and sometimes I randomly pick up what look like forgotten wraps. I think that last was the problem — there are weird little blobs or whorls around the collar (that sounds attractive, but they are not) which I cannot fix with duplicate stitch. And I am far too lazy to do it again, so whorly they'll stay.

In other news, some things think it's spring here:



And does anyone know what this bulb is? Faintly scented, very tall and pretty:

Sometimes the work doesn't show for a while.

I'm knitting, but I haven't got much to show you! Here's what I do have:

Carson's Starsky Jr., supposed to have been done by Christmas. I'm actually further along than this because I've also mattress-seamed the arms, so I just have to plug 'em in. Easier said than done of course. I love mattress-seaming (as you all know by now) but I *hate* setting sleeves. Oh well, I will get around to it...

You are supposed to fold back the ribbing on the arms, which should have meant that I seamed them inside-out for that part (so the seam wouldn't show), but I'm not sure how far she'll be folding them back, and if she keeps the sweater for a few years (she might), she'll need to flip the ripping back down again, so I just seamed it normally and for now, the seam will show. I couldn't think of another way to do it but if I were making this again, I'd do the sleeves in the round to avoid the problem.

I've also gotten 2/3 way through another afghan panel, but, let's face it: it looks identical to the first one. It's excellent mindless knitting. But I do need to get back to some mindful knitting, because the things I've promised various people are starting to add up!

Mostly I've been busy getting Grasslimb to the printer and starting to prep envelopes and labels to ship it out. It's late as always so I want to make sure I'm ready to roll when I get it back from the printer. Maybe you should subscribe?

I haven't got much else so here's a little 'critter' that Rob made out of his Buckyballs. Best toy evah!