"Nothing Happened"

I kept diaries off and on when I was a kid. Sometimes I'd have trouble thinking of something to write about. Sometimes, the day was just boring. And sometimes I'd miss several days, and I would be stuck with blank pages with the dates printed at the top. On these days I would simply write "Nothing happened."

Over the last two weeks I broke my New Year's Resolution and didn't write a blog post. So if you're wondering about last week, don't worry. Nothing happened.

For the past two and a half weeks I've been house sitting for the third time since January. This time it was for Lyndsey's family. That's part of the reason I didn't blog. Since all my pain issues started, I've had trouble finding a comfortable place to use my laptop. With all the furniture in Lyndsey's house, I couldn't find a spot comfortable enough to use my computer for long periods of time. And blogging takes time.

I did take some pictures. Here are:



Mercy,




Kelly




and Lady.

I also took this picture one evening of the view from their deck. I wish it turned out a little better:





I included my latest knitting project, which I somehow managed not to blog despite all the progress I've made. Remember the sweater I was dreaming of that I eventually decided would be an Adult Surprise Jacket?





I present the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket. I'm already at the armpits.





You can see pictures of the evolution of the jacket here. Between the four stitches per inch gauge and the six inches of ease, I'm a little worried that it's going to be too bulky. I think it will be ok, since I am aiming for more of a coat than a jacket.

Later on I'll list more details, including the different yarns I'm using. I'm trying very hard to choose yarn that keeps the gauge consistent.

For now, I'll leave you with two things in honor of International Yarnbombing Day. First, a sighting from the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar on Saturday. I made asked Katie, Aaron and Aaron's brother Jacob to pose in front of the pipe with me.





The yarn is very soft. I wonder what they used. It didn't seem to be acrylic, but I didn't have a lot of time to examine it.

Finally, I have more coverage of A Knitted Wonderland. This time it's a short movie is by Sarah E. Gonzalez.

I Dream of Sweaters

I'm dreaming of a sweater. Again.

I've dreamed of sweaters before. Remember Decimal? Never happened. I actually swatched Candy, but no luck. (Officially, it's still a WIP.) So I'm not sure how far I'll get with this idea, but I'm hopeful.

I have a *lot* of yarn, but I don't have much in the way of sweater amounts of yarn. But I'm not really feeling most of the sweater amounts of yarn I have.

Like the bright turquoise Jo-Ann Sensations Angel Hair I bought for a sweater a long time ago. Now I don't think I have the guts to wear an entire sweater that color. I think I'd look like a Muppet.

Also, I still have a ton of recycled sari silk left over from this thing, but you see how well that worked out.

And I barely have enough of two colors of Debbie Bliss Angora Cotton for a sweater, but I'm not too keen on the sea green color anymore. It was on clearance at the time, so my color options were limited.

However, I *am* feeling the Jo Sharp Classic DK Wool pictured above. The color is "Viola." The problem is I only have about 1,070 yards, and for a long sleeve sweater in my size, that's not even half of what I need. But it's a decent amount.

So my solution is to make an outrageous stash diving sweater with stripes.

I started getting yarn out of the storage unit Thursday. The process was fun, but it still made me miss my apartment. Dad went with me since I'm too weak to lift all those tubs. I used a spreadsheet printed out with my stash from Ravelry. I'd highlighted some stuff ahead of time to help narrow everything down. I've only looked in three of my numbered tubs so far. I didn't want to spend forever searching through tubs outside the storage unit, and Dad had to go to work after we finished. Dad was very patient with the whole process. On the way home, I explained that we had just been "stash diving."

I considered just using a bunch of single skeins, but I figured I needed something to tie the yarns together. I also considered find a unifying color theme, like all blues and purples, all brights or all warm colors, but I thought I might run out of yarns to use between the color restrictions and the gauge restrictions.

Instead, I decided to use the Jo Sharp yarn is sort of a "base." From there I'm selecting DK weight yarns from my stash that don't clash too much with the shade of purple.*

I have a long road ahead of me. Not only do I need to swatch the Jo Sharp, I'll also have to swatch the other colors and make sure the gauge matches. I'm not going to adjust my stitch count with each yarn change.

And not just any DK weight yarn will work. There may be official Yarn Standards that most yarn manufacturers follow, but there is a lot of wiggle room in those standards. I'm also going to be considering worsted, sport and fingering weight yarns for this sweater as well.

I've just begun to think about the pattern. I wanted to do an Elizabeth Zimmerman seamless construction, but I want a cardigan and all the "patterns" I've found so far are for pullovers. I can use the Elizabeth Percentage System to do more of my own design work, or I could do some steeking. I need to do more research.

Parting Shot
I'm going to leave you with a picture the Multnomah shawl I've been working on. I bound off on Wednesday. It still needs to be blocked, so I'm not calling it done yet.



* - Or is it blue?