What a week last week.
.
Return to the office to find all the execs in town visiting. Yecch. You would think someone would have told me. Doctor on Monday, Dentist on Tuesday, athletics recognition on Wednesday, Cook for office pot luck on Thursday, office pot luck on Friday.

Not much knitting, but made up for it during a rainy weekend.

Something snaps in my head when a person looks at my work and says "I could never do that". My mother taught me that I could do whatever I set my mind to, and I believe her. So the "I could never" sounds so lame to me. She also taught me that one could learn all sorts of things by reading directions and experimenting. So the "no one ever taught me", "I was never trained" statements don't do much for me.

But, I'm also getting a small bit wiser. When, at my daughter's volleyball practice, a woman ooooed over Starz. I smiled, and opened the whole sweater for her to admire and for me to show off. When she said the "I could never", I smiled and shrugged again, instead of saying what was going on in my head, which was not so very nice.

Now, most of the week is holiday for me, though I have made some goals of finishing some on line education classes. Obviously, the knitting goals were more important today, as I was so close to making a bench mark yesterday. That goal has been met. Mr. Starz has an arm.

I still get all shivery when I try to find that arm seam.

Hank's arm is about 1/2 done, but no pics until he's finished. Family Tree is the new car/TV/traveling project and he's progressing nicely as well.

Safely back from the business trip, and full of pictures. I think there are a few Swatchy fans out there, who have had no pictures for going on three weeks. Too bad. This post will make up for the drought and then some.

Yes, the goals set upon the beginning of the trip were unreasonable, and I knew it. Still much progress has been made, and I'm pleased.

Without further delay.....

From the eldest projects to the youngest projects:
Henry now has a stubby second sleeve. It only took five times to pick up the correct number of stitches and get him set up.


I have no idea why it was so hard, because picking up the stitches in pattern for Starz only took two tries. He's now on dpns, and has past the half way point to the cuff:

Now, is that sleeve pick up the coolest thing you've seen for a while? Well, we saw The Incredibles on Saturday and that was pretty cool too.

Now, the class project. I picked this because it looked pretty simple, and it was. It's Family Tree from Knitters Winter 1996, with a few modifications.

1st - change fiber to Debbie Bliss cotton/silk aran purchased at Hersingers for a good discount.
2nd - recalculate gauge, as even though the yarn label claims 17st/4inch in stockenette on #7 needles, the best I can do is 16st/4in on #4's. If I go down to #3's the fabric is like armor, and not nice.
3rd - modify the edge because the cotton/silk plays this nasty number on the cast on edge:

Yuck. I used the same edge as Tuja; a bit fussy to do, but produces a nice knitted roll.

This picture has a little cable cheesecake for you.
4th - Do it in the round. Two reasons. One, I'm lazy and if I can remove a step, like seams, I do. Second, with the weight of the fabric, I think removing seams is a good idea.

So far, sleeves, and about 10" of body.


Don't ask how I like the Bliss Cotton/Silk Aran. I don't. It's heavy and stringy.
I do, however, like the broken moss stitch used as the background pattern. It is another one of those lovely knitting tricks. So easy, yet it produces such a nice texture that appears complex. Broken moss, by the way is:
r1 and r3 right side: knit
r2 k,p
r4 p,k

attractive, easy, and no bias

About enough time to blog and run this morning.

I'm doing ok on my list. No exercise yet, but decent on the eating.
Knitting, well, the new sweater is doing better than the others. One and a half sleeves done, and I did the fiddly part of casting on for the body last night. I wanted to make sure I didn't run out during class.

Henry, oh Henry has a sleeve attached. It took me four tries to get it right. I'm about 1/8 down it now. Little chance to finish him this week, but at least he is on his way again.

Starz first sleeve is about half way from the airplane trip. He'll be close to having one sleeve finished by the time we land back in Houston on Friday.

I really wanted to have something finished for my husband when I returned. Well, body to cuff sleeves tend to go quickly past the half way point, so we shall see.

On the weekend, I went to NYC. Both days. The place was filled with men ( and women ) in tights for the Marathon. I went straight to Times Square. That place is like Disneyland now. Twenty years ago, it was full of trash, drunks, hookers, funny smells and a sense of danger. Now it's so clean. I'm not sure I like it this way. But I digress. I stood in line at TKTS, trying to re-live my poor college visits and got a seat for "Wonderful Town". The show was just OK, but Brooke Shields has "star" quality. She dominated the cast. I don't know exactly how that is done, but wow, it's amazing to watch.

On the way out, I dropped into the box office of "Avenue Q", and was fortunate to get a great seat for the Sunday matinee. It was a great show; edgy, funny, and creative. The fun I enjoyed was the poking around topics that we often try to hide. The puppet intercourse was a bit hard to watch.

Anyway, in checking into blogland this morning, I was caught up in a feeling of Schadenfreude. Now, I don't much comment on what other blogs are doing - it's their stuff, and mine is personal and mostly for me. However, "W" vs "dish" got me thinking about that AveQ skit, and I was in the theater againn

Progress on known projects were halted this last week. My manager told us he had been away taking care of his wife who had cancer surgery. I made her two soft chemo hats, and sent them off. I didn't photograph them, as they were sort of boring to look at. Very soft though. One is light brown chenille. The other is wool/silk, bright pink with some black tweedy bits.

POD
Pack, Vote, Fly
Will be away on business for the next 10 days.

Of course, I have entirely unrealistic ideas of what I can accomplish.

FWIW, I plan to:
Stay on a reasonable eating plan.
Exercise most every day.
Finish Hank
Finish Starz
Make a lot of progress on a new project that is destined for my BiL for Xmas.

That means going thru about two skeins a day plus, oh yeah, work.

We will see.