KNITTING WITHOUT DOG HAIR IS NOT AN OPTION

Yup, that was me! The office was closed yesterday and I stayed home for three straight days. Knitterly heaven!!! I even didn't drive into the city to meet up with my Sunday afternoon knitting group. Jen didn't go either, and since she rides shotgun with me on Sundays, I had a perfect excuse to just stay home in my pjs and knit, knit, knit...

But this long weekend at home somehow fed my current emotional slump. Hubby and I had some talks about this because I'm a bit worried about it. I can't figure out what could be causing these current moods. It might just be all hormonal and pre-pre-pre-menopausal (hey, I just turned 40, ya know...), but I've never before felt so drained, tired and un-motivated. And I just had a lo-o-ong vacation over the holidays. I should feel refreshed - the vacation was just three weeks ago. It might just be my current workload. Or the feelings I have about my parents getting older - they will both be 70 this year - and me being so far away (and on another continent). Or maybe it's just me getting old. Who knows what's going on subconsciously in a women's head, right? At least I feel like knitting up a storm... that's one good thing. But enough with the whining already!

Here's the executive summary of last weekend: I slept and knitted a lot and watched silly TV shows/movies while knitting, with sleeping fiber dogs curled up beside me. It's especially cute when they have wild doggie dreams and make funny sounds. But having those warm bodies laying next you when it's snowing outside and freakin' freezin' cold is great. Ah, another good reason not to leave the house. ;-) But I was crazy enough to step outside for a couple of minutes to make a little snow video, which Hubby is trying to upload to YouTube. It's too big at the moment... 135MB, and YouTube's limit is 100MB. He's trying to find something online to edit it with. Once it's somewhere online, you'll see it on the blog.

In the meantime, here is Ms. Hermione standing in the snow, probably wondering what all that white stuff is about and why it makes her paws wet:

Here is the three-day knitting diary:

On Saturday, I finally knitted the Peasant Hat. It was on my mind for quite a while and the instant gratification was good for my knitting soul. ;-) If you have the time and you don't get discouraged by a 42 inch long and 18 stitch wide band, you can knit this hat in a day or in two to three sittings. And it's really cute. It's a knock-off (or maybe, better, a knit-off) of a very expensive cashmere cap that the designer, Melody, saw online. Unfortunately she does not have a blog and the pattern is only available on Ravelry (as far as I know), but it's free.

Projects Stats:
Pattern: Do-It-Yourself Peasant Cap
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm Knitpicks Harmony
Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic
How much? 1.5 skeins = 229.5 yards (209.9m)
Colorway: Burgundy red

Geez - I look tired... Note to self: Don't ask Hubby to take my picture late in the evening - OK, it was only around 7pm, but that's sometimes late for me - and no makeup. Hubby said the hat looks very European. Well, I'm a Bavarian farm girl after all. ;-) I guess that's a good match then. I wore the hat when I went out last night to pick up sushi for dinner (really the only time I left the house all weekend), and it was nice and warm and not itchy at all. By the way, Jane knitted this hat before me in the exact same yarn and color. Yup, I'm a copycat. And Jen and Regan knitted it too. We should take a group picture one of these days before the cold weather ends. The forecast says the following:

And get this, one of my coworkers was supposed to fly to Washington, DC, this morning, but Delta cancelled all their flights between 6am and 10am because of a freezing rain alert. And we didn't even have rain in the morning. Atlanta is a fun city when the weather is not normal, meaning something is coming out of the sky...

On Sunday, I started another Mission Possible: 2008 project - my SAFF sweater for 2008 with yarn I bought at SAFF two years ago. The orginal plan was to knit the Cable Guy Sweater from the Sons of Stitch and Bitch book, but I got a little scared because I'm not sure I have enough yarn. Supposedly, I have a total of 1,800 yards on the three hanks. But you never know, right? So, I figured this would be a good time to finally knit a top-down raglan sweater. All I've knitted top down so far are a poncho and a little baby cardigan. Plus I love the idea of NO SEAMS!!! Yes, no seams nowhere. That is so awesome!!!

