Me and Beer and Sausage

I just got an email from my friend Karen. She was my best friend when I was growing up in Banff. She has been living in Belize for a few years now and has had no access to the internet, so I haven't heard from her in quite a while. It was nice to receive the long letter.

I was looking for photos to send her and found this one of me in Germany a year or so ago. I straightened my hair for that trip. I liked the results, but it grew out with one giant kink where my hair had been plastered to my head during the self straightening process. Ya it looked really bad growing out ... note to self.

I could sure do with a vacation like that right now.

The photo is of me at an Octoberfest with my cosin Uwe and my great Aunt Christa.

Giant. Slub.

Can this be defined as a slub? Or is it just a giant rats nest? Anyways, I had to cut my skein of yarn in half to get rid of this this thus resulting in 2 more ends to weave into my sweater. I hate weaving in ends.

I have been super super super busy at work, of all the places to be busy. The type of busy where I have been at work at 8:00 at night eating pizza with the rest of the red eyed and under-slept engineering team (The rest of the art department thinks I have gone over to the dark side, become one of 'them'. An engineer. God forbid.). The type of busy where I continue to write css all through my dreams, and see the patterns in my knitting; in the half an hour of knitting I got to do in a night, as div sections. I am such a nerd (no not really).

But it's all done now, and I got such an awesome nights sleep last night. That was a lucky 2 weeks worth of work (would have been luckier if it didn't come with so much horrid overtime) ... I don't know if there will be more coming down the pipe or not.

The Seamless Saddle-Shouldered Big Sack Sweater

I'm trying to get this posted on the Zimmermania blog but not having much progress on that today so here it is.

Crappy photo on a cloudy day but here is my contribution to the lot of seamless EZ sweaters. I had completed the Big Sack sweater from S&B years ago when I was just learning the continental method of knitting. I, like many other beginners, wrapped the yarn the wrong way round on the purl rows and ended up with a very heavy sweater full of row of crossed stitches. That sweater didn't get much wear.

I decided to knit this seamless sweater with the Big Sack Sweater's cable down the front. I think it is a good match for the pattern. I also knit this sweater a few needle sizes down from the recommended gauge for the yarn I used: Ambiance by Markoma (I can't find a site for this Norwegian yarn). This made for a really slow knit, huffing all those tight stitches around the needles, but resulted in a very thick and warm fabric. Just what is needed for the damp cool springs we have here in Vancouver.

I really like EZ's patterns but her 'recipes' occasionally get to me. She comes up with a really neat solution to sweater design but then doesn't follow through all the way. For instance she spells out the pattern so you can knit the sweater in the yarn you choose, for a size that fits just you, all in percentages, which is great. But then you come across a line in her recipe that says "Now knit 10 more rounds." Who's 10 rounds? Your 10 rounds? My 10 rounds? If anyone else was irked by this I figured out that these 10 rounds equal out to knitting up (ssk's and k2tog's at the shoulder decreases as before) 20% of the stitches you cast on for the body. At least I think that is correct, it worked for me. This equaled only 6 rounds for me at my gauge/wool combo.

Also, I would definitely do this sweater from the top down if there is a next time. I had to back track and knit 3 more inches to the body after being nearly completed the first time or I would have ended up with a belly sweater. Yuck. Its not so easy to guess how long the body should be before hand.

Anyways, I digress. I am pretty happy with the sweater, and once I have finished seaming up the other arm pit and sewing down the inside collar, it will be ready for Spring!

I'm Back. Sort of. It's a mess back here. I need to get on that ...

I took this photo on the way to my knit night meetup. I love foggy mornings and nights. I love my knit nights too.