February Lady Update

After frogging the yoke once... and panicking over putting my sleeves on waste yarn... I'm finally almost finished the body. At the moment, it *just* hits the top of my jeans, so I'm going to do probably another 2 repeats of the gull-lace pattern and then start my garter border. My favorite part of this project though is going to be binding off the body, because since I'm using my new Denises I can just change the ends of the needles to a larger size! Whenever I have to switch needle sizes, I always get panicked. But it's so easy with my interchangeables. I love them.

Linda (who is teaching the class, and owns the LYS I go to) suggested putting stitch markers every few multiples of 7 so when you mess up on the lace pattern, you know right away. I've been meticulously counting my stitches every time because I'm terrified of screwing up. The lace pattern is pretty easy...and it's very easy to read, but I'm always paranoid that I'm going to get confused and messed up. The one time I took it to my knitting night on Mondays (yay Presto!) I screwed it up pretty bad. well, not pretty bad... I was able to tink and fix it while still in the same row, but still. I've learned my lesson.

My goal with the sweater was to be finished the body by Saturday, and I really think that I'll be able to accomplish that. My plan is to do the rest of the gull lace pattern tonight, and possibly start the garter border. Maybe by Friday I can bind off! I still need to take pictures of my progress. I took pictures pre-frogging, and decided not to post them since I started over. Maybe tonight I will. Though my camera always messes up the color. I really need to remember to take photos outside without the flash, but it's been so WINDY lately that I'm afraid to.

February Lady Sweater

I've been taking a class at Stitches With Style on the February Lady Sweater... and this will be my first sweater. I took pictures a while ago, but then I frogged the sweater because I misunderstood directions and ended up with 9 extra stitches. I'm probably about 30% done... the yoke is finished (MAN THAT YOKE TOO FOREVER!) and I've been working on the body in the gull-lace pattern. It's really beautiful, and I LOVE the yarn that I picked! Brown Sheep superwash worsted weight in this bright blue called Bon Vivant Blue. I'll have to take pictures again to post.

I'm really glad that I picked this pattern up because it's a lot of fun, and I love the baby pattern that it's based on. Maybe one of these days I'll knit that for someone I know who's having a baby. But I'm also definitely happy that I am taking a class for this. The extra support is much needed and much appreciated. I've never picked up stitches IN MY LIFE so I'm terrified of the sleeves. Right now they're just hanging out on their waste yarn, waiting for me to finish the body and knit away. I think that once I'm finished and I have a sweater that *I* made that's just for me, I'll be really happy.

My little knit-group and I are also organizing a NYC Yarn Crawl for April, which I'm really excited about. I can't wait to review and see all of these yarn stores in Manhattan. I'm most excited about Purl Soho. Last Minute Knitted Gifts is one of my fave books, and I'm very excited to see the store that produced that book. We're actually hiring a limo service to take us up there. That way we won't have to deal with any taxis or subways... and it's actually less per person to rent a limo than to take a train! I think it'll be about the same price if we took a bus, because we'd have to deal with taxi or subway service all day.