Lacey Vee Is Done!

My Lacey Vee Cardigan is done – and by the weekend it might even be warm enough to wear it! Here’s the info:

Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Brilla

Pattern: Lacey Vee Cardigan (#405) from Cabin Fever

Modifications: hmmm, where to start? ;-)

1. In the original pattern you start with filled in purl squares where the lace is and only do the lace squares in a vee shape. Since I really wanted to get it done before Maryland I decided to simplify my life by just making all of the purl squares lacey. I think it looks fine that way. :-)

2. The vee was a little too deep for my taste so I did the standard “start the neck decreases when you bind off for the sleeves.”

3. I didn’t make the back of the neck a scoop neck. That part of me is always cold, especially in over air conditioned places.

Overall I really liked the pattern. I thought it was well written and easy to follow. And proving that you can teach an old knitter new tricks :-) I learned something new. The pattern has you pick up the sleeve stitches and knit down. Instead of doing a k2tog and an ssk on either side of a central stitch, you do one double decrease. I love the way it looks – very neat. For the double decrease they have you do slip 2, knit 1, pass 2 over. I prefer slip 2 knitwise together (like the beginning of ssk) slip 1 more knitwise, stick your left needle back through all three and knit them together. This gives you the middle stitch showing and the right and left stitches slanting neatly behind.

So of course since I finished a project I had to start a new one...or two. :-) I started a new sock but there isn’t enough to be worth a photo yet. And I’ve been so depressed about the news from Virginia Tech that I decided to knit a blanket for Afghans for Afghan’s Mother’s Day Campaign for Afghan Mothers. At least it makes me feel like I’m doing one small thing to make the world a better place, at least for one baby.

They request all wool blankets in colors that won't show the dirt. I went stash diving and came up with a bag of teal (color #31) Plymouth Galway (which you may recognize from my Pirate Hat) and an assortment on hand dyed yarns that go with it. They are all very nice yarns but I just don’t love the colors. Some of them I ordered online and they didn’t turn out to be what I thought and one is just a “what was I thinking?” purchase. Hopefully they will all look pretty together in the end. I’m doing a mitered square pattern, of course. :-)

And now for some gratuitous pictures of my cats:

Here’s Louie helping me model my new sweater. Doesn’t he look just thrilled? (Not!)

And here’s camera-shy Minerva who doesn’t usually get to be in my blog since I take most of my pictures outside and she’s strictly an indoor cat.

And here are Ravenclaw and Minerva playing on their cat condo which my daughter calls Hogwarts. Can you guess what my kids were into when we got these cats?