sleeves and swatching

Monday after a BLISSFUL weekend! No wedding last Saturday, you know what that means! Well yes, besides pretty much smiling all weekend I had a little bit of time to goof off a bit.

The sleeves are perking along, they're actually further along than the photo above shows, they're about elbow high I'd say. I'm leaving Thursday for Chicago and would love to get the pieces of Lexical off the needles by then but I'm not sure if that will actually be a reality.

In my efforts to get a well colored photo above it sort of looks like it's had a bath in grape soda, sorry about that. I swatched for the Eggplant Nimbus, my road project. The color in the photo made it look navy blue. The color here is "BETTER" but not perfect. Eggplant is a really good name for the colorway.

Francis asked how I block, and I block very much like I measure the swatch------- old school. I dampen the item, lay it down on a layer of thick towels and pin. For a swatch I pin without much distortion or pull, just a nice pat and push an then pin to insure a flat measure. For a garment I lay out a bigger layer of towels and pin to schematic. Told'ya, old school. I would love blocking boards or something like that but have not gone that far.

The swatch was done in halves, the first worked on 10 1/2's and the second on 11's. I knit the first Nimbus from Peruvia Quick on 11's, this is Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky and it looks like 10 1/2 will be the key.

I've tucked the pattern into my traveling knit bag and wound all of the purple loveliness into center pull balls. This will the the first time (other than simple socks) that I've knit a pattern twice! That tells you how much I love the pattern!

Back to the 'goof off' bit.................. I went FISHING! Can you believe it? I was going to just sit and knit and keep everyone company but ended up joining in. No I did not bait my hook and YES I did catch something. So what if it was old line and a sunken plastic bag. They both gave me a good fight! ;)

Cocktails with the girls tonight.... my cup runneth over!