Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Too Much To Blog About

... and no photos. Matt has the camera someplace and I have no idea where.

It was one of those weird, busy, happy, disappointing weekends. Something for everyone!

Knitting content first:

I got a zipper for the Ribby Cardigan, and it's "okay". However, the back raglan shaping is too long, and folds right at the neck. I thought it was because of my body, but it doesn't it on my dress form and or on Matt. I thought as I was knitting it, the raglan shaping seemed really "deep", and it was. Oh well, it's a good knock around sweater, which is what I wanted (hence the easy care yarn). I think if I knit it again, there will be a lot of changes: the sleeves will move to a 3 X 1 rib and I'll change the raglan shaping to compensate for that extra fabric.

I finished up the Jamacian drawstring bag from One Skein Wonders. It's cute and I do want to line it. I'm going turn it into a jewlery bag, so I'll do a row of interior pockets.

I started swatching for a new project. The Half Linen Stitch cardigan from the XRX Jackets book. I'm using some Brooks Fiber Farm yarn from my purchases at last years Knitting Guild Conference. I only had 2 skeins, so I'm calling it close on the jacket. So I swatched the left front and the first sleeve and weighed them. I then weighed the rest of the yarn, did a little math, and I "should" be okay. Just to make sure I went ahead and swatched the second sleeve (heehee). I'll start swatching the back today. I do know that I'll never get a good picture of this cardigan. The yarn is absolutely beautiful and the half linen stitch shows it off beautifully (plus the half linen stitch is a lot of fun to knit).

The Inspired V cabled pullover in Katia Bamboo is really hard on my hands. The yarn is lovely, but I have to watch how much I work on it (which is why I tried to take a recovery day... Thursday night after knitting so much on it made my hands really sore). So I'll try to work a few rows in at a time, but no marathon knitting on it!

Racing update:

Matt raced in the first race of the season on Saturday. This year the goal is to be more "team focused" and less individual focused. Most of the guys have upgraded to cat 3 (with a few 4's that will upgrade in a couple of races). So they're going to try to do more team strategies rather than individual wins. Jim is the strongest rider in the group, and the team was going to try to get him the win. However, Jim was sick... (and still is), and didn't race. Sort threw the strategy off. So they changed tactics a bit and still had a decent day. Matt finished 5th and Tim finished 6th. Matt was surprised... he wasn't really expecting a top 10 finish. He's not in top form yet, and again, he was expecting to work for Jim.

The drawback of these early spring races is that I do think it's lowering the immune system. Jim is sick, and Matt started feeling horrible on Sunday (after the morning recovery ride of course). Well, we had tickets to go see Floyd Landis in Ephrata on Sunday and about 4:00 (just as I was starting to get ready) he announces that he's too sick to go. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I think at this point I'm going to have to assume that all weekend activities that aren't directly related to a race will have to be postponed (or cancelled or not even planned) until the fall when racing season is over. He can't do anything other than race it seems (hmmm... am I bitter?).

Today I'll be hunting down my camera and swatching the back of the Half Linen stitch jacket.

Keep On Knittin'!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:52 AM

    Wow, Matt must really have felt sick if he didn't go see Floyd. Hope he is better now. Looking forward to photos of all those projects. I love the look of linen stitch and will someday knit something using it.

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  2. I'm sorry to hear the Ribby Cardigan is giving you problems. I hope the new linen knits will work out better!

    You must have been so disappointed not to see Floyd. I'm sorry Matt was sick and hopefully he's feeling better. Chris did pretty well (2nd place), and we went for a fun ride together with the cycling club on the following day. Then we took a long nap Sunday afternoon, LOL.

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