Frosting & WIP's

What? Whipped frosting? No thanks, I had enough sweets over the holidays. I'll never get enough of this, though. Snow blew in at about 4:30 this morning--very sideways, as you can see. There's not much, and the sun is shining, so it'll probably all melt today. We might get more this afternoon, and then we don't seem to be getting any rain for awhile. That'll be really nice--we've had more than our share lately.

As for WIP's, the works in progress at the moment are...

Mom, make sure you're sitting down!
Your sweater coat!

I'm about 5 inches up the body of it. See, during a visit from Mom in September 2003 she and I went to Lamb's Ear and she picked out this lovely Plymouth Encore Colorspun in color 7122 and asked me to make her a coat. Well, I got too busy and packed the 16 skeins away. Since this is sweater year, and it's about darn time, whatever other sweater I am working on this year, the Mimi sweater will be right alongside. Maybe I'll get it done for her by next fall! Also, I can show you the progress, because this is not one I'll be writing up. I'm just gonna have fun with it. As you can see, I settled on a seed stitch border with an overall kind of seed stitch and large cable mix. I'll show a better picture of the stitch pattern when I get more done.

The little peek of solid purple is the Figheadh sweater I am working on. I started the plans for this sweater last year when my aunt Sara turned 80. Big milestone, so I'm doing this design in her honor. It's going to be an Aran jacket with a combination of three braid cables. I am making this sample in Cascade Pastaza, color 017. Fun! Here's a better picture of both.

Sorry, the Colorspun label whited itself out, but you see the yarn in the pre-knit stage. I don't usually like knitting with mostly acrylic yarn (75% acrylic, 25% wool), but this is fun--as long as I keep it on these size 9 Susan Bates aluminum needles. This yarn did not like my bamboo needles.

As for the Pastaza--pure heaven. Bulky llama and wool on size 10.5's because of the heavy cabling.

I was going to work on Isobel next, a cardigan with one overall cable stitch in Eco Wool, but Sara just nudged herself up to first place. Even though I love Eco, I need a little break from it. Both the pullover hoodies last year were in that yarn.

Also, today is grandson Preston's fifth birthday, and I sent him some little books, the red Raibeart, and the little cotton number I alluded to in this post. I used Lion Brand Lion Cotton to make a blue and green body, one yellow sleeve , and one red sleeve. I put a little Argylish pattern on the chest in duplicate stitch to tie all the colors together. It's one I started a couple of years ago and finally finished, probably just in time for him to wear it for a couple of months until hot weather hits in Alabama. I didn't get a good picture of it all alone before I had to ship it off! Hopefully, Jessica will get a picture of both sweaters on Preston. I'm crossing my fingers that they fit, even though I just got an update on his measurements over the holidays. It's hard to knit ahead of his growing body!

See ya next time for more progress pics! Here's to winter's beauty--in snow and in yarn!