It's finally finished and I'm very proud of the way it turned out. Best of all, it's actually wearable!


I would definitely recommend this pattern to any beginning/intermediate knitter who is looking to take things to the next level. The pattern is very straightforward, but challenging enough to keep all knitters on their toes. I can see myself making another one of these sweaters at some point in time.

Here's what I learned from this experience:

• Knitting sweaters in as few pieces as possible is great: The benefit, of course, is that there are fewer seams to deal with (did I mention that I can't sew?). Casting on all of those stitches at the outset might seem like a big hassle, but it's worth it in the long run.
• There's more than one method to cast-on stitches: Up until a couple of days ago, I thought there was only one method. Some methods are better suited for certain projects than others.
• Use circular needles with FLEXIBLE cords: There were times during this project when I wanted to destroy my Bates circulars -- the cord just wasn't cooperating, especially when it came time to work the eyelet detailing. In this case, cheaper does not equal better. Invest in the good stuff. You won't regret it.

After four days of testimony and eleven hours of deliberations, the trial came to an end (finally!) this afternoon. Although I wasn't thrilled about being picked to serve on a jury, I have to admit that it was a very interesting experience. The part that I dreaded the most, though, was trying to decide on a verdict. It's extremely difficult to sit in judgement and know that your decision will have a decided impact on the lives of the parties involved. The added twist is that the decision has to be based solely on the letter of the law and the preponderance of the evidence. There's no room for emotion in these decisions. All of that has to be checked at the door. Good thing it was a civil lawsuit and not a criminal case.

"Jimmy", the intrepid reporter with the weird pen fettish (I swear, he stuck that pen in every orafice in his head), did a decent job of covering the case. His articles are listed below:

• The Daily Times 7/26/05
• The Daily Times 7/27/05
• The Daily Times 7/30/05

I'm sure that I would have absolutely hated performing my civic duty had it not been for my fellow jurors. It's kind of scary to think that you can randomly put eight people together and have them click so well. There were times when we were laughing so hard that I wondered how we would ever be able to keep straight faces in the courtroom. It really did seem like we were having way too much fun for jury duty. Terry, Donna, Kelly, Ed, Dee, Kathy, and Kevin: you guys are totally awesome and I'm so glad I got to know you over the last few days. Here's hoping that we can continue our friendships outside of the courthouse!

Now don't think my Ribby Cardi has been neglected during all of this drama. I was knitting away with my Denise needles in spite of Security's repeated claims that they would be confiscated upon entering the building. Go figure. At any rate, I managed to get a couple of inches of the back panel finished and I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. The ribbing is actually looking halfway decent, and I absolutely hate ribbing. Must be the magic of the new needles.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. After three weeks of being on call for jury duty for the District Court of Maryland, I get selected as a jury member for a trial. I can't say this was a surprise, though. I had an awful feeling that I was going to get picked about halfway through the three-hour voir dire process. Of course, the fact that I practically leaped out of my seat when faced with the question of whether I would be able to participate in a trial that was scheduled to last four plus days probably didn't help matters. I cited work-related reasons, and I honestly felt that I had just cause for dismissal. The judge wasn't having any of it, though, and I ended up back in the pool. Chances are that if I had kept my mouth shut I would have been "safe". Now I have the dubious honor of serving as Juror #7 on an eight person jury.

On a positive note, I was able to complete my swatch for the Ribby Cardi (I'm not entirely sure how I managed to get my needles into the courthouse without detection, let alone comment!).

Looks like I'll definitely have to drop a needle size -- instead of the recommended US 6 and 7 needles, I'll be using US 5 & 6. I'm still a little worried about the ribbing aspect of this project. I've always used the Knitting-On method to cast-on my stitches, but it doesn't seem to work as well when setting up for a project like the Ribby. I've managed to find a cast-on method on Knittinghelp.com that seems more suited for ribbing. The method is called Cable Cast-on. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to master and I'm definitely encouraged by what I've seen so far. The first row immediately after the cast-on row is always the most difficult for me -- things tend to get a little loose -- but this doesn't seem to be the case with the Cable Cast-on. Who knows: I might actually start enjoying ribbing after this experience!

The decision to which project I should start next was taken out of my hands. Since the wool for the Ribby Cardi was the first to show up at my door, that's what I decided to go with. Actually, I have to say that I was very impressed with how quickly elann.com processed my order -- I placed the order on a Wednesday evening and had received the materials by Saturday afternoon. So happy!

The colors that I'm using on for my Ribby are Lotus Blossom (body) and Grape (sleeves and collar), both beautiful shades of purple from the Highland Wool Peruvian Collection.


