Ach, Crivens!

Guess who's been listening to the audio book of Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men lately? If it's not you (too), I can't recommend it highly enough. Of course, if you're the impressionable type, you'll soon be talking like a 6" blue man also.

However delightful the book is, it has given me vocabulary appropriate to my current situation. I mostly finished -- not all ends sewn in and in dire need of a re-block and maybe some front closures -- with Pearl Buck. However. However, however, however, and as the Feegles would say, "Waily, waily, waily."


I think I'm going to have the wonderful experience of picking out the cast-on portion of each sleeve and adding at least 2" to them. The one on my right arm in the very-flashy picture most accurately reflects the length in use. My spouse thinks the difference between the body and the sleeves is distracting, and they're not really 3/4 length. Many of the folk on Ravelry have mentioned that the sleeves are a strange length as written. Could this be one of those patterns that looks great on the first person, but is difficult to translate out?

They're more like elbow-length to me and I don't wear bracelets or anything like that. I think they'll be more flattering longer. Part of it is that I have the forearms of a person with zero body fat. Skinny and veiny (am I going to be a gorgeous old lady or what??) and so they seem to attract a lot of attention when sticking out of a sleeve like this. Maybe it's all the pushups I'm doing these days. It's just one more of those things. . .

And I lost/misplaced/was the victim of cat depredations on the swatch I had actually made, washed and blocked before starting Cobblestone for my sister. With 7s, it was too big, and 6s got gauge but I was worried the fabric would be too stiff. After washing, though, the Felted Wool seemed to settle down quite nicely. I'd hoped to spend some time tonight sort of fondling it and thinking about the sweater and then casting on, but I'm not sure casting on without that is a good idea, nor do I wish to make another swatch because it's here somewhere, I know.

I think I'm going to deeply enjoy knitting it, not only because it's for someone I'm thrilled to be knitting for, but because it's such an honest wool and the little flecks of color in the tweed are so very pretty.

In happier news, the playground rings (instead of expensive plumbing) have been a real hit downstairs with the swinging set:


Looks like he's flying, huh? You ought to see the wonders they can perform on these. On the other hand, in my bedroom, it sounds as though large squirrels are gnawing on my floor. Tradeoffs.