The UFO report

I packed my bag for a weekend getaway and in it I put: Awesome Anklets , a Beautiful Baby Boy sweater, my new Colorful Cuddly Challenging Cardigan and Delayed Drapey D-.. oh, I give up.

It's a birding weekend at Bodega Bay for me & the spouse-o. We're going out on the ocean for a "pelagic birding trip" with Shearwater Journeys on Sunday, but doing a lot of relaxing on Saturday. We'll be away two nights with lots of driving - which means we need to take lots of knitting, right? These are the four UFO's I'm taking with me - A, B, C & D.

A: Anklets? well, Double Trouble socks
These socks have been languishing over the summer, but I'm glad to get back to them. They aren't *exactly* awesome anklets yet.. they are 0.5 inches short of the heel. I tried them on my friend today, so I am ready to to turn those heels this weekend. I'm afraid I don't have a single picture of these socks-in-progress.


B: Baby Boy-sweater Devan
My gift recipient left for maternity leave last Friday without a finished sweater for her baby boy. Boo! I'm very close though - just two seams and 5 buttons away from done. I've got some nasty puckering at the side seam, so I need to undo some of my painfully tiny seams and try again. The back piece has 75% as many rows as the front and I was not careful about counting 1..2..3.. skip one... 1.. 2.. 3..

C: Colorful Cuddly Toddler Jacket
Italia Fingerpaints from Plymouth is so gorgeous and fun to work with. After all our fun winding the GIANT balls on the new swift, I started this little jacket on Sunday. And I bet I've knit every portion of the sweater 4-5 times each. ARGH!

I knit the yoke part about 4 times in 2 days... then down to the bottom edge only to find a disgusting, huge, lumpy splice smack in the middle of my bindoff. And the body was too wide anyway. Wednesday night, I reknit from underarms down to bindoff at knitting meetup Wednesday and now I'm ready for sleeves.

Careful study of the photo on the pattern leaflet shows that their knitted up garments do not match the instructions. Instructions say 4 rows garter stitch, then bind off. If the first row of garter stitch is a right side row, you end up with a yucky looking bind-off edge. And if the first row of garter is a wrong side row, you end up with 3 ridges at the bottom. Photo clearly shows only 2 ridges. Since I like the bind-off edge better when it's done on the wrong side.. I reduced to just 3 rows of garter before the bind-off. This allowed me to cannibalize 2 more rows of the body for the sleeves. I'm worried because the body has taken 130 of the 200 available grams of yarn. Even with really stubby sleeves, I'm cutting it close!


D: Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater
It's delayed.. and drapey! Our knitalong at work is still proceeding, though slowly. J has been diagnosed with RSI but T is plugging along at the sleeves. So I figger it's time to push through and finish this one.

I picked up the finished body pieces last Thursday to do shoulder seams & finish the neckline with a lovely "pick up and immediately bind off" technique. This is the second time around for that neckline.. this time with 4" less body. After finishing I hung the garment up overnight and it stretched out about 2" to a total length of 30". It's supposed to be 28" long. I compared it to another tunic-length item in my closet and they're pretty close, so I may just leave it as-is. Opinions welcome!

Since last Thursday I've been working on sleeves and I'm just 4 garter ridges short of a picnic. Gotta love the sheer portions of this garment for speed. Lessee, 4 ridges, and 4 seams.. this is definitely going to be done by knitting group next Wednesday.

And with that.. I'm off for a weekend of the great outdoors. I hope the oceanic birding will be fun enough to overcome my perennial sea-sickness. Usually the sight of an albatross is enough to distract me from my nausea. So cross your fingers for albatross on Sunday!