When I'm behind on my blogging, you know there's a pretty good chance I've been knitting like the crazy knitting fool I am. And so I have. I just finished sewing up the Reverse Seam Pullover from Classic Elite's spring pattern collection "House Party." I finished the Manos model for ThreadBear twelve days ago, and of course I had to deliver it in person. I showed up shortly after the Classic Elite shipment, so I went home with twenty balls of "Vineyard" Isabella, the cotton-blend cousin of Beatrice, fresh from the box. And now I have a nice cushy pink spring sweater. Um, okay, I have a sweater with 31 ends hanging down inside. Mind you, that's AFTER weaving in 31 MORE ends. This yarn had an absolutely outrageous number of broken plies.

Meanwhile, I can now purl like a Norwegian (in spite of Figure 2 being just plain WRONG), although it fouls up my tension sufficiently that I doubt I'll use the technique. But I'm oh so happy that I know how.

Oh! Oh! I am so excited that I am beside myself. I bought the spring IK today and it has an article by Beth Brown-Reinsel which contains the number one piece of knitting knowledge that had so far escaped me: the Norwegian Purl. I haven't tried it yet, but I will probably have to do so before I can sleep.

How I acquired said magazine: the sun was shining, my hands were tired from knitting cotton, and I was in the mood to go Someplace New, so I packed up my knitting and drove up to Lafayette to River Knits, where I had never been before. It took me about an hour and a half to get there (once you subtract the time I drove around in circles in West Lafayette/Lafayette– apparently they have rerouted US 231 since my map was printed). I met shopowner Elizabeth, who I had encountered on the indianaknits mailing list (Hi Elizabeth!) and bought grey Peace Fleece with flecks of purple, teal, and gold, two balls of Fixation, two skeins of Jawoll Sport in a purple/green/blue jacquard, and IK.

Afterwards, I went clothes-shopping on the east side. I went first to the Tippecanoe Mall. I got very excited for a minute when I saw that it had a store called The Alpaca Shack, but sadly, they did not have any yarn. I also went to Super Target and got a vanilla latte at the in-store Starbucks on my way out, which is why I am still up.

That reminds me, I have to go purl like a Norwegian.

Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf begins with a triangle, but ends with a trapezoid? I found it particularly disturbing because it was very easy to adapt it so that the ends are symmetrical.

Last week was a Good Knitting Mail week: I got two new magazines on the same day! One was Cast On, which I have a subscription for; the other was an unsolicited free "try me" issue of Knit 'n Style. As usual, there was precious little in the KnS that interested me, but hey, free knitting magazine!

Meanwhile, I have started a spring sweater: Intricately Cabled V-Neck Pullover, from a 1998 Classic Elite leaflet that I got from elann.com. It's one of Norah Gaughan's creations with amazing wandering cables. It was originally designed in Provence mercerized cotton, but I'm using a light lavender shade of Premiere cotton/tencel blend from stash. They only gave gauge "in pattern" (grrr...) so I started with a sleeve, checked that I was getting row gauge (essential for this design), and held my breath. I finished the front this morning and had no trouble blocking it to the specified width dimensions, hooray! It is a little longer to the underarm than I had expected, but I don't think that will be a problem. If it is, it wouldn't be hard to take a couple inches off the bottom below where the main cable chart kicks in.

I confess I am tickled to be knitting the middle size instead of the largest.

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot, I have actual Real News: my SIL is finally pregnant again! They have been trying to have a second child for, um, probably about six years now. Let another round of Baby Gift Knitting commence!

Good heavens, what a busy knitting week it's been. Since last Sunday, I've finished the Celtic Dreams sweater AND knitted a San Francisco Vest (from Nancie Wiseman's recent book Classic Knitted Vests) from start to finish, using Noro Silk Garden #34 which has been marinating for about a year. I wore the SF Vest over to ThreadBear yesterday for a Glorious Outing with CH, where it was so well received that Helen had to buy book and yarn.

I left the SF Vest with The Boys as collateral while I finish off the Manos shop model. I woke up early this morning and put the front bands on it, and miracle of miracles, they came out perfect on the FIRST TRY. Now I am chugging along on sleeves again.

Meanwhile, all of the other things I was supposed to do this week went straight out the window.