Finished Today: Houndstooth

Hi,

Hope you all had a wonderful St. Patty's Day. Although I had a great day watching the Dragon at Cornell, I'd have to say my daughter Kate had a better day going to see The Pogues in NYC. That must have been a great hangover!!! :-)

Christmas 2004 Joe got me a $100 gift certificate to JoAnns fabrics so I could buy yarn. I'm ashamed to say the first thought I had was "oh no, not JoAnns!" No offense but there are two great yarn shops in Ithaca that would have made me much happier. Never mind, yarn is yarn, so I went and bought 12 balls of this kool wool yarn I had been eyeing (10 grass, 2 charcoal). I wanted to do a sweater in this houndstooth pattern from a sweater in VK Fall 1984.


So here is my new design: a conglomerate of a couple of vintage patterns from the ‘80s. I created this sweater with the idea of keeping the spirit of big block prints without the boxy silhouettes of the yuppie age. I also loved the ribbed boatnet with drop shoulder sleeves. So I ran out of the grass on the first sleeve and had to go on a search for three more skeins. thank you ebay!!

I will work on pattern instructions for this for the first pdf on my free patterns link.

seeya, sue

My Blue Shrug

I finished my shrug today and have taken some crappy cell phone pictures to let you see the results.





Whoa, I'm getting serious love handles!! You know why? Because I don't exercise AT ALL!!! I'm going to try and remedy this next week when I start my Wellness program at Cornell. I'm going to start by swimming laps and doing an elliptical (whatever that is). I also want to take some Yoga and Jazzercize classes. This is something I really don't want to do but every one I know says it's a good idea. I'll let you know if it works. I realize it's hard to just diet because I love to EAT! My friend took me to lunch today and I had this scrumptious peach berry tart with whipped cream for dessert. MMmmmmmmm!@ Oh well. I'll let you know how it goes. :-)

take care, sue

No medals for me

Hi,

I know it's been a while since I posted. To make a long story short I bolted out of Ithaca on my birthday (feb 16) to visit my brother Jimmy in Raleigh. We had so much fun for four days. While I was there my nephew Brendan was coughing like he had the black lung and I knew I was going to get sick. The first day back into Ithaca my throat starting hurting bad and I ended up with a horrible cold that lasted a week. Needless to say my olympic knitting project was waylayed. Here is how much I finished by Feb 26:



Since I'm out of the running, I went back to another UFO (unfinished object) that was close to completion - an Angel Hair Shrug (in almost the exact same color as the zen sweater). Angel Hair from Sensations was on sale at JoAnn fabrics a while back and I loved the softness of this yarn. It might pill like a bitch but I think it will look nice.




I used a free pattern off the lion brand site. You can download it here:

Fringed Shrug

I changed the pattern a bit by placing the increases in a garter stitch edging and making the body stockinette. Also, I'm not adding the fringe. I wanted to highlight the softness of the yarn.

Well I'm looking forward to the first weekend in 3 weeks where I can just relax and knit. I'm really close to finishing the shrug so I can wear it next week. It's FREEZING here (we got 9 inches of snow yesterday).

thanks for reading. take care, sue