Well so far so good. The train this morning was packed with World Bank protestors, but they all obediently exited the train at Farragut West. Hopefully that's a good omen for the rest of the day.

Judging from the comments I got yesterday, most of you agree with me about Zauberflöte. It has been downgraded to UFO.

I worked a bit on Valtos last night. A very early photo here. This is gonna be one of those projects that's difficult to photograph because of the dark color.

And I have an announcement to make. Effective next Monday, this knitting blog will cease to exist.

But wait. That's because I'm moving all my blogging activities to a new domain name. There'll be a new, improved Wendy's Knitting Blog in a new location. I'll post the URL here on Monday. I'm not trying to be mysterious, just want to have everything all set up before y'all check it out.

Have a good weekend!

9.26.2002
Thursday

Confession is good for the soul, right? I confess -- I dislike Zauberflöte. Here is a photo of what it looked like an inch before I stopped last night. I think the colors are muddy and don't go together very well. And I don't like the pattern. Call me traditional, but I do like more traditional fair isle patterns. This one is too big and undefined.

I keep looking at the photo on the pattern (which is very indistinct, as are a lot of the photos at Virtualyarns.com) -- the colors on the pattern photo are much nicer than they are in person. Hmmmmph.

So, I cast on for another project -- Valtos, another Virtualyarns.com design. This one is a cropped aran and I'm knitting it in a dark green called bogbean. It's a bit darker than the photo shows.

What am I doing with Zauberflöte? Bundling it up in it's box and forgetting about it.

9.25.2002
Wednesday

First off, here is a photo of the sleeping bag I'm knitting for Izzy. No, wait! It's a sock for my brother Dave, he of the humongous feet. Oh my, but it's slow going. But I like it -- I'm doing a knit3 purl1 rib and I think it looks nice. The heel came out looking good too.

Okay, I'm done patting myself on the back.

And here is a very early photo of Zauberflöte. Not really too much to see there yet, apart from the Demon Garter Stitch Border. You'll note from the photo that I have put markers designating each pattenr repeat -- I usually don't bother doing that. Most fair isle that I do has small, mostly geometric motifs that repeat. This has large sweeping scrolly-type stuff, so I find marking off a pattern repeat (26 stitches) really helps me keep my place.

Ooh! Ooh! Did everyone see what Shetha is up to??!! Congratulations to you!

9.24.2002
Tuesday

Stick a fork in it . . . it's done! No photos of it being modeled on a human, as it wasn't convenient to do so. I may or may not add those later.

Finished knitting the sleeve Sunday night and sewed it in on Monday. You say you wanna see how you sew in a sleeve Dale of Norway style? Look here. Don't say I never gave you nothing.

So yesterday afternoon I embarked on Zauberflöte. I have worked my way past the horror of the fair isle garter stitch bottom band, but that's about it, so no photo yet.

The pattern is for a cardi but I'm making a pullover. There are 13 26-stitch pattern repeats, which makes it somewhat inconvenient for conversion purposes. The pattern has you start at the front steek and work around, but I'm not doing a front steek. I started at a side "seam" and worked the last 7 stitches of a repeat, then 6 complete repeats, then the first 6 stitches of a repeat -- that takes you to the second side "seam." Then I worked the last 20 stitches of a repeat, then 5 complete repeats, then the first 19 stitches of a repeat. Presto chango, that gives you 13 repeats around. Have calculator, will travel.

9.23.2002
Monday . . .

. . . and I'm not at work

Yeah, off from work today.

Did a fair amount of knitting over the weekend. And here is the second sleeve in its almost completed state. I ought to be able to finish Rosendal toady, given a bit of time this afternoon. Then I'll be casting on for  Zauberflöte.

If the spirit moves me, I'll document the setting in of the second sleeve photographically, to appear in tomorrow's blog entry. Ta-ta for now . . .