What a Lightweight

Drumroll, please....another finished object!  I've been working on this sweater since the late summer/early fall, and while it is an easy pattern, it is also kind of boring.  

Miles and miles of stockinette in the round, with thin yarn on small needles.  It felt like the never-ending sweater.  

The sleeves went quicker than I expected (helped immeasurably by knitting through a few exciting basketball games at my kids' school!) and this baby is off needles and blocked.  It was quite cold the day I wore it, and while I had silk long underwear underneath, I wouldn't say it was the warmest thing for that day, but I think it will do nicely for the slightly-warmer-but-still-cold days ahead.

I used the Cloudborn fingering weight yarn for this one, even though it was lighter than the pattern called for, but I wanted something quite light.  I like the little cowl on it, as it is just a little something around the neck, but not stifling or constricting.  Maybe I'm just reliving the late 1990s or something, but I've been digging turtlenecks again this winter, as they give me a light layer around my neck for warmth, but don't put me in hot-flash danger like a full on scarf.

Nothing much to note, as I've made this pattern before.  I made the body shorter than the pattern calls for, but less short than my last iteration.  ~12" seems to be a sweet spot for me at the moment.  Long enough for skirts, but still short enough to look good with dresses.  I think it probably looks better tucked in, but I prefer it untucked, so whatever.  It's fine, everything's fine.

In other news, I started an Alpenglow, restarted the thing three times because I wasn't getting the yoke increases right (the LL1 increase is so confusing at first!  I get it now, but man...annoying). 

But on the third go, at the third yoke increases, I decided to frog the thing as I wasn't liking the color combo.  The gray/pink/cranberry worked well but that darker pink just seemed off to me.  It's a pretty intense sweater color-wise, so I knew if I didn't like it at this point, it wasn't going to improve with further knitting.  My original plan for the cranberry yarn was a plain sweater anyway.  So I decided to go for a monochrome sweater with texture instead.  I'm two rows into the chart and it's going pretty well.

Nothing much else to note!  I did the first of my Russia presentations in the 4th grade last week, and it went well.  Ponchik's class is very spirited, so I was a little concerned about how it would go, but they were very attentive and asked mostly good questions at the end.  I served them tea, Russian style, and Ponchik declared that she would always have her tea with jam in it from now on.

I've got two kiddos home today who were sick all weekend, although I think they will both go back to school tomorrow.  I'm a little congested myself, but I'm hoping it will pass quickly.  Somehow I have All The Things stacked up this week and don't have time to be sick!