In Which I Show Many Projects, None Of Which Are Green

Happy Halloween, folks! I hope you did something fun. We watched a few horror movies this weekend, and tonight we went out for dinner (not that that has anything to do with Halloween), then we came home and handed out candy. (We had been vaguely planning to actually Go Out and Do Something this weekend, but... well, Zak is going away again soon, an we really just wanted to hang out with each other.) Zak carved a pumpkin in about 7 minutes flat (including scooping), and we dug out some "festive" clothes, applied black eyeliner.. it was fun. Right now I'm waiting to see if any more kids come, but I think... I think we bought too much candy. Oh well.

We gave out plastic eyeballs with the candy. Zak bought about 6 packages of them at the dollar store, and over the last week or two he has come up with all kinds of cool, funny things to do with them. I think we will be well prepared next Halloween. :)

Last night I was working on a knitting project that I had neglected recently, and I thought it might be fitting to tell you about some of my projects-in-progress, since this is, nominally, a knitting blog. These are only the ones that I'm actually working on. There are other things that have been started, but which are lying forgotten in some dusty project bag somewhere... poor souls.

I have to warn you: this post may be very ugly. I am still not so experienced with this sort of layout.

First, the one that wasn't getting much love lately. This is my version of Debbie Bliss' Lara, which I reworked so that it is almost totally seamless. There will be one seam down the center back, otherwise each half will be worked from the cuff to the center. The first half is finished, and I'm about 5 inches into the second sleeve.

I'm all tickled because I figured out how to knit this without a side seam. I love how this thing is turning out. Unfortunately, I have to knit it in cotton, because it's for my sister Shawn, and she can never know the love of wool. She is really and truly allergic to animal fibers. Poor Shawn doesn't get much knitting from me, sad to say. No matter how much I love her, knitting with cotton is just not my friend.


Next up is a vest I'm knitting for Zak, using Rowanspun DK. I love wearing my Goblin sweater so much, every time I wear it I wish he could feel the pleasure of wearing a garment knit from that yarn. I'm making this one up as I go. The details so far are a horseshoe cable down the center back, and seed stitch panels at the shoulders and down the fronts. There will also be some kind of cable running up each side under the armholes, and we'll see what else...


The project closest to competion is my beautiful, beautiful cardigan in the glorious Manos that Amy gave me for Christmas/birthday last year. I am a few inches from the bottom, then I just have to make button bands and block the thing. I really, really can't wait to wear this, I keep putting it on and thinking "surely I can just wear it at this length..."


Okay, so this one is mostly green right now. But it's not all green. And it will be less green soon. It's a top-down short-sleeved raglan thing from some Kureyon that has been knit, worn to death, and ripped. I have quite a lot of Kureyon that has been through this cycle, and I'm soon going to rip 2 more Kureyon sweaters, so I'll have even more. I can't really tell you how much I love Kureyon. The top bit is from the yoke of a jacket I really did wear to death, the bottom (just started a couple of inches ago) is from a vest. Sorry for the extra-triple-crappy photo, I'll take some better ones once there's more to see.


A couple of shawls have been languishing as well. Things have been so eventful lately, I've really just wanted stockinette projects to work on. There's Sivia's Diamond Fantasy Shawl, which I started in the summer using some Schaeffer Anne that Amy gave me. I really love this shawl, and I should get back to it! Maybe it'll be the thing to work on while Zak's away, and I have uninterrupted hours with no nice-smelling man to distract me.

Then there's the Birch I started a while ago, using still more beautiful yarn from Amy, which I coincidentally put down when the aforementioned Amy sent me the beautiful Birch she had knit me. Hm. Funny how that goes. I'll pick it up again soon, I still love it and want to finish it.

There's one more project on the go, but I think I'll leave that one for now. It's another reincarnated thing, I'm quite excited about it. For now, though, I'm going to go spend some time with Zak. He's been home for almost 3 months, and it has been much more than nice to have him around for so long. Thankfully, this is only a short trip (less than 2 weeks), but I'm going to miss him.