Turtleneck With a Capital "T"

The past few days have me cruising along on my Banded Turtleneck sweater by Kathy Merrick.  And, when I say turtleneck I mean TURTLENECK!  Wow, did it come out big!  Even when I made it a whole two inches shorter than specified in the pattern.  What do you think?  Is it too much?  I'll definitely be warm wearing it and with the sub zero Fahrenheit temps we've been having in Minnesota I better hurry up and finish it.  The body and neck are completed and I only have the arms left to knit.  Will see how it goes, but so far it's slow as increasing while keeping in pattern I find a bit difficult. 

I noticed something while knitting the arms that I find dismaying and humorous at the same time.  Look at the above swatch and see if you can see it.  In the first row of blue there are squares of the oatmeal colored yarn and on the top blue band there are dashes.  Now, the first is correct and the second is not.  So, which row style did I knit the whole sweater in so far?  The dashes of course!  Yup, I just glazed over that row in the chart over and over and over again.  There is really nothing wrong with changing the pattern, but I do prefer the look of the squares to the dashes. With so much already completed though, the dashes with continue on the arms as well.

My son and I finished the Blackwell Pages' last book Thor's Serpents by K.L. Armstrong and have moved on from the Norse Gods too reading about the Greek Gods in the hugely popular Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan.  We are on book 1 The Lightning Thief and enjoying it thus far.  It's a bit sillier, faster paced and more humorous than the Blackwell series which I think I preferred, but it's a bit too early to judge.  I gave my son the DVD of the movie based on this book as a treat to watch after we finish reading the book.  What books are you reading now?

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along

Another Gift Bites the Dust

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Yup, I'm in a good mood this morning.  I finished my husband's wool socks last night before bed, which means another gift gets crossed off the list.  Happy dance!  The toe up sock pattern is one I used many times before so not much new there.  Cast on with Judy's Magic Cast on 24 stitches, followed the pattern for the large size, and cast off using Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.  The only bummer about this project is the socks don't totally match color wise.  Not a big deal when you think they will be stuffed into boots while my husband shovels snow this winter and no one will see them.  But, as I've said before, I'm kinda a matchy-matchy gal so it irks me a little.  Probably couldn't be helped when I was working with 1 full skein and 2 partial skeins to create these socks.  Of course the last word on the matter will be my husband's and I already know he won't mind one little bit.  So that's that.

Now, I should go to my YOP list and see what I want to knit next, but I went looking at the new patterns on Ravelry the other day and heard the siren call (think mythology not ambulance.)  Yes, a new Thea Colman Baby Cocktails pattern called Mezcal jumped off the screen and shouted "KNIT ME!!!!"  There is even appropriate yarn in the stash to begin knitting it right away.  Thus, I swatched last night, and yes, I make skimpy swatches and leave them attached to the ball so I can reuse the yarn as I'm pretty frugal (or at least that's what I call it) and got gauge.  Now, I just need to decide whether or not to start a completely new unplanned for project or knit something off my list.  Not quite sure which way I'm going to go yet.  The other main contender is the Blathin sweater for my mother.  If I knit that sweater I would only have 1 more Christmas gift to knit (a vest for my husband) and could do selfish knitting all Fall and most of Winter.  That has an awesome appeal as I have never been that prepared for Christmas.  Maybe another cup of tea will help me decide.

I thought I'd leave you with a picture of my son Sam who turned 9 this past Sunday.  He wanted to go to Bryant Lake Beach with his Dad and me on his birthday to celebrate.  Dad usually only makes it to the beach once during the summer on the 4th of July for the family celebration his mom throws every year.  But, this year Sam had a really bad biking accident the night before the 4th tearing up his knee, hands and spraining an ankle so needless to say there was no swimming the next day.  Of course his wish was fulfilled this Sunday and we all had a great time.  Sam and Dan went swimming, we all played in the sand and the boys finished off the afternoon with a paddle boat ride while mama packed up.  Then later that night we had a Nerf gun battle with a couple of neighbor boys in the park, ate some cookies and took turns swinging on the swing in the backyard.  All in all a pretty great day. 

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.