No time for pictures until the weekend but the Brioche Stitch hat is finished. Brioche stitch in the round would you believe?

Next up is to do the sleeves of the wavy sweater. I went through the UFOs last night and found two more sweaters that I think can be salvaged plus a maybe. That would certainly make me feel less like a knitting slob. Also on the needles is a drop stitch wrap . The yarn is Mountain Colors, Twizzle and the color is Daybreak. I love love love it.

Claire, the red point cat who likes to snooze  in the kitchen drawer, tried to steal the fake fur trim from my coat this morning. I took a couple of quick pictures but I had no time to upload them to the computer.

More when I have pictures. Happy Friday!

I fell on the ice walking home from the bus stop last night. I was crossing a street so lying there groaning wasn't a good idea. I picked myself up and continued on. When I got home I took a hot shower and then had a glass of wine. I seemed fine then but oh boy is my back sore today. I must have twisted somehow on the way down.

After dinner I settled down with my knitting to watch Lost. I meant to do some gauge swatches or start the sleeves for the wavy sweater but that seemed to complicated so I ripped  back the Brioche stitch hat. It was too big apparently over the weekend I had a brain fart and totally forgot how big my head isn't. I ripped it back to the ribbing and started again; vowing to pay attention this time.

According to Galic folklore Imbolc is the day the Cailleach— the hag of Gaelic tradition — gathers her

firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she intends to make the winter last a good while

longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny, so she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people are generally relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is

asleep and winter is almost over.

Now isn't that more interesting than a ground hog?

Lots of snow yesterday afternoon and last night.We decided to take the Subaru this morning, even though

the main streets have been plowed the side streets are still snow packed so the all wheel drive seemed a

good choice. I swept about 5 inches off the top of the car. Other areas of the cities may have more or less;

we usually seem to get a little more where we live.

Wavy Sweater

Jean asked for more information on the sweater in yesterday's pictures. The pattern is a modification (how often do I actually follow a pattern?) of the directions from a kit that was put out by a now defunct company called Dyed in the Wool. The original pattern was a bit more complicated with a Fair Isle stripe and some lattice work pieces and cables only attached every 6 or 8 rows. Perfect for catching on door knobs. I think the pattern is from the time period when the Coogi sweaters first came out. Early to mid 90s?

Anyway the wavy lines are made by short rows and there are two different 'curves that fit together so that two stripes will be straight on both edges. That's why it was necessary to have an even number of stripes. 

I was looking at The Big Book of Knitting and there was a section on embellished knitting that looked as if one could get the same effect with out the short rows; something I will try someday.

The next thing on this sweater is the sleeves, I had planned to pick up the sleeves and knit from the top down but they will also need to be subjected to the severe blocking so I will knit them separately. the other thing to consider is the finishing. Since the sweater is now 27" long I don't want to add anymore length so I'm thinking that applied I cord might be the best finish. I wonder how bored I will get knitting  that much I cord? Time to look for some good movies on Netflix.

I talked with my brother on Saturday. He lives on the Virginia coast. He is snowed in for maybe the first time ever. The city doesn't have snow plows and he doesn't own a snow shovel. He was very whiny about it too.

After I found out that they have plenty of food in a warm  house and the TV and Internet  are both working, I smiled. But the real laugh was when he announced with great drama "It's not going to warm up until Tuesday!"

It will warm up on Tuesday here on the frozen tundra too; I'm just not sure which month. Maybe March, maybe April. The temperature has been hovering around 0 for a couple of weeks now. That's -18 C. Today it was 10 (-12 C) when I got up so I wore a lighter coat to work.

I did buy Knitting Brioche. With the member discount, coupon and the gift card it cost a little over $3.00. that's almost free. I was distracted by a hat in the book so I didn't get any sweater knitting done this weekend.

I did get out a sweater that I had started in December that was not going so well to see if it could be salvaged. It is knitted side to side and short rowed to make a wavy pattern. Because of pattern requirements there had to be an even number of stripes and because it was a cardigan it needed to have a number divisible by 4. I started knitting on size 8 needles and realized that wasn't going to work so I started again on size 7s. It came out too wide by a lot. I decided to do a severe blocking to see if that would work. Because it was so much I got out the blocking wires. Here it is

I had placed the buttons I was thinking of using on it.  Close up

And of course the helper

Her sister doesn't like to knit so she was making mischief elsewhere

I have an incredible library of knitting books. So many that if I see one I am interested in I can't buy it until I check my library at home. Some of them are well thumbed and marked up with pencil notations and others are as pristine as they were on the store shelves. Obviously I need to get rid of the ones that I am not using.

I have thought of offering them on Amazon used books and wonder if that would be worthwhile. I may try it with one just to see.

So you see I really don't need another knitting book but I have a Barnes and Noble gift card that I have been saving since Christmas and a 15% off coupon that will expire the end of January. It can't hurt to just take a little look see during lunch hour, can it?