Good Weekend Knitting

Well, except for having to rip out all of the weekend's fair isle work this morning, I had a great weekend of knitting. I made a lot of progress and even fixed up the fair isle again, so it was still forward progress.

First, Nancy's comment came while I was writing the previous entry, so I didn't mean not to respond, I just hadn't seen it yet. About putting a row of purl stitches at the hemline to make a nice border for the hem. Well, yeah, the pattern does say that, actually. The pattern is written for flat knitting, despite the fair isle, and I'm working it around. It says to knit two rows... so I did...
I'll do it "right" on the cuffs and neck. I'm hoping that a little bit of steaming in the end will help that, too.

My color palette for the fair isle is a little different than what's in the pattern.

Clockwise from back row, left: blue, cream, darker purple, lighter purple, oatmeal, pink

The original pattern had red and pink for the tips of the fair isle, but I used the purples instead. I therefore had an extra color (the pink) and decided to use that for the contrasting hem. The original used the main color in the middle of the fair isle pattern, but I decided to use the pink again instead, partly because I figured I might as well use it if I had it and that it would blend better with the other colors than in the pattern. If you don't mind scrolling back down to the previous entry (bandwidth conservation!), you can see the result. I think it's adorable. (And thank you very much to my mom, Judy at theknitter.com, for pulling out all of her colors and making a great choice choice for me!)

The fair isle is now correct, or whatever I knit is now defined as correct. On the first pass I also noticed that I made a small but consistent error in one row near the bottom of the fair isle and decided that I'd do it again and make it a design element. The blue squares between the stars should be closer to diamonds, but I like it just fine this way, and I sure don't want to rip out even more, so it's staying.

So when I wasn't ripping and reknitting my fair isle, I made progress on some other projects. On my aunt's socks I turned the heel and started working the gusset. I picked up the baby sweater and knit the other button band, so now I need to do the embroidery and then seam it. I got out Mist and made it to the arm hole on the left front. I love the fabric I'm getting and I'm looking forward to having this sweater. Long sleeves mean there's still plenty of work to do, but I like the rhythm of the seed stitch so it's all good. This afternoon I got a crochet lesson at Knitsmiths, and spent the entire three hours finishing up the straps for the lingerie. I just have to sew them onto the back and get the buttons in the right place, and then it will be done!

I'm looking forward to finishing up a few things. I've been felling a little spread, like I have too much going and I'm not making progress on anything. It's a comin'...

And here's Sundae, still not telling about that ball of yarn, but looking pretty sly, don't you think?