OK, so school started on Wednesday & it’s a little intimidating, but I think I’ll be ok. Thankfully, there aren’t any papers due for a couple of weeks. I’m taking Moral Philosophy right now, and my classmates (or their virtual selves, rather) seem a pretty interesting group.

I’m knitting something pretty ambitious right now: a Central Asian coat: it closely resembles a Turkoman or Mongol style of coat, with the doubled fronts, and I’m developing it off of the way that the woven coats were traditionally made.
So, this works out to: the central back and front are made from a continuous piece of fabric, the arms are made by splitting another piece of fabric, and the rest of the garment is constructed by using the leftover bits as gores (flared or triangular pieces that add ease or volume).

So far, it’s working out exactly to spec. I credit this to:

1. Actually measuring my gauge exactly.
2. Using inches AND rows in determining when to do decreases.
3. Dumb luck.

The stitch I’m using is linen stitch: it makes a flat, non-curling fabric, and it showcases Noro Kureyon’s color shifts really nicely (I think).
I’m documenting it all, and will block & measure & photograph each piece, so that anyone who wants to try it out themselves will be able (hopefully) to follow the pattern.
Check out the picture below on click on it to see the others @ Flickr:

I made a BSJ for RJ & Melissa’s little boy, RJ, who’s not even a month old, as of today. It was only my second one ever, so I was a little nervous, especially because I hadn’t tried striping before, and my weaving-in is usually abysmal.

I think it came out really well, though! I did a rolled stockinette edge, that I did by picking up edge stitches and stitching down the cast-off edge back to where I picked up (if you follow me…). It’s like i-cord, in appearance, but it’s actually a rolled edge that can’t unroll.

I was sweating my yarn amounts, because I had hardly anything left over when I cut the final strand…I used 2 skeins of brown, 1 of light blue, and one of navy, and all from yarn.com’s Valley Yarn (Superwash DK) collection.

The placket for the button was another invention of mine. (My previous BSJ has hand-rolled buttons that work like duffel-coat toggles, which I made from crocheted discs of yarn & then rolled/stitched into toggles.) I was going to make it with two buttons, and have only one of them operational & the other as decoration, but eventually felt that the symmetry would be less pleasing than trying to figure out which was the “live” button, whenever the parents put the sweater on lil RJ.

And now…back to making paracord bracelets & waiting for the yarn for all of the other Christmas gifts I have yet to do (just little, quick ones this year). Woohoo!!

…sounds weird, right?
I have a new project started, Clementine’s Cardi, and I’m waiting for my extra yarn to come in from Yarn.com….I can’t keep knitting unless I change colors, and they’re in the mail. Quel drag.