Second Verse, Same as the First

Today I’m packing. I’m delighted to say that I won’t be typing that sentence for a little while after this weekend – this last month has left me thinking that as a species, we need to be focusing on teleportation as a solution to airports. (I have a pretty big hate on for airports right now. I’m going to try and improve my relationship with the Toronto one tomorrow by doing nothing but drinking coffee and knitting in it.)  The last little bit hasn’t had much time in it for blogging, and I can’t wait until I’m home next week and that can change. This weekends trip is for a “sweater” retreat, and I will have a new sweater to wear at it, if one’s needed, which it probably won’t be, because, well…  California.  I looked at the weather for Pacific Grove this weekend, and it looks like it might be cool enough to pull it off for about 10 minutes.  Really, the sweater I just finished isn’t meant for California type weather, where I feel like a cardigan is properly the answer – something you can wear open or closed, and whip on and off in a minute.

sneakpeek 2015-04-23

This sweater – this is a big, bad, cold weather sweater.  A pullover –inspired by this one here, although I didn’t use that pattern, I didn’t use any pattern at all, actually. I just knit and knit, trying it on every so often to work out when to do what, and it fits me just the way I like it.  The wool is Greenwood Hill Farm 2ply worsted, and it is so soft, and so delicious and so lovely, that I felt like all it needed was to be a plain, good sweater. A cozy sweater, a sweater that can stand up to any amount of snow, soft and warm against the winter.  It is, of course, particularly ironic that I’ve finished it now, as spring comes properly here.

It’s everything I’d hoped, this sweater, and that means that without a blizzard bearing down on me at -40, I can’t quite remember when I was going to wear it.  No matter though, this is Canada, and winter will be back.  If I can put it on this weekend without having heat stroke I’ll try and get someone to snap a few pictures.  It’s a great sweater.

The shawl remains about 4 rows and a cast off from done, and I don’t feel any more confident about having enough yarn. I’m almost afraid to knit on it – though I do have another skein of the yarn that I could pillage for the right colour stripe if I had to, so it won’t be a terrible horrible emergency if I run out. (Just an epic pain in the arse that spoils that self-striping skein.) That alone probably means that there will be enough. The knitting fates usually only run this crap on you when you’ve got no way out. They’ve got a particularly vicious sense of humour.

I’m packing that, unless I finish tonight, but there’s something about heading out to a sweater retreat that makes me feel like I should have a sweater on the needles…

wepacasweater 2015-04-30

Maybe just a little one?  This wee thing should be knocked out pretty quick, and that’s good, because I feel a baby blanket coming on.  Time to choose a theme, and figure the math, and order LOTS of the yarn. I’ve got a baby to outrun – and there’s lots of time right now, and for once, I’d like to keep it that way. *

*That’s probably foreshadowing.