Moving on

Now that Crappy Cardi is done, I've been rifling through my patterns to get another big project going. For myself. I should be knitting hats for my boys & I, and I could even knit the kids a couple of sweaters, but I'm not in the mood. I want more for ME!

So, I've actually been doing a lot of web-surfing lately, and I've found and bought a few PDF patterns to download. The most famous of which is the Ribby Cardi. I started it today...

Needless to say, this is a FAST knit! I've been knitting on it all day while watching TV, and in between cleaning the house & playing with the kids, and discovered that I can do the simple 2x2 ribbing pattern on auto-pilot. It kind of surprised me when I realized what I was doing, but it makes me feel like a real "Knitter" in Harlot-speak. I mean, come on, if being able to knit a pattern (a basic pattern, yes, but a pattern nonetheless) without looking AND without thinking doesn't constitute "Knitter" status, I'm not sure what would. I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but I think it's really cool I can do that. That's like Meg Swansen-level knitting. I'm pretty proud! :-)

So, anyway, the sleeve is to the point where I need to start shaping for the armholes, but I need to get another ball of yarn, so I figured it's a good stopping place for today. I also figured that since I have 3 other sweaters which would be done except that I have not knitted them sleeves, I'd start with the sleeves FIRST on this one. Sounds fool-proof, right? We shall see.

On a fun note, I stumbled upon cafe press. They have got some AWESOME stuff for knitters. Just type in "knitting" in the search bar, and you'll be busy for hours looking at the cute & clever stuff knitters have dreamed up. I saw a shirt with the caption "Life's short...knit fast", and I loved it, but I wasn't crazy about the graphic. So I drew a yarnball, designed my own graphic, and ordered some items with it on them.




Cute, huh? I'm really happy with how it turned out. I also ordered a tank top & junior t-shirt, but those are already needing to be washed, so you'll get a pic later. I'm half-tempted to get the yarn-ball tattooed on me somewhere. I'm actually thinking of getting my Symphony tatted on the top of a foot (appropro for the treadling, no?), but my employer has a strict "no visible tattoos" policy, so I'd be having to stick a band-aid on my foot for the rest of my working life. I'm still mulling over the possibilities.

Speaking of possibilities, I was browsing through Claudia's Blog again, and noted a link entitled "Mariah" in her side bar. So I clicked it, and found out that I absolutely HAVE to knit this cardigan!! Of course, this realization came after I had completed about 3/4 of the sleeve for Ribby Cardi. So, Mariah is NEXT.