What a wonderful kind of day!

Today is perhaps the most beautiful day we've had yet. And tomorrow is supposed to be even better! I continue to welcome the reappearance of my freckles. :)

In knitting: The knitting of the Noro Yoke Sweater is complete. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The sleeves are a tad on the tight side, but I'm thinkin' they might loosen up a bit upon blocking. We shall see.

Yeah, I look kinda crazy in that picture. Maybe it's the sun. Or maybe it's the fact that I knit all that Noro on US 4 needles and it kind of drove me nuts-o. All that's left is to weave in the ends and graft the underarm seams. But maybe I'll love those open...

A wool sweater with pit vents--I could market that idea! No, I'll sew those up. Sometime. Not now. Given how lovely the weather is, I'm not exactly motivated to finish this wool sweater, but I'm sure this dense sweater will be nice come winter.

Once the noro sweater was complete, I went back to the modern lace henley, and I'm plugging along on the front.

I have 18 more rows to go on the front before I start the sleeves. I'm feeling kinda iffy about the color of this sweater. It's a dark, dullish green. I kinda wish I'd gone with navy or dark purple. Oh well.

In reading: I'm slugging through The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. It's a humorous and informative look at the puritan settlers of the early 1600's. I'm about half way through, and just not sure if I really need to gain whatever information could be presented in the second half. We'll see. To distract myself, I started Persepolis yesterday (and will finish it today). I loved the movie. And the book is great, too.

In movies: I went to a screening of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on Monday. Meh. The Stranger has a funny "review" of it in this week's issue. You should read it and pretend I wrote it. :)

Look how pretty it is here!

What's that saying?

When life gives you lemons,

knit a shawl!

I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.

I took a break from the sweaters in progress to whip up this little shawl over the weekend for a loved one who's sick. I used sock yarn and US 5 needles and improvised the design. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I think it's just the right size for its designee--about 51 inches across and 26 inches long. I particulary pleased with how the little hearts turned out.

I wish I'd had enough of the black-pink yarn to complete the border, but I'm not displeased with the solid black border.

One week

Knitting: Last week, after blogging about my progress on the modern lace henley, I promptly put it down and cast on for the rainbow yoke sweater. I brought this with me to Cara's bachelorette weekend (which was super fun), and made a fair amount of progress. This morning I joined the sleeves with the body and started knitting the yoke.

The sleeves and body are Cascade 220 (one of my favorite yarns) and I knit them on US size 6. The noro is slightly larger than the Cascade and the pattern recommended going down 2 needle sizes for this portion. So for the yoke, I'm knitting noro on US 4s, and there are so many stitches that I have to use both my 16 and 24 inch needles just to knit them all. Let's just say, it's not the most efficient knitting. But I think it's going to be really pretty when it's done, on the upside. :)

For the yoke decreases, the knitscene pattern calls for 4 decrease rows, about 2 inches apart. EZ's pattern for a seemless yoke pull over recommends 3 decrease rows, and starting them later than the knitscene pattern. At first, I thought I would do EZ's decreases, but after only 4 rounds of knitting the noro, I'm all for decreasing sooner rather than later, and I think I'll do the knitscene decreases after all. I wish I could do them now. But they're probably another 3 or 4 rows away.

I organized my yarn stash last week.

Isn't it pretty??? :D Going through all the yarn, I just wanted to go cast on crazy! But I restrained myself.

Speaking of pretty, Monday and Tuesday were the 2 best days of weather since I've been here. Look at the view yesterday when I got home from an outing to downtown.

Movies: I saw Adventureland yesterday. It was cute. Some funny parts, a little heart warming, a nice little coming-of-age story. Kinda bummed that Ryan Reynolds played a sleeze-bag, though. I don't like to think of him that way. I went to see this movie at 2:15 in the afternoon on a weekday, something I did in NYC with a good amount of frequency, but never once was I the only one in the theater. Until yesterday. At the beginning of the movie, there was 1 other person in the theater besides me, but he left about 1/2 hour in--I think he may have been an employee of the theater. It was strange.

I have new upstairs neighbors; they moved in yesterday evening. And aparently they have a dog, because I just heard it barking. :) Maybe when I get a dog, our dogs can be doggie friends.

Pretties

Knitting: The great thing about being purposefully unemployed--lots of knitting time. Which is how I managed to cruise through the back of the Modern Lace Henley. Progress shot:

Given my gauge issues, I'm knitting the numbers of the medium size, but getting measurements that should be appropriate for me, but if it ends up being too small, I'll give it away. The yarn is a cotton/acrylic blend, and, as often happens with me knitting cotton, it's a pain in the hands. Cotton just doesn't have the give of wool. If this sweater doesn't end up fitting me, I'll knit it again with some other kind of fiber.

Yarn: I just had to buy this yarn last weekend. Isn't the colorway gorgeous? Perhaps I was inspired by all the blooming daffodils everywhere.

Music: Pretty new tunes from Death Cab For Cutie, courtesy of their little Open Door EP, released yesterday, and hastily downloaded by yours truly from Amazon MP3s (9 times out of 10, Amazon is a better deal than iTunes, and without that pesky 5 computers bit).

Apartment: So clean!

And my view of the skyline last night during sunset.

Funny:

The dogs really wanted to help us make Easter dinner.

Nifty

One of my pics from Paris was used in this online map called Schmap. :)

Oh, and I totally rocked my certification exam today! I am now, Robin, FNP-BC. Yippee!

Annoyance

Despite that forecast I mentioned, yesterday was kind of sunny. I seized this opportunity to get some pictures of the finished Bee Fields Shawl. I blocked the thing a couple of nights ago, using every single T-pin that I have.

Despite the fact that I made the "petite" size, this is a sizeable shawl. Still not sure what I'm going to do with it.

The pattern called for US 5 needle; I used US 4, and mine is still bigger. Which brings me to a realization that's been reaffirmed for me over the past couple of days: I'm a loose knitter. I wouldn't believe this to be true, but I've been trying to do a gauge swatch for my next project, and I had to go down 2 needle sizes, and even then I don't quite get gauge. But any smaller and it hurts my hands too much to knit. The reason I have trouble believing I am a loose knitter is that my knitting doesn't look loose. Of course, my perspective is not impartial. But even if I try, I can't seem to get my knitting much tighter.

And I'm a little bit annoyed by this. It kind of feels like an inadequacy. Though I know I shouldn't think of it this way. I just wish I could get gauge with the prescribed needle size. Oh well.

Tomorrow is my big exam. Then game night to (hopefully) celebrate my success.

Really, it's there!

I can see Mt Rainier this morning. Barely, but it's there. You might have to squint.

Just to the left of those tall buildings in downtown (if you click the link, I have it "note"d on flickr). Another beautiful day in Seattle....but apparently the last one for a while.

Bummer.