Firth

Well, my own-horn-tootingness came back and bit me in the butt. My Firth sweater is finished, but the last steps took me a looooooooooooooooong time and tried my patience.

Here is the info:
Pattern: Firth from A Season's Tale, women's size large
Yarn: Paton's Classic Merino in dark grey mix, black, deep red, natural mix, and leaf green
Needles: US 7, 8, and 9

Modifications: I knitted the body of this sweater several inches longer than the directions called for, and it could be longer still. When I tried it on Hubs said, "it's nice, but if it were me I would have made it a little longer." Seriously - the models must have been really short or the book has a typo or something. It hits me around hip-level and though I'm a bit over 5'7" I have a short torso. So I don't know what's up with the pattern. Moral of the story: If I make it again, I will knit more rows for the body, and just a few more for the sleeves as well.

Other than that I knit it to the pattern specs. Well, I eliminated one of the colors in the fairisle section, ending up with 4 instead of 5.

Seaming this thing was a pain. As I mentioned before, it was my first raglan style sweater knit in pieces. It would have been easy without the colorwork, but seaming that part almost killed me. It took me 3 nights. Then there was the weaving of the ends, and putting in the zipper (another 2 nights). I didn't do a great job with the zipper. It's acceptable, but again the colorwork makes all mistakes look really, really bad. There's a point where the pattern on the front is off by what looks like a full row - but I am leaving it for now. If I don't zip it all the way up you can't see the problem anyway. It's good enough, and dudes, I SO don't want to redo it. If it bothers me in the future, or if I find I'm not wearing it because of the zipper, I will fix it.

So this was supposed to be a stash-busting project, and somehow that went awry.


Because I had to buy a few skeins for Firth's colorwork, I ended up with this lovely collection (all Paton's Classic Merino). I am thinking a small afghan or maybe a color block or striped sweater for Daughter. Don't know...for now I'm letting it sit in this basket because it looks pretty.

Well, even though it's March it is only 3 degrees outside. That's 3. THREE DEGREES. And with the wind chill it apparently feels like -10. My house was 60 degrees inside when we woke up this morning, and it's still chilly. My fingers are cold. If Spring doesn't arrive soon I'm going to lose my mind.

We had terrible ice dams on our roof in 2 places (very old house, very poor insulation) resulting in bad leakage into our bathroom. We will be replacing at least one wall and the ceiling. One of the ice dams started to melt last week when it warmed up and rained, causing it to let go and rip off the gutter and flashing on one side of the house. Conveniently, it was over the driveway, where Hubs' car was parked. The ice hit the bumper - luckily only the bumper - and completely dented it. We have a white plastic picket fence that cuts across our driveway (a vestige of the former owners) and one section is now completely smashed into bits. It was quite a spectacular show when this thing let go and came smashing down. It's too cold to go out there and do much fixing right now, so when I pull into or out of my driveway I just feel terrible. Our house looks like total white trashville. And it's going to cost a lot to fix, I expect. We are praying our homeowner's insurance will help.

That sound you hear? It's me, sighing. Over and over. It's hard to be in a good mood when your house is crumbling around you. Beh. I really hope Spring comes soon.