Parker Cardigan Full Body, Fiber Sightings

I ripped the top half of the back and reknitted it in the right stitch pattern. Now it's just the sleeves left. (If you look closely the back of the neck doesn't match the fronts, since I forgot to decrease every row -- darn those "at the same time" patterns! Will just have to do some nip and tuck while I knit the button band.)

Last week we went up to North Bay for a quick get away. When I travel with the guys I don't usually stop at yarn shops since they don't have a whole lot of patience for wool or alpaca or cashmere or plies or gauge. So I squeeze in whatever I can. This time I stopped at Balls and Skeins in Sebastopol and scored some discontinued Noro from their sale bin. Blogger is not cooperating with me with formats, whenever I move the pictures around, everything gets messed up. I loaded tons of pictures on Facebook, so you'd like to see them, just friend me there! This link should take you straight to my profile.

Last night in our knitting meeting, one of the ladies showed us a piece of fabric she bought at a garage sale. It turned out to be part of a Chinese skirt from the 19th century (Qing dynasty). Look at the embroidery details! I learned a little bit of embroidery when I was a little girl, no where near this complicated.

Update to add this link. #12 is the style of skirt we saw. It's called "hundred pleat skirt". In the old days gentle ladies supposed to walk slowly in their bound feet and the skirt was not to move with their steps. 

Fronts (Almost) Done, Rascal One Year Old!

Last week I pondered whether I should rip out the top half of the back since the stitch patter was wrong, and the consensus (from Kathryn and Beth, thank you!) was that I should rip. That's what I will do. In the mean time, the right front is done and the left front is getting smaller every night. Hopefully next week I will have better pictures to show off.

Far more impress than my knitting, my son Henry played his first concert with the school Jazz band on Wednesday night. He has been playing low brass only since the beginning of this school year, and joined the band only two months ago. You can't hear him in this video, but he's the little kid sitting in the middle of the stage with the biggest horn.



Last but not least, our Rascal puppy is turning one year old today! When the rescue people picked him up off the street they estimated him to be eight to ten weeks old, and the vet gave him this birthday. We are happy to stick with it. A birthday bash is planned.

To Rip, Or Not to Rip

Project: Parker Cardigan

Pattern: Parker Cardigan by Deborah Newton, IK Spring 2009 
Yarn: Garnstudio Drops Alpaca
Needles: US Size 4

Previous entries: planning, progress1, progress2

Notes: Three weeks ago I complained about not having charts for the stitch pattern, and not being able to visualize the ribs in the upper body. I finally figured it out from a larger picture in the front part of the magazine. I've since finished the right front, and the ribs are stacked correctly. In this picture it's on the left hand side of the diagonal line - the line is a shadow but it happened to line up perfectly with the front decrease. Now the back, the right hand side in the picture, looks terrible with the mis-stacked the ribs. I'm debating if I should rip the top half. This is the part will be covered under my hair most of the time, and I'll have to redo all the arm hole and neck decreases. But I know it's wrong and it's going to burn my back when I wear it. 

In the non-knitting news, we had record rain fall in March, after years of drought. A creek close to our home overflowed and washed out part of a walking trail. We need the water, but now it's too much water everywhere! No one is in danger, not because of this creek any way, but it'll be weeks before we get our trail back.

Yesterday it started to clear up. Sun is out, flowers are blooming. This little plant survived the winter, outdoors, what a trooper!

Be sure to visit Andrea's blog Wisdom Begins in Wonder, and better yet, join Fiber Arts Friday if you are not already part of the group. This is a wonderful group of women with endless talent.