A Senior Shoppe Jim

We actually had some warm days last week. Warm enough to eat out on the deck and chat with the neighbors. It's gotten a bit chilly and rainy since then, but soon it will be deck weather all the time - I can feel it.
And just in case you didn't know, I totally *heart* my deck.

Thank you for all of the congratulations on the last post. We are pretty excited around here. As I get more and more into the second trimester, I feel my knitting mojo returning. Soon we will have the big appointment where we should learn gender.

Then I can know if I want to use this for a BSJ,



or perhaps one of these for another February Baby sweater.


I think I might need to make another one of these too.


Until then... I'm working on a Jim.
A Jim?
Yes, a Jim.

We don't dress up much around here at la casa de cinco, but we made an attempt on Easter. I dug around in the hand-me-downs from my favorite nephew and found a sweater vest that was a right-now-perfect-fit on the Bud. He loved it, and called it a "Jim".
We were confused for a bit, but we have come to the conclusion that he met someone recently named Jim who was wearing a sweater vest.
Mr. 5 decided to join in the fun and wear a vest too, and the Bud declared them both "Jims" for Easter.

Hence my latest project - a larger Jim for the Bud.
I even swatched. Whoa!



All the yarn is from a find at the senior run gift shoppe (that's right - a shoppe, not a shop) at the community center where I sometimes have meetings for work.
The main color was a white wool (similar to Cascade 220) that I dyed with coffee.
The stripes are some discontinued Green Mountain Spinnery I snagged at the same shoppe for a few quarters.
I started with only my wits and a little math, but then I took a look at Blank Canvas [rav link] and that was pretty much my plan, so I will make that my official pattern.



I love how Yarn Pirate's striping pattern worked out with one thicker stripe in the middle, and imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, right?

I realize it is spring, and then it will be summer - probably not the best time to get the most wear out of a wool vest... so I am trying to make it a bit big for the Bud with the hope that he will still be able to wear it this fall. He's been growing so much, we will have to see how my over sizing works out.


One final reminder...
The RSE drawing is coming to a close this Friday (click on the image in the sidebar to see all posts related to the drawing). I should be able to draw names on Saturday.
Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far!
If you would still like to make a donation and/or be entered in the drawing - see this post.

Smoke and Mirrors

It's not that I really wanted to try duplicate stitch, or that I wanted to bow down to the "chocqua" gods. No, it's all smoke and mirrors.

I started this little chocolate toddler cardigan mid-July last summer (yes, many months ago). I was well on my way to finishing it within a few lazy weeks, but then...I started the second skein. Yes, it was from the same dyelot, but as I started knitting it was so clearly milk chocolate next to dark chocolate, breakfast blend next to espresso. It was jarring and disappointing.



I really didn't feel like ripping it out at the time. So I started thinking of options. It's cotton (a wonderfully soft and lovely cotton by Blue Sky), so I couldn't overdye it very easily. If I ripped back and alternated skeins it would look stripey - blech. I could rip out the whole thing and see which of my 4 skeins looked the best together. While I was thinking I finished the body of the sweater - just to see what it would look like. I couldn't decide what to do, so the sweater went into a time out. I kept it was an active WIP in Ravelry, just so I would remember I should deal with it at some point.

I have been jonesing for a FO lately - my knitting mojo has been on vacation, the last thing I have actually finished was my Pi - gasp, that was back in January. I thought to myself, "this little sweater only needs some sleeves. I will just continue on and finish the sleeves and see what I think."

As you can probably guess, it was no better, it was just finished. So, what to do with my little two-toned cardigan?
Distract the eye!
Smoke and mirrors.
Duplicate stitch.


Ravelry Project Page

My one complaint is that I was knitting this sweater as gender neutral - to be swayed one way or the other by button choice. Now with the duplicate stitch, I think it looks more feminine regardless of which buttons I choose.
So I picked up some little orange flowers. I just couldn't pass them up.




So why have I been in such a knitting dry spell?
I have been focused on a different Work in Progress - which should be finished late September.



I have been feeling the knitting mojo finally coming back lately, and have some ideas of knits to work on before this fall.

Happy Easter

To those celebrating today, Happy Easter from all of us including Easter Darth.

Another Prize for the Non-Raffle

It was a rough patch last week. During a freakish (but short) hail storm there was one clap of thunder and accompanying lightning which hit something that fried our cable modem, wireless router and network card of our "old beast" computer.
It took some figuring over several days, but I'm so glad to be back on the internets.

During my internet dry spell, I met up with nuttnbunny for a class at the local Textile Center on Shibori techniques - resist dying in the Japanese tradition - using silk scarves.

This was my first class at the Textile Center, and it was fabulous!
We used the center's dye lab with it's perfect set up of many sinks and much counter space.



We twisted, braided, and clamped silk scarves. It was so fun to play with the colors, and I don't think there was a wrong choice or color combination in the class.



See more scarves from our class here.

At our meet-up, nuttnbunny generously donated some of her fabulous handspun to the RSE fundraiser drawing.


Prize #4 One Skein of NuttnbunnySpunme
"Lame Duck" - 175 yards of Superwash BFL in DK weight

Nuttnbunny is an amazing spinner and an extremely generous soul. She has more fabulous skeins for sale in her esty shop, and 10% of each purchase in her shop is donated to Kulture Klub, a non-profit organization serving homeless teens in the Twin Cities.


Thank you to so many of you who have donated to the Roseville String Ensemble! I am thrilled to see all of the donations adding up for a cause that means to much to me.
If you are interested in donating and entering the "non-raffle" for fabulous prizes, click on the button near the top of my sidebar (this shows you only the posts tagged as related to the raffle), and scroll down to the first post for more information.