April 18, 2005

Now this is the kind of weather that makes one say, "Yep. Better stay inside on Sunday and do nothing other than make pancakes, watch Tootsie and Jumping Jack Flash on DVD and knit the Popcorn Jacket." So I did. See?




I love it when I get to the sleeve cap shaping on sleeves for set-in armholes, mostly because i) I know I'm almost done with the sleeve, and ii) I get a kick from seeing that little cap get rounded through decreases or bind-offs. (I know, I'm easily amused.) In this case the sleeve cap is shaped through gradual bind-offs. I thought I'd have to cut and weave the ends for color changes (as that's what I usually do when I have to decrease or bind-off several stitches at once) but I decided to just go ahead and keep on carrying the yarns up the edge because, to be honest, I was just too lazy to cut in and weave in ANY ends at all. The yarns were carried up the right edge (shown in the photo above), and hey! The edge looks pretty neat, if I say so myself. The secret is to not pull the yarns too tightly and to carry them as you bind-off (I stranded them in the manner of color knitting as I bound off so that there wouldn't be any loose yarns at the edge).

But that's not all! I finished both sleeves, one after the other [click here to see both sleeves], and then I cast-on for the back piece. It's the tufty popcorn-y goodness of this jacket, I tell you. It makes me want to keep knitting. Plus, I want to wear the jacket already. And if the rainy weather continues for just a little while longer, I might be able to.

In Sweet Tooth news, I had a reward for myself for not procrastinating with the sleeves of the Popcorn Jacket:




A box of nuts and chews from See's Candies and some posh Bollicina cashmere/silk yarn! Evelyn thoughtfully sent this to me last week and I kid you not when I tell you that all that is left of those nuts and chews is the photo you see above because - get ready for this - they've already been eaten. Tee hee!

*I took this shot while riding in the car [NO, I wasn't driving] over the bridge on the way back from Tassin, where I take a dance class on Saturday mornings. The buildings in front are mostly restaurants, and the one on the far right is a Chinese restaurant that has the best spring rolls I've ever eaten. Once, two years ago, I jokingly told my husband that for my birthday I wanted 35 (yes, THIRTY-FIVE) spring rolls from that restaurant. I was joking, really I was. Well, on my birthday my husband came home with all thirty-five of those rolls! I feel like popping an alka-seltzer just thinking about it. But mmm, boy.

P.S. Wait! There's more! I just put up a new eighties-inspired design for this site. (Stuck in the eighties? Like, TOTALLY.) Check out the skin here. (I know, I know. I was four months late in getting the yearly design up; skinnyrabbit.com turned 4 years old back in January.)

Big thank you to Theresa for browser checking, and to Nikki (longtime friend and queen of clean css layouts) for cross-browser and platform checking and for going in and looking at my css without laughing. If you have a problem loading the new skin, make sure cookies are enabled, clear your cache, hit refresh or open a new browser window.

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