Ideally, I would have liked to have used a really dark color for the sleeves and a really light color for the body, but it doesn't really matter. This partcular yarn is cheap enough at $2.25 a ball that I can afford to make more of these sweaters down the road.

I have to say, though, that I'm a little nervous about knitting this sweater. I'm not particularly good at ribbing, especially when it comes immediately after the cast-on row. This really shows on the sleeve and body edges of Sitcom Chic. It's definitely something that I'm going to need to work on if I'm going to continue knitting sweaters.

Have been busily working away on the yoke detail for Sitcom Chic. I absolutely love the way the yarn overs turned out -- it really gives the piece an interesting and sophisticated look.

The slightly raised appearence of the decreases also adds a little bit of character to the sweater. I'm excited to finish this project and start showing it off. Now if it will only fit...

The Denise Needles arrived and I can't wait to start using them. I love the variety of needles, not to mention the flexibility of the cords. The Bates needles -- I know, I went the cheap route! -- I'm using for Sitcom Chic pale in comparison.

Since Sitcom Chic is almost finished, I have been trying to line up materials for some new projects. Looks like the next project is either going to be the Ribby Cardi from Chicknits.com or the Fibonacci Cardigan from Magknits.com -- I seem to be on a roll with cardigans these days. However, don't count out the Marakash Shoulder Bag featured in the latest Yarnmarket.com bulletin. Needless to say I've been stock piling yarn like crazy. I'll just have to see where the mood takes me.

Well, at least for the time being. My recent preoccupation (okay, obsession) with my Boogas caused me to completely ignore my other project, Sitcom Chic. So...without further ado, here is the final photo of the two bags. I'm pretty pleased with the results:


Progress on Sitcom Chic has been generally good over the last couple of days. Finishing sleeve #2 was definitely the highlight of the weekend, and I'm more than a little relieved the the DPN portion of the project is now over. While it seemed to take less time to knit sleeve #2 than it did to knit sleeve #1, sleeve #2 kept jumping off the needles. It was too horrible to describe. Dropped stitches everywhere. Fortunately, though, this trauma was short lived.

I ended up joining all three pieces late Sunday afternoon. Here's a picture I snapped prior to the join:


I had no problems joining the pieces, but I'm finding the sweater to be very heavy on the needles. It's like there's too much fabric. I don't think that's the case, but I won't know for sure until I cast off. I'm just worried about the stitches stretching around the armholes because of the weight. For the time being, though, I'm happily knitting away. I'm only rows away from the yoke detailing. After all of the stockinette stitches, yarn overs will definitely make for a nice change.

I decided to treat myself to the Denise needle set -- it beats tearing my hair out later on. The package should arrive sometime this week!

It's horribly humid in Maryland right now. I think that's probably the reason why I didn't sleep well last night. I just feel sticky and gross. Forget about makeup: anything I put on my face will just slide right off. It's not even worth doing anything with the hair: it will either frizz or go completely limp. Such a wonderful day to be a girl.

I went to my friend Kelly's Pampered Chef party last night -- I can never seem to pass up an opportunity to add things to my kitchen. Of course, I wanted everything in the current catalog, so I had to exercise a little restraint -- very hard to do when all the products are so good. I ended up ordering the medium Bar Pan, the large Micro-cooker, the Measure-All Cup, the new Ice Cream Sandwich Maker, and a cookbook. This is all stuff I'll use, so it was worth the money. I still have my eye on the Simple Additions Essential Set, however. Co-worker Martha is having a Pampered Chef party of her own next month, so I might wait to place the order. Plus, I would also qualify for the August Guest Special. It's all good.

I'm strongly considering purchasing a set of the Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needles. It seems to make more sense than purchasing the needles individually. Since I always have to drop a needle size, it would be easier to have a supply of needles on hand. One Ebay seller has the sets for $47.95 (shipping included) so I might decide to go that route. From what I've seen, this is a pretty good price.

Since Carol's bags are just so beautiful, I just had to include some photos in this blog. The green of the grass really sets off the colors in each bag.

