Sweaters and Leaves

Earlier today, I took a look out of a window on the back side of our house. This is part of what I saw.

See those two relatively narrow stripes that have less leaves than the rest? Well, when I first looked out there, our neighbor’s youngest boy (2nd grade, I think) was “raking” leaves. Or the leaves were raking him. It was hard to tell. Luke was using a ginormous rake and I think if he had put the rake on its side, its width would have been ¾ of his height.

You can see he got quite a ways on his leaf-raking task before he was called away. :) Perhaps, had he not started in our yard (property line is roughly where the wire for the telephone pole is), he may have had more energy for his own backyard! Gotta admit, though. He was VERY cute with his huge rake and more leaves than he could handle.

Yes, I have another whack of leaves waiting to be raked. I think I’m going to leave that for tomorrow’s workout, though. Most of the trees that are dropping leaves into our yard still have the bulk of their foliage, but at least the end is in sight. Which is good. Late, but good.

The most exciting news in my world today was this

My MOO cards arrived! I’m a very happy customer, minus the fact that half of my order that is a gift arrived on Friday and the part for ME didn’t get here until today, despite being shipped a day earlier. Frustrating, but virtually forgotten once I saw how great my cards look. Both of the MOO card holders were purchased on Etsy. The card holder on the left came from studiobijou and the one on the right with the clip came from splatgirl. Oh, and I will totally re-use the plastic box they came in (pictured, center)

In case I didn’t mention it, if you are on Ravelry yourself, my username there is DPUTiger, same as here. I have photographed and uploaded the bulk of the “upstairs stash” although there’s a cabinet I forgot about. We’ll see when the next decent picture-taking day is.

The Hubster and I are going to go sweat when he gets home from work, then my “project” for the evening will be to get a few more WiP-related things up on the TimeSuck, then get the purple sweater finished. What’s next in line for seaming, you ask? Either this

Or this

Yes, they’re both brown. Feel free to vote. I can’t make up my mind.

I will miss the Hurricane Knitters tomorrow night, in favor of attending Avenue Q at the Benedum Center with the Hubster, my brother, sis-in-law and my mom. Dad didn't want to come, but I have a feeling that he'll be paying for dinner anyway :)

Seams Like It’s Time

To do some serious seaming. I don't feel like shooting Yarn Pr0n, so you get a regular post today. You'll live. I promise.

One of the four projects I tossed in a bag to take with me to Hurricane Knitters on Wednesday night was my purple V-neck pullover. It’s the garment of mine that is closest to being finished, needing just the armpit seams and ends woven in to be wearable.

I was really early in arriving at the B&N Café, so I hunkered down at a table and pin-basted the crap out of both armpit seams. Once the group arrived, however, I didn’t really want to be seaming, so I busted out my other projects and knitted the night away.

Last night, the Hubster had to work late and since my dad was out of town, my mom was at loose ends. So we went and had a yummy early dinner, then headed to Knit Night at Bloomin’ Yarns.

I worked for a while on my second Jeweled Steps sock, but quickly realized that I was just about at the point where I needed to start my heel increases, but was missing my working page of Master Numbers necessary to tell me exactly when I needed to stop knitting the foot and start with the heel/gusset increases. Curses! Foiled again!

A row or two on the new in-progress scarf (Bright Stripes from Scarf Style) took another little bite of the evening, then I caved. That damn purple sweater needs to become wearable!

The good news is that I got one entire armpit seam done, so I’m halfway finished with what’s left of the seaming on that sweater, then it’s just ends. Easy peasy. Hooray!

Last week, SJ was bemoaning her fear of seaming set-in sleeves. I tried to explain to her via blog comment/email how I seam my sleeves, but I kind of stumbled all over myself. The good news? I have multiple sweaters sitting in my basement with the shoulders basted, just waiting for my tapestry needle to stop by. So you get a pseudo photo tutorial.

The sweater you are about to see is Cherry Tree Hill silk & merino (a to-die-for yarn), and it is very low on the finishing list. Simply because it’s a summer sweater. Very lightweight and short-sleeved, but SOOOO soft and drape-y. This is also a sweater that has been in progress for about two years. I knitted the back and front once, then I lost about 75 pounds and two of me could have fit in what I had knitted. So it got frogged and re-knit. That’s the stage where it is languishing now.

The first thing I do is find the center point of the sleeve (highly scientific: fold it in half!) and match that midpoint to the shoulder seam of the trunk. Then pin the corners of the sleeve to the coordinating armpit points on the trunk of the sweater. Ease in and pin all around, so it looks like the purple porcupine (picture a pin-basted sleeve, not a pin-basted armpit seam):

Then whip out some contrasting yarn and do a running stitch about ¾” from where you will be seaming, like this (see the yellow? It's there on the bottom edge):

Here’s another view, from the sleeve side (you're still looking for the yellow, but now it's at the top of the photo):

The basting yarn holds the sleeve firmly in place so it’s not going to shift and get all wonky while you’re seaming from one side to the other. It makes it easy to see if you need to adjust your seaming pattern and take bigger chunks on one side to ease that sleeve into its appointed hole. And it's very easy to pull out as necessary and it holds the pieces together without the danger of getting stabbed by a dull pin. :)

SJ had mentioned that she starts seaming in the middle, then works out to either side. That worked well for her with the CPH. Remember, there is NO SUCH THING as the Knitting Police. If your current method works for you, that’s fantastic. I just thought you might want a look at how I tackle set-in sleeves.

The other good news? SJ's Central Park Hoodie (and Jenn’s) both came out great. Great enough that I now want to add another cardigan to my list *sigh* Go look!

This weekend is going to be pretty dang busy. Tonight, we have dinner with family friends who are in from out of town. (We’re going here).

Tomorrow, a work friend who wound up with an unexpected two-week break in his basketball season is in the ‘Burgh for the weekend. We’re meeting Johnnie and his girlfriend here for breakfast, here. Then going to the Three Rivers Film Festival to see the Maurice Richard movie with my mom. Then we have tickets for the Chihuly Nights exhibit at Phipps (it’s extended to February! GO SEE IT!) and I’m hoping we can sneak in a dinner here.

[Geez! With all this food, I'll be wishing I hadn't re-knit that CTH shell! Or, I'll be spending 8 days/week in the gym!]

Sunday, I have a 9 am call time at the big ketchup bottle and probably won’t get home until about 6 pm. I’ll blog the Amazing Race, then may turn into Rip Van Winkle and sleep until next Thursday. Wish me luck.

In other news, It’s official. Garmin wins the asshole of the year award for airing the first TV commercial with Christmas music. On November 9. I just don’t understand why we can’t get to Thanksgiving before the holiday madness starts. Seriously. The tree was up at the mall already when I got my new shoes (which I luuurrrve) on Tuesday. Ugh.