Yarn Along: Cowls and Rivels

It feels funny to post a photo about a wool cowl in May, and indeed, these photos were taken two weeks ago when it was still chilly out.  The weather has spring-ed up quite a bit, so I'm definitely not wearing my heavy wools right now.

Nonetheless, a cowl for the knitting.  It was just a simple cowl, knit twice because I made it too small the firs time.  50 stitches on size 10 needles, knit to the end of the ball and then seamed up the middle.  I should block it to stretch it a bit, but otherwise, I like it for this dress.  (I am actually wearing this dress today, but without a sweater or cowl, and with bare legs and red keds!)

I also finished the two dresses I had on my docket for the girls' warm weather clothes.  (The other was Ponchik's birthday dress, which I can photograph on her birthday later this month).

I love this fabric so much I actually bought some for myself, but ended up returning it as I wasn't sure it went with my complexion or suited my style.  I keep thinking about it, though.

In other news, I finished the back of my Rivel cardigan.  I worried that it was going to be very small, but blocking seems to have helped.  The trouble with the pattern is that it calls for 1-2" of positive ease, but there are 4" between pattern sizes, so in order to get any ease, I would have to go up 4" in size which always looks sloppy on me.  I decided to go with a zero ease size and hope for the best.  I cast on one of the fronts over the weekend.  I'm pretty happy with the shaping at the top of this one--I think I finally get short rows.  I've done them before, but I didn't really understand what I was doing.  I found a couple of youtube videos that were super clear and now I think I get it.  Bring on the short rows!

The kids and I drove to the central part of the state on Saturday to spend the day with some dear friends of mine from Russia days.  The kids all had a blast together running around outside, running races, making plays, looking at the chickens, and picking flowers for crowns.  I had a great day catching up with my friends and knitting.  I admit I'm a bit worse for wear after all the driving (we also drive an hour and back to church every Sunday, so that was on top of the trip on Saturday) and am glad to have a quiet day today.

This month kind of feels like All The Things and I've been running on fumes since late March.  I've also hit a particularly tough section on the novel so there's that.  I keep trying to write around the hard bits, but I'm going to have to tackle them for realz before too long.  And since you didn't ask, I will say: I have a craptastic mostly-complete first draft that is all in pieces that need to be stitched together.  So this is the hard part, the stitching and editing and the second guessing.

But do you want to hear something strange?  I love these characters. I find myself wanting to go for a walk with one of them, to have a chat about life.  Is that strange?  Probably.  I never said I was normal. 

I'm pretty much through my sewing queue for now, and while I'm trying to do Me-Made-May, I'm not doing a good job of documenting it.  It's just one more thing this year.  Also: I look at the pictures I have taken and I'm like ACK! Who stole my face?

My reading list is painfully brief as I'm not reading much right now.  I started Marilynne Robinson's Lila last month, but haven't made much progress on it since reading the first third or so.  I am nearly done with Rodney Stark's book, but can't quite cross the finish line on it, and I have an advance copy of Eugene Vodolozkin's new novel (out later this month) that I've not even cracked since it arrived in the middle of post-Pascha madness.  I am still in the middle of the second Red Sparrow book as I put it aside for Lent and haven't picked it up again since.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!