It's Five O'clock

It's five o'clock and I am listening to the birds chirp.  I love that about this place too.  The neighbours behind us have a large stand of spruce in the odd corner at the side of our lot.  This odd corner is right behind our house here, so the bird song is not that different than what I heard all those years ago at my old house. It is comforting to wake to.  We hear the trains here too but instead of being filtered by trees it is closer and a bit louder, but still isn't intrusive.  It's kind of nice, the almost regular routine of them, knowing that that sound will travel on to farther places than this wee small prairie town.

I'm feeling pretty content this morning.  I got the sweaters out to block, or more accurately, to dry while lying flat.

I am so happy at the way Amy's sweater blocked./  I wasn't sure how it would work and if it would be something she could manage herself, or if I should tell her to bring it back to me when it needed washing.  But to my delight, all those small wedges, utilised so cleverly in the shaping of that circle, just relaxed and did their job perfectly.  

The other sweater isn't quite so perfect.

If you compare how it is on blocking with how it was before blocking, you can see that much change happened.  The small motif rows settled out just fine. The large motif section is much more relaxed, but it is not what you call  smooth.  I wondered if these large sections would lay right, and now I know.

Before a wash

After a wash

The answer is not quite.  I debated about doing a bit more forcing of the issue, but I do not need the circular yoke to be any larger than it is. I think this is a result of using the heavier red and black yarns and how they are going to pop and take up more space then the lighter weight natural sheep tone yarn.  It isn't that it is too tight.  The yarn at the back has nice ease to it, as it should.  Even if it is that the colourwork is too tight, it is kind of too late to change it now.  It still looks good and since it is a sweater for deep winter wear, and I winter mostly at home, I am quite pleased as it is. 

Blocking also showed me that I need just a tiny bit more neckline knitting before I start the ribbed edge.  It's blocked out a little larger than I wanted.  I want a close neckline fit on this one, so another row  and and possibly a couple decreases are in order.

Once those things were done yesterday, I started thinking about sweater linings while knitting my little price's pants.  I want to take them to him at the same time as I take the sweater to his mom.  

I am on the second leg now and am very pleased with it. I knit quite a bit after taking this photo.   Much much better proportions now that the gusset stitches are sitting alone waiting for grafting.  I followed the Pepita directions at the bottoms of the legs.  I wanted the nice long ribbed cuff so that it will hold the pants in place.  He can wear them sooner and perhaps longer. I am looking forward to finishing these and putting happy monster eyes on them.

Anyway, it is a lovely summer morning, and coffee is waiting and I have a busy day ahead. And now it is six o'clock. So it goes.