Friday, May 27, 2016

Flat sweater

Usually I knit after my girls are tucked in bed and while I watch TV with my husband and unwind. It gets me roughly an hour sometimes less depending. It means projects go slow.

Rare is it that I knit during the day. Maybe I feel it is too decadent to sit in the middle of my (usually) messy house and take time for just me. I do knit when kids are home sick, while they sleep the fitful fevered sleep that only sick kids manage to pull off.

I also knit in public--ball games, waiting rooms. I never feel self-concious about it. In fact, I've never understood why I should. I mean I get that if I am in a meeting and presumably you are paying me to sit in that meeting and be bored out of my skull that I maybe should feel a tad bit self-conscious pulling out my knitting. But at a baseball game? (Now watch I'll be in one of those news clips where somebody throws an arm out in front of my face to stop a fly ball from hitting me and like that poor kid on his phone the internet will chastise me--we do usually sit behind the net though) No.

But lately, we've not been watching TV. Almost 2 weeks ago my MIL had an acute attack of pancreatitis and we've been hospital sitting ever since. She is getting better, but man your pancreas is like Bruce Banner--mild mannered until it gets angry and becomes HULK SMASH!!!

We've settled into a new routine now and so for the last week, I go in for a couple hours and sit and chat if she feels like it and don't if she doesn't and basically I am just THERE for whatever while my husband takes a break from his constant vigilance in this regard. This is why I married him BTW--He is totally the guy who drops everything to be at your bedside. And during this time, I knit.

Specifically, I've been working on the central park hoodie I started for my daughter. More specifically--the last sleeve. Now, when I started the sleeves, I was at book club and every single lady there told me that when they do sleeves, they do both at once so they turn out the same size. And honestly, I do worry about that. Mostly though I was worried about the increases being sort of even, and keeping track of where I was. So I made a chart:

Keeping track of the sleeves

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

This has turned into a godsend, because I have carted this page with the sleeve back and forth in my purse to the hospital and I always know which row to increase on!

I've been there enough that today I took the other sleeve so I could get the sleeve caps even. (and we won't discuss how I dragged the whole sweater there, just in case I finished--I didn't).

So that's the story of how I managed to go from the last entry Where I only had part of the ribbing--to today when I only have the sleeve cap left to knit:

Flat sweater

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

Discharge is soon, but rehab comes next and so I'm guessing we have lots more waiting. Of course we hit 80 degrees Tuesday and have had 80 degree days every day since. Still, nights can be chilly. Plus we still have several baseball games to shiver through.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Lazy update

Progress continues on the cream sweater. In fact, I am so lazy I didn't want to set it all up for a photo shoot and instead, just sort of snapped it in it's natural habitat.

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What you see there is a back, both fronts AND a sleeve. That sort of makes me feel like I am NEARLY done. But it also forgets finishing the other sleeve, sewing it all together, and adding a buttonband AND hood. Good thing it snowed yesterday! (Didn't stick but STILL).

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Still so much sleeve to knit....

I have been taking this every where I go, and that usually is a bad thing when you have a sleeve (increase every X rows Y times!), so this time, I made a chart of which row numbers to increase on. And when I took it to the ball park for our first (really cold) game of the year I improvised.

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I did end up with 3 too many stitches at the end, but in the interests of finishing, well I just bound off instead of trying to "fix" it.

The other project that is progressing is our caterpillar project. You do remember the caterpillars right? Well the cocoons have been in a tank in the garage over the winter. And last week I moved it outside in case sun was the deciding factor. No action yet, but I understand May is their month.

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