New Pattern: Sledge

Sledge is a cozy, double-layer cowl. One side is plain stockinette, but inside (or outside!) is clean ribbing in a contrasting color.

Sledge is knit in the round and seamed to finish and it requires 220yds/201m each of Main Color and Contrast Color.

Sledge is available on Ravelry now and is 20% off all week!

Making Progress

This was a pretty good weekend, knitting-wise. I'm almost finished with the waist decreases on my striped sweater, and I got the button band and first sleeve done on Fullerton. Considering I didn't get any knitting done on Saturday, I'm pretty darn pleased with how things are going. 

I had a couple of hours to kill on Saturday morning after dropping the dogs at the groomers and before meeting Matt for brunch, so I brought my laptop along and set up shop at one of my favorite coffee shops in the city. I had intended to just get the written instructions for the charts on two upcoming patterns done, but I ended up getting one whole pattern written (for a hat I haven't shown you yet). 

Yesterday I had hyperglycemia and was feeling quite ill, so just before noon I went to my mum's house and we watched the first season of Rosemary and Thyme. I ended up staying for dinner, and we roasted carrots and parsnips and asparagus, which were just what I needed after a long day of waiting for my blood sugar to come down! 

Linking up with Crafting On

Sweater Time

I've mentioned having a Fullerton Cardigan on the needles, but I haven't actually shared it here yet. This photo is from a couple of days ago, but it so perfectly encapsulates my happy place: in my armchair, legs crossed, with my knitting in my lap.

I started Fullerton right before NCFF last month so I'd have something mindless to work on while sitting at the information desk. I have the body finished now, and the button band is half picked up. I'm hoping to get that finished and get through a good chunk of the first sleeve over the weekend so I can start wearing this and be able to focus my knitting time on my KAL projects.

Does anybody have fun plans this weekend? I'm bringing the dogs up to the city for their grooming and meeting my friend Matt for brunch tomorrow.

Weekending

I'm so glad I had a four-day weekend, because I really needed it. Saturday and Sunday were both crazy busy days, so I basically ended up spending half of Monday still in bed. My brother had the lead in the high school play, and he did a great job. The university homecoming parade was on Saturday morning, and it was a lot of fun, as usual (and I got to pet SO MANY DOGS!).

Despite feeling like I was constantly running around, I actually managed to get quite a bit done! I assembled my quilt top and got my quilt sandwich all layered and ready to go and then realized that the sheet I'd been planning on using as backing fabric is two inches too narrow! I'm going to go get a bigger sheet later this week to use instead; I'm not thrilled with the delay, but I'd rather have a quilt that I'm pleased with. Plus, I have a smaller vintage quilt top I got from the church bazaar a few years ago, and this sheet should be the perfect size to use as backing for that.

I also managed to finish my Finn! It's blocking now, and I'm hoping I'll be able to wear it yet this week. It's pretty chilly out now, so things are taking longer to dry after blocking, but another day or two should do it. I still don't have buttons for Finn yet, but that's never stopped me before. As you can see above, I made a lot of progress on this sweater sample. I'm starting two KALs this month (Great Northern starts today and Media Peruana starts on the 22nd), and I definitely want this pattern out by the end of the month, so I'm going to have to clock some major knitting hours!

Linking up with Crafting On

Long Weekends and New Things

If you think that looks an awful lot like a new sweater, you're right. No, Finn is not done yet (it is ALMOST done, it needs just TWO MORE INCHES of sleeve), and yes, I cast on something new anyway. This is a new sample that I already have the pattern written for, and I just need to power through and knit it. Hopefully it should be a quicker knit, but, of course, we never know what might happen.

I have a four-day weekend this week, and I'm definitely looking forward to it. I'm dogsitting for one of my friends, which is always super fun, and it's homecoming on campus. Oh, and it's the high school play. Tomorrow after the homecoming parade I'm planning to hang out at the house with my mum and work on my new quilt. My plan is to get all the fabric blocks traced and cut out so I can spend the rest of  the weekend sewing. I don't know if I'll actually manage to finish it, but I definitely hope to get awful darn close. I've never made a quilt before, and I'm almost certainly biting off more than I can chew, trying to make one in four days, but I am nothing if not ambitious.

