NaKniSweMoBouBoh

NaKniSweMoBouBoh
Originally uploaded by Prairiedaun

I love this close up detail picture of the sweater I made in November.

There's cabling in the ribs, shaping in both the waist and bust, the sleeves are knit from the wrist up and joined with the body to do a yoke, there's fair isle colourwork on the yoke, decreasing, neck shaping, the whole thing is steeked (cut) up the center, there's a button band and lovely buttons sewn on.

I made this, and I feel terribly clever for doing so.


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Project specs: Bountiful Bohus, by Chrissy Gardiner. More Big Girl Knits (It's also available for free on the Canadian Living website, but the book is awesome and has more great patterns, information and tutorials.)

Yarn: (MC) Cascade 220 Heathers Cordovan, 7 balls (CC1) Cascade 220 Heathers River Rock, about .25 balls, (CC2) Cascade 220 Beige, .25 balls
Needles: KnitPicks Options 7, with a 24" and two 16" cables.
Notions: cotton thread for steeking and sewing buttons, 8 3/4" buttons

Alterations: Cast on for size larger, decreased to halfway between both sizes during the waist shaping and decreased further during set up for yoke colourwork, then continued on for smaller size. Lengthened the sleeves. Used 8 buttons instead of the suggested number.

Thoughts: If I were to do this again, I would definitely work the decreases for the waist shaping over longer repeats instead of as done, so it wouldn't do that weird bulby.saddlebags-y thing it does. I'd remove the short row bust shaping since I don't need the extra room it supposedly adds. Also, I'd work the neck for longer so it would be less boat-neck shaped.

let the needle on the compass swing

I feel kind of bad about my curling game yesterday- we won. We not only won, we throroughly spanked the other team. It was one of those games where it seemed like I could do no wrong (although there were a few things, but whatever). Like, we were up 4-1 in the 5th end and counting 4 and I had last rock and I didn't really want to run up the score any more so I put the broom down for a draw that I didn't think I'd make (I had to go out to the edges and draw behind a whole bunch of stuff in front). And I threw it thinking I didn't have a chance, and pretty much ended up on the button.

And then coming back the next end I had another perfect draw, she wrecked on a front guard and we shook hands.

Later that night I watched my favourite men's team thoroughly beat my favourite women's team. It wasn't pretty, folks. The picture in this post pretty much sums it up. I don't know if it was nerves for the second and third or what, but they really weren't playing all that well and that left the skip to both clean up the ends and try to pull ahead. When it leaves the skip shooting against a team that has Richard Hart and Glenn Howard? Damn. (At least Jones won more money than team Martin, so it's not like they just didn't show up or anything.) But it has had people talking about whether or not a women's team could beat a men's team at the top levels- the general consensus in that it could happen, but it would probably have been more likely to happen ten or more years ago. Now that teams are actually doing weight and cardio training (this is a real sport, dammit!) the men are much better at sweeping and able to affect rocks and the game, and throw so much more weight than before. The women are much stronger too, but just don't have the upper body strength of the men. Consequently, the styles of play are (generally) different- men can throw beig weight shots and control them, women tend to play draws and angles.

But I really enjoyed watching the skins game, and hope to see more women's teams playing in events like this and not just for the novelty of seeing men vs. women.

On the sweater front, I'm nearly finished the first skein of yarn (out of seven). This is a fun and (so far) easy pattern. I'm enjoying the cable pattern and the ribbing is challenging enough to keep my interested but easy enough that I can zone out a bit (or read fic online) and get a nice rhythm going.