Why is it that things that seem so simple always turn out to be the most complicated? The whole concept of felting seemed easy enough to understand: throw some wool into a washing machine full of hot water and heavy items, let the bag agitate until desired level of felting has been reached, remove from machine and block. Simple enough, but had I known a few months ago what I know now, Booga Bag #102 would have been much better off.
Booga Bag #102 was the first Booga ever knitted by yours truly. Never having felted anything before, I took great pains to follow the felting instructions in the pattern. I wasn't too sure of what to expect, so I checked the bag at the end of each full cycle. I could see that something was happening, but it wasn't happening too quickly. Since the pattern indicates that 3 or 4 trips through the wash may be needed to achieve desired level of felting, I wasn't too worried -- I think I probably ran the bag through the wash about 5 times before blocking it. Since I didn't have a clear understanding as to how the finished felted bag was supposed to look, I felt that I had achieved the desired result. Hey, not only was it fuzzy, but it had even shrunk a little from its numerous trips through the wash! It even looked like the picture. So what if the dimensions were a little (okay, a lot) off -- I knit for gorillas! It was my bag and I couldn't wait to start using it.
It wasn't long, however, before I started noticing a couple of problems with my creation. It doesn't react well to heavy items like wallets and cell phones. In other words, the bottom sags and looks so weird that I have to take extra care not to put anything in the bag that would give it a "weighed down" look. The bag is also a little too deep and lacks any kind of structure. Still, I thought that this was normal and didn't think anything of it...until a few days ago.
Co-worker Carol is relatively new to knitting. I actually gave her the Booga Bag pattern a couple of months ago to help her transition away from scarves. Since then she has been knitting bags as gifts for her grand daughters, but has only just gotten around to felting them. The results blew me away. Her bags are cute and compact, perfectly shaped. They even stand up on their own! The felting is perfect -- the stitches are barely visible! I think it was at that point that I realized that something had gone horribly wrong with Booga Bag #102. Further discussion revealed the problem.
Even though my bag had gone through the wash 5 times, it had gone through 5 complete cycles (i.e. hot wash, cold rinse, spin). While the hot water got the felting process started, the cold water actually stopped it. Carol, on the other hand, stopped her washing machine after each wash cycle and then reset it to start the wash cycle all over again, thereby keeping her bags out of the cold rinse cycle until she had achieved the desired level of felting. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
I applied this method to Booga Bag #150 and have achieved perfect results thus far. I did have to reset the machine a couple of times and vary the length of the wash cycles to get the bag to where I wanted it to be. While I don't enjoy hanging out in the basement, it's a necessary part of this process.
Booga Bag #150 turned out so well that I got this crazy idea into my head that I should try to refelt Booga Bag #102. But could it be done? Since I figured that I'd already wrecked it, what did I have to lose? Here are some pictures of the bag prior to the second felting (4.5" D x 9" W x 11 H):

And after:

I did have to refelt the bag with the straps attached. Hopefully this won't make too much of a difference. It doesn't look like it's any the worse for going through the process a second time, but we'll see.

Here's what I learned from this experience:

• Things are never as simple as they seem: Had I done a little more research, I would have known how to do things right the first time.
• Be patient: The process does take time.
• Don't walk away!: Monitor all stages of the felting process -- this will involve camping out in the basement/laundry room.
• Get to know the washing machine: Key in determining the length of the cycles, whether you can stop/start the machine in mid cycle, etc.
• Dimensions and structure are important: Get as close to the finished dimensions as possible. The bag should be very fuzzy and have some structure to it -- keep felting if individual stitches are still visible.
• Refelting is possible: It's comforting to know that a project gone wrong can be salvaged under certain circumstances.

Booga Bag #150 was finally felted yesterday afternoon. I'm still new to the whole felting process, so I was more than a little nervous when I threw the pillowcase containing the Booga Bag and I-cord into the washing machine. Of course, it didn't help that I completely screwed things up when I attempted to felt my first bag, Booga Bag #102, but I'll save that story for a future post.
I was extra vigilant when it came to Booga Bag #150. I actually stayed in the laundry room and reset the washing machine at the end of every wash cycle! Apart from the I-cord escaping and winding itself around the pillowcase during one of the wash cycles, everything went smoothly. The bag even felted down to the finished dimensions listed in the pattern -- 4.5" D x 7.5" W x 8.5" H. Amazing! The bag is now happily blocking on its shoe box. We'll see how things look in the next 24 hours, but I'm pleased with the results so far.

Today I decided to pick up a project that has been on the verge of completion for the last several months. While I absolutely adore the Booga Bag pattern, I'm not too crazy about the Noro Kureyon #150 that I chose for my second attempt. This just goes to show that you can't really pick a color yarn based on images that you find online. Had I seen this color in a store I never would have bought it -- too much gray for my taste. At any rate, it is what it is.
Finishing the project took next to no time. All I really had to do was weave in the ends and finish the I-cord, but this seemed like back-breaking work a couple of months ago. I am nothing if not lazy. Next step in the process: felting.

I was browsing through a couple of blogs this morning, and I noticed that a lot of them have progress bars tracking the status of various projects. Of course, I had to have one, so I spent a good portion of the morning scouring the web for the code to make the dream a reality. Out of all the sites I looked at, I found David Anaxagoras' Man Bytes Hollywood blog to be the most informative. His explanation of the code is clear and easy to follow, a nice change from the complicated technical jargon that is found on most sites. It literally took only minutes to get this code up and running on my blog. It looks so cool!

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.