I'm going to go sleep now.

After the collar

It looks much better now than it did, doesn't it? The shawl collar took about twelve years to knit, but I did it. And today? I've knit exactly one stitch. I've spent most of the day reading and swatching to try and figure out how to do the sleeves (maybe designing my own sleeves should have waited until I didn't have a deadline). My buttons and sleeve yarn came yesterday in the mail. The yarn is not the same dye lot but I hope that since it will be a different "piece" the slight color difference will not be noticed. My buttons are cool. I was planning to use deer antler buttons (from Schoolhouse Press, but I can't find them to link to them) that my mom bought me a couple of years ago, but they were really too small for this thick sweater, so I bought another card of them but in the larger size.

The good news is that I think I know how I'm going to do the sleeves (at least how I'm going to try to do the sleeves). The bad news is that our apartment is going to be inspected on Tuesday or Wednesday by the fire marshal, so I have to spend tomorrow cleaning. No, I don't think we have any fire hazards; we just have a lot of clutter and I like to pretend that I'm a tidy person.

Double yikes.

Yikes.

Day 10

My first steeks.

Phoney Seam

In addition to finishing the knitting, I worked a phoney seam down one side. I think I'll do the other tomorrow, as I am quite tired.

Day 7

Yay! I finished knitting the body. By the way, I did decide to add the sleeves and ordered the yarn yesterday. She is mailing it via priority mail so it should be here Saturday or Monday. I have no idea how to add the sleeves; I am thinking cap sleeves might be best. Any ideas/help? Fortuitously, I picked up Knitting From the Top today from the library (an interlibrary loan, even), which has several basic patterns for sleeves. (I must admit that I had no idea what a cap sleeve was until about an hour ago.)

Countdown

See the neat little countdown timer on the sidebar there? I got the code from Anny Purls.

Day 5

Note that I am now past the underarms; hence the large holes in the sides up from which I will cut the armholes and perhaps put in sleeves. I have also started the V-neck shaping.

Day 2

Yes, yes, I know it's late. I've been busy. We won't mention the sick daughter, the doctor's visit, the sister flying in from Florida. The daughter is recovered and the sister has returned to whence she came, so I have no excuses anymore.

This is my vest on day 2 of the Olympics. It's going much, much faster and better than I thought it would. Of course, I will still have all the finishing to do - which I am notoriously slow at - including cutting my first steeks to make it into a cardigan. Since it's going so well I'm considering adding sleeves and making it my first (non-dysfunctional) sweater. But that means I'll have to order more wool. We'll see.