knitting progress, posse

Continuing my "hey, let's accomplish some stuff so we don't feel quite so mauled by our day jobs" sprint:

1- I have finished my Banff:

This was always meant to be sent to Afghans for Afghans, and is intended for a preteen/teenager (on whom it will be baggy and slightly long as the designer planned it, rather than fitted and slightly cropped, as it is on me), but I figured I'd take some pics for posterity. And just look at this yummy yarn:

That's Beaverslide Dry Goods McTaggart Tweed in Cuthroat Trout. Soft, lofty, light-weight, and a great price. I can't effuse enough about this stuff. Plus, I came home from work an hour early the day I took these pics and the apartment hadn't heated up yet, and I was *freezing* until I put this sweater on. Now I think I need one of my own. This took precisely three and a half skeins (vs. the 7 skeins I bought), so I might even have enough left to make my own. I just love this yarn in my hands and on the garment. My only complaint is that it's so springy that it "grabs" my needles and makes my Denise needles prone to unhooking themselves from their cable. Then again, it's a nice frictioney wool, so I don't have to worry about dropping stitches while I get everything back on the needles.

2- I did the applied i-cord (officially my favorite technique of all time) on the front and neck edges of my Snowflakes and Arrows. It is distinctly too big, but it found it a happy home with mother-in-law. She can't adopt it until I adust the shoulder slope to fit her and add the armhole i-cording, however.

3- I made scarf for the red scarf project with my former cronies at the MIT SnB, who collectively made 20 scarves. Mine was actually pretty boring to knit: 60x8ish inches of garter stitch in red heart light & lofty (the oldest yarn in my stash and officially the only acrylic yarn I will ever love, and even then only with the bias of a "first self-designed project" yarn). But I *finished* it (very important to my morale these days) and it was for a good cause, and it was with the MIT SnB, whom I miss very very much since I left the 'Tute.

4- I started some Targe Wave mittens from Knitting Nature. I'm not including the stripes (although I think they're great); I chose the pattern because they're knitted flat, and I didn't have size 9 DPNs (and I don't love the results I get from my Denise kit with the magic loop or 2-circs method). Plus, I really like the look of the big round thumb gusset. I'm knitting those in another Beaverslide yarn (fisherman weight wool in Bison), and will post pics when I have my camera handy (am blogging from RI on a a visit to my mother-in-law). No photos yet, but will post when I have 'em.


5- I have decided to give up on ever wearing my Karen Millen *CASHMERE* sweater. That's the one whose shaping and decorative inset I want to copy:

It's just plain too short for my long torso. If any of you who meet ALL of the following critieria out there who want it, give a holler:
- you have an approximately 36" bust
- you have a short torso (or an average one and don't mind showing a glimpse of midriff when you reach out of your bubble)
- you are willing to patch a teensy tiny hole smack in the front of the sweater (being beautifully made, you could pick out part of a seam, use the yarn to over-stitch the hole, and re-sew the seam with another yarn or thread)
- I know you already (I know you in "real life" or we have *actually interacted* through a blog or knit-along)

Otherwise, I think I will unravel the sweater and harvest the not-unsubstatial amount of laceweight cashmere I'm sure to get from it. Sigh. I love this sweater. It's so soft, such a beautiful color, and so well-made.

6- In random news, here is a pic of Una snuggling with Zig Zag:

Is it me, or do cats have a particularly well-honed taste for handknits, and for fine wool handknits in particular? She is absolutely nuts about an aran sweater my grandmother brought me from Ireland 10+ years ago...



In still other news, my sister the rapper and my husband have informed me that I need to form a knitting posse. We are to have nicknames like Eye-cord (MINE MINE MINE), 8-gauge, and Needles. If you want in, give a holler and claim your name. And, of course, our official theme song has to be Mike Bryant's Knitta Please. I do not, of course, want to step on the toes of the Knitta Please Posse knitting for trees, antennae, etc. in Texas.