Monday, October 22, 2007

Tis the season.

What season, you ask? THE SEASON OF SWEATERS!! (Jumpers. Whatever. It's autumn in the northern hemisphere.)

The weather is finally cooling off enough to warrant unpacking the wool. Today, with delight, I pulled one on and took a lovely, toasty-warm nap while the Goober was taking hers. Wonderful. I was wearing this one:

It's a regular old pullover knit with Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride worsted. This is one of those standards; every time I put it on, I think I should knit ten or twenty more of them in different colors.

I can also tell the weather's cooling off, because now Sekhmet wants to crawl inside my clothes at every opportunity. Here she is in my bath robe:

...yes, I look like I'm ten months pregnant with a cat.

And here she is, trying to climb into my pants leg. (Yeah, that'll work.)


Occasionally, when I'm not around to lay on, she will lower herself to laying on the pile of wool blankies I've knit and assembled for her. That's all Australian merino she's laying on; the blue is felted, the brown on top is a loose garter stitch. (No, Bells, I did not use any of the wonderful yarn you sent me for the cat. I'm saving it for ME. Or maybe the Goober.)



I'm almost up to the arm pits on the Russian Prime. It's a good thing I'm not planning on giving it away, after all; I took it off the needles the other night and measured it. It's four inches smaller than it was supposed to be. It'll still fit me, but it wouldn't fit my mother-in-law.

With this sweater, I feel like I'm returning to my roots. My first color-stranded sweater I ever knit was the Chainmail Sweater from Knitter's Almanac, by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I did it in wool, and I was excited and pleased with the pattern, watching it develop as I knit. It's the same with the new one, designed by EZ's daughter, Meg Swansen. As I knit, I think "Oh yes, I remember this." and am pleased all over again with the idea of taking string and sticks and making a garment with nothing else but my own cleverness.

Knitting good.

5 comments:

Donna Lee said...

My cats will not sit on me in our un-airconditioned house all summer. But as soon as the temp dips, on they come. Even Hobbes, the anti-social cat. He will sit near enough to suck up my body heat.

Amy Lane said...

Wow... I'm all snuggly just looking at the pictures!!! And jealous about the knitting time, too...

Bells said...

so what is the pattern you used for that two coloured jumper? I really like that and need some basic stuff, I reckon.

Pregnant with a cat. he he.

Alwen said...

In our house it goes from open windows and t-shirt weather to "fire up the soapstone stone until it's 97 degrees in here" weather.

Why a man who sweats and turns on the air conditioning at 77 degrees stokes the woodstove like it was a steamship boiler all winter, I'll never understand.

All I know is, a lot of the time in the winter I'm laying on the concrete floor in a t-shirt because it's cooler near the floor, and if I stood up I'd pass out from the heat.

Sheesh.

debsnm said...

Since no one will wear what I knit except me (Oh, how lovely! I'll save it for "nice" -EEEEESH!!)
The best part of knitting for me is watching it develop - the pattern when doing cables or color work, or the differences produced by varigated yarn, etc. It's the motivation to finish. When I'm done with a project, and cut that final string, I feel like I've liberated it - almost like cutting the umbilical cord.