Cattywampus

The Next Big Thing

Have you seen the fabulous book Knit, Swirl!  I saw it and fell in love with this sweater

All of the sweaters in the book are swirl sweaters, knit in this totally new and ingenious way and even though this is not a style I would generally be attracted to, I became completely obsessed.  OBSESSED with knitting this particular sweater.  

I want to knit one of the others in red too, but first this one, in gorgeous Lisa Souza yarn.  Here is my swatch.

This is honestly the biggest swatch I have ever made.  I am trying to be good and really, really follow the directions, so I made the 8" swatch.  My gauge is weird.  It's supposed to be 23/30 over 4", but I'm getting 23/32-34 over 4" (depending how much I stretch it).  There's nothing I can do about it so far as I can tell, so I'm going to cast on and hope for the best.  I think the stitch gauge is more important to have match up than the row gauge, because as far as I can tell a tighter row gauge will just make it a little shorter, and since I'm pretty short myself I think that's okay.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite views in the city.

The city has its ups and downs, it's nice to sit and take in a view like this and remember just why it is we put up with some of the negatives, it's for things like this.

Finally, Secret Knitting Exposed

Well, one reason I haven't had much to show lately is that I've been doing a bit of secret knitting.  The other reason is that life simply seems to keep my busy enough that very little knitting has happened, and that's okay.

I made the Greenfield Cardigan for my mother, and even tho I got the waist shaping not-so-right, it seems to look quite nice on her.

I was going to crop these, but the background is rather pretty, so I left it in.  It will hang nicer in the back once there are buttons on it...I managed to not have ONE SINGLE darning needle with me when we were visiting.  Can you imagine?  It was HORRID.  So I had to take my gift back...not that this is exactly the weather for a sweater anyway, but I didn't want to wait until Christmas because I wanted her to have it for the fall weather.

Cute, right?  I am pleased.  Now it just needs the buttons and she's all set for fall weather!

And look how much yarn I had left.  EEK!