I love holidays. I love that I can sleep late and have some time to do the things that I want to do. Best of all, I get a paid day off from work!
I've recently returned to a hobby that I haven't picked up since I was 10 or 11 years old: knitting. Thinking back, I realize that I gave up knitting for two keys reasons:

1. I was devastated when the pattern on my first sweater didn't line up as it was supposed to. The sweater pattern had three thin stripes running across the width of body -- one in blue, one in green, and another one in blue. I followed the pattern correctly for the front of the sweater, but...reversed the stripes on the back of the sweater. Oh, what wonders that did for my self esteem at age 11.
2. I fell in love with counted cross-stitch. It was just something about the charts and the beautiful DMC colors. For awhile there I was determined to have every color floss in my collection.

While I still love cross-stitch, I find that it puts a lot of strain on my 29-year old eyes, especially after a long day of staring at a computer screen. I needed something that would allow me to keep my hands busy while watching TV, not require a lot of close work, feed my creative fire, and give me a sense of accomplishment. Hence my return to knitting after an 18 year hiatus.

Starting off small was the best thing I could have possibly done. I highly recommend Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch as a bible for all knitters. Not only does she go into the history of knitting, but the various techniques are illustrated in a way that is very easy to follow. The book also offers a reasonably good (and trendy!) selection of patterns. My first project, a Coney Island Fireworks scarf, came from this book and was met with rave reviews.

Since then I've branched out to try my hand at hats, the infamous Booga Bag, and have recently completed a baby sweater. My latest challenge comes in the form of a sweater pattern I found in the Knitty.com pattern archives.

The pattern is called Sitcom Chic. I chose it largely because it looked like a relatively straightforward project. The thing that was probably the most most attractive about this sweater is that it doesn't require a lot of seaming (I'm not really that good when it comes to sewing). I've also used the recommended Lion Brand Cotton-Ease before and found it good to work with.

A cute sweater like this needs to be in a bright color. Fortunately, the Cotton-Ease yarn comes in several great colors. Unfortunately, my local Joann's Etc. didn't have too much stock on hand. I hate it when stores reorganize! Anyway, I ended up with 5 balls of Cotton-Ease in Popsical (shouldn't it be popsicle?) Blue, a beautiful turquoise color that's perfect for summer. Since the yarn was on clearance, I actually got all 5 balls for the unheard of price of...$3.94! Needless to say I was happy. I think that was the first time I actually came in under budget when buying yarn.

I should say that because I am a loose knitter I have a tendency to create garments for gorillas. As such, I have to drop a needle size in order to have any hopes of achieving a correct gauge (I am now a slave to gauge). I am knitting the body and the sleeves on US #4 and US #7 needles instead of the recommended US #5 and US #8 needles. So far the gauge looks to be on target, but it might be too soon to say for sure.

It took me about a week and a half to knit the body of the sweater (size small) on the US #7 circular needles. I think it looks okay (the 1x1 rib aside) and the stitch count seems correct. I am, however, a little uneasy about the measurements -- it's hard to measure a piece correctly when it's all bunched up on circular needles. All I can really do is cross my fingers and see what the piece looks like when finished.

I've spent a good portion of the weekend working on sleeve #1. Although I'm on gauge widthwise, the sleeve is not as long as is illustrated in the schematic. It's supposed to be 14 inches, but I only ended up with about 12.5. I think my tension might have been a little tight when I first started knitting the sleeve. I'm going to try adding a few more rows to bring the length to the recommended 14 inches. Hopefully this won't be a big mistake.