What a week!

It is a historic day, at least at my house.  A rare event has occurred.  The last time it happened was possibly at least seven months ago, and goodness knows when it may happen again.

My friends, I have finished a project.

...

I know.  Me, too.  Stunned.  I have to wash it still, so perhaps not fully done.  I may be penalized for technically lying to you all...and I have to do a teensy bit of grafting to be truly, absolutely done, but really, I'm done.  Honest!!  Oh, and block it...

Anyone else getting reminded of a particular Monty Python sketch?

It's done entirely in Cascade 220 wool, and it's a fair isle yoke pullover à la Elizabeth Zimmermann and The Knitting Workshop.

It's a lot of firsts for me...first pullover, first Fair Isle, first time not following a pattern, first time something I've knit didn't ferment in the "unfinished project" pile, first time using the EPS whirlygig, first time I've knit something for myself that I didn't immediately start tugging and pulling on various parts to make it "fit better".  I did a swatch, got gauge, and then set to measuring myself and figuring out how many stitches to cast on, and the EPS formula did the rest.  And it fits!!! 

It's about 12am in this shot...not exactly my most glamorous time of the day.



I don't know about other knitters, maybe they're serene and confident the entire time they're knitting, but when I was knitting along, as I got further up, the more I became nervous about whether or not this would be a complete disaster of a knit.  One downside to a bottom-up sweater is that you can't shimmy into it to check the fit.  It's a total leap of faith the entire time.  Doing the Fair Isle, I stuck strictly to what wool I had in my stash.  It was a bit more colorful than I expected, and I was a little more worried that I would look like an Easter egg on drugs from the armpits up.  It seems to be all right, though. I modeled it for my son and my husband, and neither of them would lie to my face and say it was pretty if it wasn't, and no one dropped to the floor and had convulsions from the colors.  I'd say that counts as a success. 

I've also been making some fingerless mitts, using the Funky Chunky Mitts pattern I like so much.  I got some Plymouth yarn...and I've lost the label (de l'Air???), but the merino yarn looks really cool even before you knit it up.  Check it out:



I love how fall leaves make any picture look super pretty.

These mitts are a thank you note to someone who gave me a quite a pleasant surprise last week.  Unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine had signed me up for a sort of nationwide secret Santa.  So I received a big box in the mail last week with all sorts of goodies for my family all the way from Washington state!  I'm supposed to pay it forward, and I will, but I just have to give something back to my  extremely thoughtful secret Santa. 

And that's about it for me this week.  I had hoped to be finished with Steve's sweater as well, but that's going to be my goal for this next week.  I'll be steeking with the best of them, and taking lots of pictures to show here!  See you then!