It fits!

I enjoyed all the sky pictures yesterday, so thought I’d add mine to the mix. I took this when I got home from work last night, looking south from the back porch. It’s actually a side porch. When we came to look at the house when it was for sale, it was a HUGE, enclosed, L-shaped porch that ran about 1/3 the length of the side of the house and across the entire back. It was a fabulous porch with huge windows and there was even an old cupboard that I’m sure was originally in the house (and is once again). It was also stuffed full of stuff! And, we live in Wisconsin for cripes sakes; that porch was too cold in the winter and too damn hot in the summer (even with the windows open) to be used for anything but… storing stuff. I don’t need any encouragement in that area!

We eventually put on a small addition to the back and made a real room, and opened up the side porch. We had scrounged four old porch pillars from a house that was being torn down and I used a heat gun and scraper to strip them to bare wood (about a dozen coats of paint) before repainting — I had pretty good pecs that summer! We re-used some of the big windows in the Garden Room.

May I present Her Shapeliness! I knitted the last couple of rows while dinner was cooking and thought, Yeah, I’ll bind off after we eat and I’ll be thrumming by 8. Stupid shawl. It is worked using a Twice-Worked Bind Off Technique in purl — I enjoyed doing it and I like the finished edge. This next part is where “reading the pattern through” comes in to play again (see Saturday’s post entitled “Yes”). The directions say to “check to see that the tension is not too tight or too loose.” Yeah. I knew it needed some stretch and that I definitely wanted to bind off a bit on the loose side. Having knit the shawl with a 9US needle, I thought a 10-1/2 might do the trick. I had a very vague idea of what was required, but, having never knit this before, I couldn’t really tell ’til I had bound off an entire side. It was WAY too tight. I had a much better idea of how much it needed to stretch, though, and I moved up to a 13 needle; I bound off a few inches and it still wasn’t loose enough. I ended up using a 15! Oh, but isn’t it lovely? Love, love, love.

As evidenced by the board, I considered blocking the shawl last night. It was getting on towards midnight by then and I don’t have a clue as to where my T-pins are and it felt so good on my shoulders that I folded up the board and decided to wait ’til today. The “stupid shawl” phase is nothing but a memory; I can laugh about it now. Love.

I just have to say thanks, again, to my SP2 for that wonderful, yummy alpaca. I know that you didn’t expect this yarn would be used so soon and, to be honest, neither did I! When I first saw the Shapely Shawlette sample at the LYS a few weeks ago, though, I knew its fate. Then, when I actually had the thing on my shoulders at the shop last week, well, there you go… I’ll have good thoughts and wishes for you, SP2, every time I wear it. Thank you.

And guess what? It’s supposed to be in the 70s today — not exactly thrummin’ weather!