Just a little thing

Friends of mine had their first baby not too long ago. I managed to stay focused on a single project long enough to whip up this adorable striped sweater. The pattern is Elwood. The yarn is Lion Brand Heartland. I was attracted to the yarn by the colors and the fact that it is washable.

I misread the pattern and included the back-of-neck shortrows. I'm hoping this will just make the back a bit longer in length when Ezra is wearing it.  I modified the collar as I thought the original number of shortrows made the collar too wide relative to the button band width. I also knit the collar and button bands on the larger needle size as the smaller needle (what the pattern recommended) caused the button band to draw in too much and distorted the sweater fronts.

I now really want a shawl collared cardigan for myself. I have plans to make myself Nancy Marchant's Book Exchange Cardigan in the near future.

Recent Travel Knitting
I managed to finish two socks (from two different pairs) while on my last trip. It amounted to two half-socks worth of knitting. I now have completed Java Socks in Shibui Sock and have the first of the Leonore socks in Colinette Jitterbug. I have not yet cast on the second sock of that pair.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I went to Jamestown and Williamsburg. I started a simple garter stitch cardigan to keep my hands occupied while riding in the car and walking around seeing the sights. I got about halfway up the body before having to put it aside for a work trip. It is good mindless knitting (as long as I remember the increases and decreases) and therefore good for evenings at home after long days at work. The pattern is Everybody Knows. I'm using Plymouth Yarns Mushishi, which I purchased back at Needleworks in Urbana when I headed off to my first post-PhD job. It's a nice wool-silk blend and it is knitting up beautifully.

Holiday Knitting Plans
I'll be taking several extra days off work in the coming weeks. My intention is to kick my half marathon training up a notch and also to hammer my way through my knitting and NetFlix queues.