Sweetie Girl was a good sport hanging out at the wet, muddy field, and at the end, I gave her the thumbs up to live it up a little... Sweetie Girl style.
Yes, that is the gutter she's playing in. Yes, that's dirty gutter water flying in her face. Yes, that's a handknit hat I made her. Yes, she did have a dry change of clothes in the car. And yes, the hat has been rewashed already.
As for me, soccer tournaments equal good knitting time, so I reworked Le Slouch #3 and made it work. It took over an hour to frog the last attempt because the yarn had felted a bit together, and SWS has a lot of rough wool that feels and acts like mohair. I was able to knit it up on Saturday night, wash and dry for Sunday soccer wearing. Here's another webcam picture; please ignore the green death-warmed-over skin tone.
Project: Le Slouch (on ravelry) by Wendy Bernard
Yarn: Patons Soy Wool Solids
Needles: Knit Picks Classic 16" Circulars US sizes 8 and 9
Start: January 5; frogged January 24; restarted January 26
Finish: January 26
Thoughts: The pattern is a breeze and I'm happy with my hippie hat. The yarn? Not so much. I won't be revisiting this yarn, unless it's to play around with felting it. If you want to make Le Slouch, go with a nicer yarn. Pay the extra money; you'll be happy you did. Words to live by, says The Yarn Snob herself.
After finishing up Le Slouch, I realized that I'm rapidly moving into baby gift mode. Soccer coach is expecting a baby any day now, so I cast on for another Easy Baby Cardigan from Knitting Pure & Simple. This is a free pattern on the website and I really love it. This time I'm using Valley Yarns Southwick, a bamboo cotton blend because it's supposed to be too warm in So Cal for wool, right?
I started out with my Knit Picks Options but the ends were too pointy for the yarn and I kept splitting it. I even laddered down six rows to fix a lone fiber that had been split from its strand. It was bugging me too much so I had to fix it. This yarn has a bit of a sheen to it, so the So I dusted off my Denises and no splitting problems so far. The joins bug me, as usual, but I'm willing to live with that. Here's what she's looking like so far.
I had cast on the Lenore socks last week, and have about 15 rows of the lace done. I'm using the STR Lenore colorway because I love the yarn and the pattern together. These were part of the Rockin' Socks Club last year, and the pattern is by The Yarn Harlot. This is the next mini kal project for my knitting group, and even though they talked about starting up in mid-February, I just couldn't wait. Sorry gals! I'm using the 2 circ method with the Knit Picks Classic 16" Circulars in size 2.25mm needles. Wendyknits had mentioned a while back that the Knit Picks cables were flexible enough to work with 16" circs, so I had to needle dance and try these out. So far, I'm loving them!
Have a great week; stay warm and dry!