And since I'm a very lazy person, I couldn't bring myself to actually read Barbara Walker's book Knitting from the Top Down and do all the calculations, etc. Instead, I looked online for a pattern and came across this very cool website, Top Down Raglan Sweater Generator. All you need to do is make a swatch (yeah, can't get around that if you want your sweater to fit), measure your chest, feed those numbers into the website, hit enter, and voila - you're presented with a pattern. And it really works... I knitted all this on Sunday and Monday:

I got past the part where the sleeves separate from the body. Those sleeve stitches rest on waste yarn until I pick them up again for knitting the sleeves:

I kept the cable pattern from the Cable Guy Sweater and incorporated it into my sweater pattern. It works out really nice. Except, I kinda forgot that I also wanted a cable running down the sleeves. You could call this an "afterthought" cable...

All you need to do is calmly drop the stitches that need to be changed into a cable, put them on double-pointed needles and knit them back in the desired cable pattern. Really not hard - although Hubby calls it magic. I like it when he thinks I can do magic. ;-)

The yarn I'm using is hand-spun alpaca and very soft. I'm hoping I can finish this before the AKG knitting retreat in February in the North Carolina mountains. Or at least take the sweater to the retreat and finish it there.

On Monday - besides knitting on the sweater - I also knitted on my new Argyle socks. Remember the double-knitted scarf Knit-A-Long that I dropped out of? Well, here is the sock version:

Front

Back

LOVE IT! It's a toe-up pattern with a Turkish cast-on and it'll have a Boomerang Heel (a German variation of a short row heel). I'm planning on writing up the pattern - eventually... And it'll have instructions on that specific heel. Somehow, I've found no English instructions for how to knit it anywhere. Let me know if you come across a pattern online with that heel.

So, that was the Three-Day Reclusion... And last but not least, the FOs of last week:

FO #1:

Project Stats:
Pattern: One-Piece Baby Kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting
Made for: Baby Holly Nicole in California
Size: Newborn
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm (Bamboo Circular 32")
Yarn: Bernat Cottontots Ombres
How much? 1.5 skeins = 225.0 yards (205.7m)
Colorway: Pink Varigated

Remember that I just knitted a Baby Kimono for friends in the UK? Well, the day I finished the first one, Hubby and I received a birth announcement from a couple that moved from Georgia to Germany to California. And they had a baby, too, just before Christmas. The funny thing about all this that before we all got married, we - meaning the wife of the UK couple, the husband of the now California couple and Hubby and I - hung out together on business trips when we all were coworkers at a huge computer company about 8 years ago. I know, it all sounds very complicated... but so funny!

FO #2:

Project Stats:
Pattern: Noro Sweater with short sleeves (from VERENA Winter 2007 issue)
Size: L
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm Knitpicks Interchangeables Metal 32"
Yarn: Noro Kureyon
How much? 2 skeins = 220.0 yards (201.2m) Colorway: 195
How much? 6 skeins = 660 yards (603.5m) Colorway: 172

This sweater was a very fast knit, and the lace pattern (just a 4-row repeat) almost looks like a cable. Might be a good pattern for socks, too.

FO #3:

Project stats:
Name: Opera Gloves
Pattern: my own
Needles: US 2 / 2.75 mm Yarn Knitpicks Harmony 32" circular
Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock
How much? 1 skeins = 462.0 yards (422.5m)
Colorway: S95

This is the first project from my Mission Possible: 2008 list that's finished. Well, the knitting part is finished. Part of project is also to write up the pattern. I have the notes and I already have the chart, so it should be just a matter of days. And I need to figure what the best way is to sell this pattern. I'll keep you posted.

OHHHH - before I forget. Phyllis is hosting a contest on her blog. It's called Central Park Footie. I promised her pix of paws. Here ya go:

And here is a family "pawtrait". ;-)

I think that's enough sillyness for the moment. How come I always end up writing novels for blog entries... I should blog more often and then have shorter entries. We'll see...