July 06, 2004

My summer knitting has begun! Remember the Phil Ruban cotton ribbon I bought during a stash enrichment expedition back in May? Lovely caramel-colored? Well, last week I pulled it out of the stash, and started knitting a cardi with three-quarter sleeves and a lacy leaf-pattern around the neckband [pattern from Phildar été 2004], so that I could have a nice little garment to throw over my sleeveless halters and strappy tanks. Oh, how fancy!

So far, I am rolling along happily on this cardi. Last Saturday morning while running errands with my husband I took the beginnings of a sleeve and came home midway through the sleeve cap. All knit in 10-15 min spurts in the car. I've finished both sleeves and the back piece, and last night I started one of the front pieces*. It's like eating chips; I have to knit another row, and another, and another... Phil Ruban, how I love thee! And in order to keep you from missing out on any of it, here are some pictures of the sleeves as they progressed:




Note: I am using combined knitting for this cardi. I also used it when knitting my sister's poncho in this yarn. Phil Ruban is a flat cotton tape, and when I was using my regular method of knitting (knitting the knit stitches from front to back and purling the purl stitches by wrapping the yarn over), I was getting a striped effect even though my tension was even. This was happening because working the knit stitches from front to back was distorting the flat yarn, thus making my knit rows look "thin" in comparison to my purl rows. So I decided to work all my knit stitches through the back loop, and then untwist them on the wrong side by wrapping the yarn under my purl stitches. It works. [Look, Ma! No stripes!] Combined knitting rocks my socks.

P.S. The color of this yarn as my camera picks it up may show up differently on some browsers. It is copper/caramel as featured in this entry, and is the same color as the one shown in the pattern book.

*Last night I knit 50 rows of the front piece while drooling over Josh Lucas in Sweet Home Alabama, which I had never seen before. Good golly Miss Molly, let's just add Mr. Lucas to the top of my list of crushes right NOW. (Funnily enough, I saw him in A Beautiful Mind, and he did absolutely nothing for me in that movie.) But there is something about him in Sweet Home Alabama that makes me want to sit down and knit something for him. Anything! SOCKS, even. Want some socks, Josh? I'll use some US1 dpns and extra fine 4 ply. Knitted 'specially!

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