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Happy Knitting!

Zora Sweater

It's been a busy summer! I have several finished objects to show you, but for this post I'm going to focus on the major one, my mom's sweater!

Pattern: Zora from Knitty : Winter 2009
Yarn: Newton's Yarn Country 100% NZ Merino (double stranded)
Needles: US 3
Size made: Medium (42.75)
Started: March 11, 2010
Finished: June 17, 2010

The yarn was bought at Stitches South - last year! Mom picked it out for me to make a sweater for her - and she had picked out a pattern at Stitches as well, but that pattern did not work out at all. (It was badly written, and badly designed.) So that attempt was frogged, and the yarn sat for a few months while I decided what would be best - and then I saw the Zora pattern - perfect!

The yarn is really closer to a lace weight, so I double stranded it to get gauge (and an added bonus is that it really helped the colors to not pool or flash!)

Modifications:

1. I didn't start the lace until after the turned hem - the pattern has you start the lace right after the turning row, but I didn't like the look of that.

2. I knit the bottom portion with no seams and then split for the two fronts and the back at the start of the armhole decreases. I really hate seaming sweater sides. I also knit the sleeves in the round - I hate seaming sleeves, too. :-)

That was it for modifications! It's a very well written pattern, and it turned out beautifully.

It's designed to be an oversized, comfy sweater, with lots of positive ease. It'll be nice and cozy when the weather turns colder (which is very hard to imagine right now in this summer heat!) Hopefully my mom will like it! I'm sure she will, but I almost wish she'll hate it just so I can keep it for myself!! :-)

Happy Knitting!!

Mickey Mouse!

(Me and the family at the Magic Kingdom)

We took a vacation to Walt Disney World last week. It was the boys' first time. I don't have much knitting to show you in this post, but I did get quite a bit of knitting done on my mom's sweater during the 9.5 hour drive each way:

(Mickey nails!)

We all had a blast. We woke the boys up early Thursday morning, hit the road by 7am, and drove straight down, with really very few stops along the way. We got to Orlando by 4:30pm. We had to wait for our room to be ready (they dropped the ball on that one!) but we had plenty of time to explore around the hotel, giftshops and pools. Friday was spent driving over to near Tampa to visit with my grandmother (she's 88 and still hanging in there!) and take her out to lunch. Then we headed back to Disney to meet my in-laws for dinner at Downtown Disney.

(My grandma!)

Saturday morning started with a wake up call from Stitch, and we did the Cafe Mickey Character breakfast where the boys got to meet Mickey, Minnie and the gang up close and personal. Then pretty much the entire day was spent at the Magic Kingdom, including the 10pm fireworks at Cinderella's castle. I'll tell you what, I got quite teary eyed holding up my youngest and watching those fireworks with my boys, seeing how captivated they were with it all. sniff

(Alice, wondering if the boys are Tweedledee and Tweedledum)

Sunday was split between Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The Toy Story ride in Hollywood Studios is AWESOME! We got the boys passports in Epcot, and they loved getting them stamped and signed at each country. We also saw some of the Chubby Checker concert there - boy can he still rock it!

(Chubby Checker)

Then we hit the road for home on Monday. Overall it was a fantastic trip, but over way too soon! Although, my feet took a few days to recover from all the walking we did! The only downside to the whole trip was getting home and realizing we left my youngest's blankie in the hotel room. :-( Lost and Found doesn't have it yet, but we keep checking. We're hoping it turns up in a few days once all the laundry has been sorted through, but I hate to get my hopes up. We'll see.


Now I'm just trying to get back in the swing of things. I'm hoping to have some good stuff to show you in a week or two. In the meantime - Happy Knitting!

Stitches South

I spent this last weekend in Atlanta for Stitches South 2010. I stayed with my parents (who live south of Atlanta) - which is better than a hotel, since not only do I save on lodging, but I get to hang out with them and watch Dr. Who! :-)

First off, I won the "What will you be Wearing?" contest that Kimberly, aka Somebunnyslove, was running leading up to Stitches. I posted my two Aeolian shawls, and my blue one won! So I got two tickets to the Friday night Fashion Show and Dinner. There were some lovely and unique sweaters that I saw at the Fashion show - many of them upcoming in the summer edition of Knitters Magazine. And a couple of them from 'Swing Swagger Style', among some others. The dinner was nice - the food was quite tasty (steak! and the dessert was to die for!) and the wait staff provided some humor (if you were at my table then you know what I'm talking about!). It was a very nice evening - I was very happy to have won the tickets and to meet Kimberly!

Then Saturday was the Marketplace - I overdosed on yarn fumes! It was fantastic. I ran into several of my Charlotte Knitting Guild friends on Saturday, too. I ended up only going a little bit over my budget:

(The Haul)

My first purchase (made within my first 10 minutes of being at the Marketplace!) was a sweater's quantity of The Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga! in the color 'Polyphemus Moth'. It was my only pre-planned purchase - I wanted to see the colors in person before I bought a sweater's quantity, and I fell in love with the pale, peachy browns in these:

(Bugga!!! The photo really doesn't do it justice.)

I then swung by The Knit Witch's booth and walked away with one skein of Boo! in 'Misty Moor' (the green one) and one skein of Celestial Cloud in 'The Crab' (the brownish one), plus some just scrumptious fluffy and soft Merino/Bamboo roving in the color 'Babylon' - I can't wait to spin it up!

(My purchases from the Knit Witch.)

I also swung by Dragonfly Fiber's booth, and got one skein of Djinni sock in 'Spring in Washington' (the pink one) and one skein of Naiad sock in 'Bad Moon Rising' (the awesome copper/bronze/blue one)-

On top of all that, I picked up a couple of heavily discounted bags of SWTC yarn, a shawl stick, some highlighter tape, some nail polish pens, and my mom got me the honey jade Purdy Thangz shawl pin as an early birthday present. I bought the girl scout cookies to distract my husband from all the other stuff I bought. hee hee!

Lots of great memories. I knitted a bit on The Big Sock, and got to meet Jess!

(Jess, aka frecklegirl, founder of Ravelry - and her husband, Casey, is behind me)

After an awesome lunch at The Real Chow Baby restaurant, my mom and I swung by my brother's place to visit with my nephew. He's gotten so big!

(Look at those feetsies!)

Overall, a fantastic weekend vacation! I had a lovely time with my mom, and looking at all the fantastic yarn and fiber. Now to just save up some more money before SAFF! :-D

Happy Knitting everyone!