Life's a Stitch

Apologies for the delay, I'm still here, buried under grant writing deadlines. Working in the non-profit world of severe funding cuts, my job has degenerated to filling out forms – funding applications and their subsequent accountability forms. It's not as fun as it used to be. The good part? The people I work with makes it worth it. 

And I'm back from a quick trip to Edmonton to share in the excitement of a first house purchase by my daughter and her husband. We were joined by my other daughter who had just finished all her last exam for the coursework part of her Master's in Medical Physics. A lot of joy packed into that weekend. 

Two steps forward? Thanks to a cortisone shot in the wrist, I'm knitting a bit again. And of course, two recent finished projects count as forward movement. Here's one, the crocheted scarf:

Pattern: Scarlet Evening Shawl, written in Russian by Julia Michanka. It comes with an excellent chart and photos, so Russian is not a prereq. 

Yarn: Zauberball Crazy, Tropical Fish colourway, 1 skein.

Modifications: Completed 4.5 levels of squares, reserving 20 gms of yarn for the added shamrock fringe. 

Thoughts: Quick and easy enough, a perfect 450 yard sock weight project. It comes out to nearly an equilateral triangle, not my favourite shape for a shawl, but I made it small enough that folded over a bit along the top, and wrapped around the neck, it gives the look I want. Will definitely do this one again.

Two steps backwards. Does this pain you?

Before and after:

Really, it doesn't hurt me too much. I wasn't wearing the sweater as the cabled trim was too heavy and it hung all wrong. Plus I hated the seam where the trim met, right smack in the middle of the back edge. What pains me is this:

All those little teensy balls as the result of indiscriminant scissor snipping. Oops, that wasn't a seam stitch. And why is it that you end up with one less skein than you started with? The seaming couldn't have taken that much. All's well, I found the discontinued Tahki New Tweed on e-bay and it's a Mr. Greenjeans in progress. I guess that would be a Mr. Oatmealjeans.