Beatnik. Finished.

Nothing like terrible weather, the month of February, and a bad cold to help one power through a complicated sweater! At the beginning of February I joined Alyson at the Sweatshop of Love for a knit-along, and it's been pretty awesome. I learned how to knit two sleeves at once - a huge brain-saver! 

The details - the pattern is Knitty's Beatnik, and I knit it with Cascade 220 on size 6 and 8 needles. 

I knit it almost completely according to the pattern, with only one mod - I knit the body in a size Medium, but after seeing how wide it was, I knit the sleeves in a size Small. I have tiny tooth-pick arms. If I had the heart to rip it out and re-knit the body in the smaller size, I would have. Instead I just blocked it aggressively and the fit turned out great!

I'm so happy with how it came out. I LOVE the collar - although knitting 4" of twisted rib is not something I'll be rushing to do again any time soon. Very wearable!

knittin' like the wind

... if the wind could knit, this is what it would look like:

Due to terrible weather and work-related stress, all I have wanted to do lately is knit (and watch Battlestar Galactica). I knit my way through the body of my Beatnik in a fury and I'm all caught up with my knit-along! I just cast on my sleeves and everything.

I was pretty excited to try it on. No matter how careful I am with my gauge and calculations, I am always afraid that my sweaters will be too small. This one looks pretty good, though, and it's a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, since it's advertised as "cropped." If anything, it's bigger than planned, and I think I'm going to make the sleeves a size smaller, since I have tiny toothpick arms.

Of course, I walk away from my knitting chair for 5 minutes, and this is what I come back to. Bunnies love knitting, too!

ThunderSnow

If you didn't hear, Chicago had a really crazy storm on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. In addition to about two feet of snow, there was thunder and lightning! After the storm was over, it was fun to watch adorable dogs frolicking in the middle of the street. 

Since I was stranded inside, I was finally able to slog through the last, outstanding Christmas present. Full breakdown on that later. So I finally cast on for my Beatnik! 

Despite the inane-ness of the twisted rib, I find it refreshing to be knitting something for ME. Yup, it's all about me, and that's why I joined the Selfish Knitalong on Allyson's blog. Let the cabling begin!