on needles: shalom and distraction

As much as I’d like to write that after a week of concentrated effort I finished my Shalom I won’t, because I didn’t. In what perhaps may not surprise those of you who know me better, I got distracted. In fact even as I was photographing the sweater last week I stuck it with some lovely yellow cotton I’d dug up from my stash (complements of my mother-in-laws stash).

I couldn’t get past the yellow. Not even the cotton could dissuade me from casting on.

See what I mean?

So I took a little detour with a puerperium. I love this pattern and have been planning a third (after first and second) for some time. It is simple and beautiful and a perfect first sweater for newbie knitters.

In my reckless haste I threw aside the wisdom of gauge and swatching, and knit like crazy. Halfway through the first sleeve I feared I was running out of yarn so I frogged the sleeve and turned it into a t-shirt.

A large t-shirt.

Now I have a blocking sweater, which thanks to the cotton yarn, has grown even more. It is hardly newborn sized and I suspect it would fit a two year old sooner than a newborn. Oh geez.

While that dries I’m picking up my friendly shalom again and hoping to finish those last couple rows of the body.

And maybe next week I’ll have some real progress to show you. Or perhaps another puerperium.

As for my book, Death Comes to Pemberley, I’m enjoying it more every day. It’s perhaps not as gripping as a typical PD James novel but it does settle in as a plausible Jane Austen so I’m sticking with it. And as Jen put it, I was tickled pink when other Jane Austen characters popped in for a mention.

::

adding my two cents to the Shannon’s Summer Sweater KAL at luvinthemommyhood

and joining Ginny for yarn along at Small Things