Two Sleeves, Both Green

Le Sleeves of le Cabled Coat are complete:

That's a lot o' moss. Seriously. Don't let sleeves fool you. They take up a lot of yarn. I think the sleeves actually take up more yarn than the half-hexagon fronts. Now I have just one of those half-hexagons and the collar to knit up and then this baby is getting seamed, but good.

One of the things I love about knitting is the creation of what I see as living, breathing fabric. I use those words because this kind of fabric carries a little bit of human movement in each of its hundreds of stitches. The fabric looks and feels alive to me, as if I am Dr. Frankenstein and I have created something sentient out of nothing more than yarn and lightning. It's ALIIIIVE!!!!

Ahem.

I am also on an intense sweater kick. I love socks, I do. I love scarves, I do. I love hats and mittens and every little knit in between. But there is something so satisfying about making something that encircles one's torso. To that end, I realize I now have enough yarn stashed up to knit at least five sweaters. I also have a bunch of Noro Niji (Rav link) that I'm using to make a store sample.

But I could not turn away from this:

This here is four balls each of Karabella Vintage Cotton. Colors 304 Rose (top) and 330 Orange (bottom). They will become this.

The Roped Shell is knit in Filatura di Crosa Luxury, a fingering weight silk. While I like the idea and all, I'm not sure I will get much use out of this shell just yet. If I wear it a lot in cotton, I'll revisit the idea of silk.

And...that might be the end of new stash for a while for me. I am starting to feel burdened by the weight of my amassed yarn. I need to knit through some of it before I will feel comfortable adding to the bunch.

A Happy Weekend

Last night, I arrived home at my parents' place to see these two munchkins at play:

These are my cousin's daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline. Elizabeth just celebrated her first birthday and Caroline is turning four in a month. Notice how Caroline is trying to help her mother by separating the lettuce heads while Elizabeth is mimicking Caroline? Not a coincidence. Caroline wants to do everything her mother does and Elizabeth wants to do everything Caroline does. Today, we had a grand feast for Elizabeth and then Caroline serenaded us with a karaoke rendition of children's songs. Elizabeth tried to steal the microphone whilst drooling over her very lovely pink dress.

I brought home flowers for my mom. There were white roses, daisies, black-eyed Susans, gerber daisies, and hyacinths. Stupid me forgot to take my camera home.

Plus, I gave my mother this:

I finally finished the durn thing. I love how needlepoint looks, but I don't know if I can become a huge fan. It just takes too long. I gave her the Veronik socks as well. The actual name of the socks is "Socks for Veronik." Well, now they're "Socks for Mom." They fit her perfectly, but she says no more socks for a while since summer is upon us. She wants a cardi.

I have to pause here and say a bit about my mother on this lovely Mother's Day. She was the middle of five children and a pastor's daughter to boot. But when push comes to shove, she can be pretty fierce. I once had a mean boss who was abusive and said horrible things to me. When I called my mother and cried, she released a torrent of curses against that boss. It would have made a sailor proud. That was the only time I've ever heard her swear.

My mother really truly believes that I can accomplish anything. It's hard for her to watch her Ivy-educated daughter struggle through freelancing while trying to write stories, but she bites her lip and lets me do my thing. When I get discouraged, she talks me out of it. I can only hope that when the day comes, I will be half as good at mothering as she is.

She keeps wondering how her mother's love of knitting passed right by her and into me. Here are two sleeves, brown and green:

The moss stitch on the cabled coat was getting to be too much for me. So I had abandoned it for a while. Then, voila! I learned how to knit and purl continental-style and am now breezing my way through the second sleeve. In the meantime, I have to find a cardi pattern for my mother now that she has specifically requested (nay, demanded) one.

Prospero Año y Felicidad!

I did not knit a lot over Christmas. Too many cheesecakes to bake, too many cookies to frost, and too many movies to see. I finally saw The Simpsons Movie, which caused me to laugh so hard that I thought my vocal cords would go on strike. I saw The Painted Veil, which was a lovely movie despite the fact that Edward Norton's English accent is only passable at best. I also saw I Am Legend and have conflicting feelings towards it. It was fun and I definitely cowered a lot, but I've read synopses of the book it was based on and the original story seems so much more compelling that I'm surprised the movie says so little about what the title actually means. But that dog was so damn cute. I want German Shepherd puppies. I also saw...(drumroll please)...Sweeney Todd.
IloveditIloveditIloveditIlovedit! Johnny Depp is sexy, even as a mass murderer. Alan Rickman is sexy even as creep. Sacha Baron Cohen is sexy, even in skintight, electric blue pants. Timothy Spall is...not sexy, but he's still wickedly amusing. I did think it was odd that they removed all the ensemble singing, but overall the visual spectacle of everything just reels you in so that you don't notice how weak Helena Bonham Carter's voice actually is until you listen to her on the soundtrack. That's when her singing sounds so obviously lackluster. I have a feeling that Tim Burton was so entranced by her singing lullabies to their baby that he was deluded into thinking she had the voice of an angel. Ah, well, even with the nepotism she's still a good actress.

Here's a sampling of my Christmas booty:

The Sweeney Todd movie soundtrack (and now I have to go get the original cast recording because I lost it and I miss Angela Lansbury), a supercute snowman mug, Pixar's short films, a short story collection by Mavis Gallant, and two Hitchcock movies. There was some other stuff and I finally got myself a pair of Uggs (which I know are as ugly as their name implies, but my desire for them had less to do with fashion and more to do with comfort).

Also, I did knit a little bit. I finished my dad's scarf (which was promptly stolen by my mom because she says her neck is colder than his). So I must knit my father something else. I ended up not finishing the blanket (big surprise!) and bought my mother some cookbooks and mystery books.

But I did do this:

It's the back and godet of Norah Gaughan's Cabled Coat from the 25th Anniversary VK. I am in love. I am in love with the pattern and in love with the yarn. Why can't the world be made out of Berroco Pure Merino? I bought this yarn months ago specifically for this project and can't figure out why it took me so long to get here. I'm trying to knit through some of my stash and this seemed appropriate enough. At first, the pattern seems pretty intimidating, but once you work through some of it, the process is somewhat intuitive. There are definitely errata and the VK website only posts one mistake in the chart so when I finish I'll make a list of the things I noticed.

Fields of moss stitch are so soothing.

And the cable design reminds me of architectural details. I am having lots and lots o' fun.