Old Sleeves and New Books

I've finally reached the halfway point on the second sleeve of Finn, and I'm hoping it's all smooth knitting from here on out. I have choir tonight and dance tomorrow, but I'm still hoping to have this off the needles by the weekend. This sweater has been dragging on for much longer than I intended, but I'm still looking forward to wearing it.

Yesterday I started panicking because I have my community book club this week (once a month my library and the public library team up, and everyone gets a few minutes to talk about whatever book they've been reading lately), and I haven't really read anything new. I'm still reading the nonfiction book I talked about last month, so I grabbed Frankenstein in Baghdad and checked it out. I'm really enjoying it so far—after my lunch break yesterday I'm already almost a quarter of the way through, so I should be able to finish by Friday afternoon without too much trouble.

Linking up with Yarn Along

Making a Trilobite

Well, a slow weekend was exactly what I needed. I went to the laundromat, baked bread, cleaned my apartment, and sat and did a lot of knitting and watched a lot of Netflix. I'm on a bit of a hat design kick right now, and in between sessions on Cormac and Finn I decided to cast on a non-design hat.

Trilobite was one of the first patterns I fell in love with way back when I first started knitting. Being a paleontologist was one of my earliest dreams, and I still love fossils and read paleontology journals today. Over the summer one of my friends sent me a bunch of yarn when she destashed, including this label-less skein of worsted weight (we think it is Mal Rios), and after finishing a hat sample at the end of last week, I decided to finally knit myself a trilobite hat.

I knit most of this while at the laundromat, and I got a few more rounds done before switching back to Finn yesterday. I'm torn- I want to finish this quickly so I can wear it everywhere, but I'm having so much fun knitting it that I never want it to end!

Linking up with Crafting On

Sweaters and Slow Progress

It has been quite a week, and I am more than ready to have a couple days to just hide and recharge. The progress on Finn is still slow, and it looks largely the same, so no photo today. Instead, here's my Cormac, which I started almost two and a half years ago and recently pulled out of hibernation. Finn is more than a little unwieldy to carry around and work on from my purse right now, but Cormac is perfect.

September ended up being a bit of a weird month for me. In between NCFF and waiting for my story and poem to come out, I didn't get very much pattern writing done, so now I'm a bit behind. I'd love to catch up this weekend- I have three samples currently ready, and one of the patterns has been written for weeks and I just haven't sent it to my tech editor yet!

This week I've been working through AHS: Freak Show, which has been a great season so far. I've got four more episodes left, so hopefully I'll be able to make some real progress on Finn's second sleeve while I finish it up. It's finally starting to feel like fall here, and I've been craving homemade bread like crazy, so hopefully I'll manage to fit some baking in this weekend as well.

Back to Sleeves and Some Exciting News

And it is Monday, again. I hope you all had a good, refreshing weekend. I managed to finish my legwarmers, and I can't wait to be able to wear them. I'm hoping to get the pattern written up this week, and then send it and another pattern I have waiting to my TE this weekend. Since the legwarmers are done now, I decided to turn my attention back to Finn. I managed to finish the first sleeve and the second sleeve cap while at NCFF, but it's been sitting in a bag since then, and I really want to get it finished since sweater weather is finally arriving.

In non-knitting news, I've finally had some writing published! My story, "The Lady In the Lake," is included in Subatomic and other stories by and about bisexuals, which is a free ebook available in kobo, mobi, and epub formats. I'm very proud of this story, and it's so exciting to be included in this collection.

I also have a poem in the new issue of Liminality! I wrote Athenadora earlier this year, and I'm so glad it found a home here. Liminality #17 is full of great poems, so I definitely encourage reading the whole issue!

Linking up with Crafting On

Plodding Along

I am slowly plodding along on my second legwarmer. My hope is to have a nice marathon knitting session this weekend and get most of it done, but I have a few other design projects cooking right now, so we'll see how much I'll get to.

My second tap dance class was last night, and I'm enjoying being in dance so far. I always wanted dance lessons, but I made do for years with the dancing I had to learn for musicals. It's great to be able to really dig in and learn more, and it's great to not have my tap shoes languishing in my closet, waiting for the next musical with a tap number!

I hope you all have a good weekend! I have some exciting non-knitting news that I'll be able to share on Monday, so I'll see you all then!