Post Turkey update

Oriel Lace
I finished knitting the second sleeve a couple weeks ago and blocked it last week. As I started to assemble the sweater, I still worried about it being too small, even though I’d added 2 inches to the length. I tried to pin it on myself but just couldn’t properly contort my arms to get it right so I got a friend to come over and help. The bodice is a bit snug, but I think that can be resolved by re-blocking since I did a half-assed job of blocking the front & back. The weird thing though is that the sleeves are too short. Too SHORT?!? I have freakishly short arms, this has never happened to me. And they aren't just a little short, more like 5 inches. They’re also a little tighter than I like so now I need to frog them about halfway. Ugh. Time for Oriel to hibernate for a while. At least I got the front & back reblocked before stashing it away.

Making Waves Bag
This one went fast because it was easy tv knitting. I finished knitting last week. It felted a bit unevenly – when it came out of the washer it didn’t have square corners. I wrestled, stretched, and beat on it to get it close to normal rectangle. I ended up blocking it flat. It looks great – I love the color even though the cables don’t show up as well as they did on the blue version for Jennifer. I’m considering felting it a little more and reblocking. The only problem with that is it means I have to not use it for a few days and I’m quite attached to carrying it right now.



Christmas Knitting
Yes, it’s that time of year again. I knit gifts for my nieces and nephew each Christmas. Even though they’re still quite young they are very opinionated so I decided to let them pick between mittens and slippers as well as what colors they wanted. On Thanksgiving I brought along the feltable portion of my stash. My nephew was too busy sledding on the hill out back to consult on colors (he’s such a boy), but paused long enough to say he wanted slippers. One niece wants mittens and the other wants slippers. Then the girls dove into the big bag of yarn with gusto. They spread out the skeins all over the floor and started picking out colors. After about ½ hour of debate they settled on all of them. Yes, they wanted all the colors. That’s what I get for asking a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old. The 3-year-old especially liked the Noro. I don’t know what I was thinking, putting the Noro in the bag, because I’m not willing to use it for anyone but me. She’ll remember it too. I talked to her on the phone yesterday and she reminded me. Hopefully she’ll like the slippers enough to forgive the omission. I started the first pair yesterday and finished one of the slippers. They have a purple sole, pink uppers, with a rainbow of colors in the cuff. They’re about at girly as a slipper can get!


Other stuff
I’m still moving along on the Pomatomus socks. I finished the heel gusset on the way to work this morning, so now I’m in the home stretch of the foot. If I pay close attention to the chart, I could finish these this week.

Last week I finished the second sleeve on the olive cardigan. Whew, 4 sleeves done in the last 2 months. No wonder I don’t want to deal with frogging the Oriel sleeves yet. I started the back on Friday, but only got about an inch done.