Big update today! First another finished weasley! After making one for her son, MA finished one for herself. With an "R". Awwwww.

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On to a wrap up of the February fixins, which definitely won't end with February. Cause I'm not done yet! Those of us who have ripped and are reknitting can just continue the makeovers through March. And for inspiration, just check out Sandy's latest posts where she's making final decisions on all her (AWESOME!) unfinished projects.

Since I've already started my new project with the yarn I recycled from the sleeves, I thought it would be best if I went ahead and finished ripping out my Banana Republic sweater. Not only were the body pieces huge, but about 3/4 of the back came out in one long piece of yarn!

5 1/2" diameter ball of yarn
(full ball of Koigu added for scale)

Yes, there was a whole lot of ripping going on:

Poor Stacey has ripped out her sockapalooza sock. Oh noooo! Wendi ripped out her very first knitted project and Janell ripped out her almost-first project. Amy Lu ripped a poncho for her daughter. Dani ripped out her poncho (marvel at her new finished sweater, then scroll down for ripped poncho pics). And another poncho bit the dust over at Jenny's. Karen frogged a failed project and was rewarded with 10 skeins worth of Lana D'oro. Yum! Michelle said good-bye to her fluffy thing and is gonna start a scarf style scarf! And Nicole ripped Rosedale United to start Rosedale.

There was plenty of fixing too:

Emily is fixing her Mariah. Patti has started Gersta with her Klaralund yarn and fixed her just finished Marilyn! Bethany is reknitting a sweater for her son. Shelby shows us that fixing's not so bad after all (and should have a finished Gloria to show us later today). And Renee is making a blanket out of the yarn she recovered from the baby sweater she ripped last week.

Rae had an emergency fix precipitated by a boy and his scissors! Eklectika fixed her dangerously low-cut tank. Jessica fixed and finished her mon petit chou hipster panties. Wowza! Nat fixed a wonderful heirloom blanket that a few moths had gotten to. Grauwal fixed the sleeves on her Jean Moss cardigan. And Jenny fixed something she didn't even know was broken!

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This is your official sockapalooza two week notice!

I'm on schedule with one sock done and the second begun. (Hey, that rhymed!)

And what you're all waiting for, more finished socks to covet:

Silke's cloverleaf socks
Tania's striped regia socks
Jackie's retro ribs
Karen B.'s elegant fair-isle socks (when they were still in progress)
Judy's gorgeous fair-isle socks
Angela's violet variegated
Jessica's beeea-utiful Birch Leaf socks
Lydia's lacy, autumnal colors
Jenny's beautiful blues
Timothy's first socks!
Deb's purple patterned socks
Amy Lu's rainbow socks
Fern's red socks
Dyann's Conwy socks
Jackie's red hots
Beate's incredible orange patterned socks

And in-progress socks you're gonna want to have:

Jody's tutti-frutti socks
Valentina's berry Tumbling Leaves
Emily's pretty white confetti socks
Ginger's teal blue sock
Jackie's retro green socks
Mamacate's Broadripple
Keri's Dublin Bay sock
Wendi's blue ribs (those would be PERFECT for me!)
Julia's Bob Marley Carribean Shells sock (did you vote in the poll?)
Kathy's beautiful striped socks

Sock on folks! Only two weeks 'til we ship.

January was blue. February is cashmere. March will be vintage.

So far I've been inspired each month to knit something really special. The january sweater was inspired by the beautiful blue yarn that I acquired at the January clearance sale at Wild & Wooly. February's cashmere hourglass sweater came about when I decided to recycle the yarn from an old Banana Republic sweater that lay forgotten in the closet for at least five years. (Update coming on Friday!)

March's sweater will be from a genuine vintage pattern (probably from the 1950's) that a customer brought into my LYS about a week ago. She was wearing her mother's cardigan that her grandmother had made from the pattern decades ago and it was gorgeous! She wanted to make one herself and was asking Johanna to help her work through some of the terminology. Both Johanna and I were really taken with the cardigan and the customer obliged us by letting us copy the old pattern. I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I broke down last week and went looking for the perfect yarn. With the help of Johanna and Wendy and Cara (who was visiting Boston for the weekend and just happened to be in my LYS with Wendy when I popped by!), I finally chose Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in opal gray.

Commence swatching!

and the stripes even match!

My Idena Crazy socks are done. I love them. And can I just say that I really like the way DK weight socks knit up?! I like how fast they go and I really like the thickness of the sock. There need to be more socks on US4's in my life. So I took a little virtual stroll over to the Knitting Zone and ordered the Lorna's Laces in china blue that I've been lusting after for so long. In sport weight, bay-bee!

Knit a Dozen Socks by Edie Eckman

And more proof of just how crazy I am about socks now, I rushed out and bought this sock book recommended to me by Nicole, who is making the cutest little cable socks for her sock pal based on this pattern in the book. I loved that pattern and immediately went searching for the book. The day it arrived, I cast on for their basic sock with the fabulous supermerino yarn I purchased for my mom's friend. I simply can't say enough good things about this yarn. The colors, the hand, the gauge (on US6's!): all wonderful.

color #122 - "shades of seafoam"

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I'm trying not to knit up my hourglass sweater too quickly so I can savor the cashmere as long as possible. It's been hard stopping myself from just casting on the body and flying forward because the recycled cashmere is knitting up very easily and feels wonderful on the needles. This week I succeeded in only finishing the first sleeve (up to the beginning of the armhole where it will be joined to the body).

look, the sleeves are hourglass shaped as well

I couldn't help myself and I started the second sleeve too. Hint: it's looking just like the one above.

Ain't it the truth! Read The Joy of Socks from The Boston Globe (2/24/05).

And when I get to do it with gals like these, I love it even more.

queen bee Kay and sew-up organizer Julia

Click for scenes from yesterday's Mason-Dixon Afghan Sew-Up in Newburyport, MA.

That has to be the most fun I've ever had with a darning needle!

Didn't think I'd forgotten about pop, did you? I did make a few attempts to fix her up in February, but this sweater is really stubborn - it just does not want to come out right! My latest attempt at the neckline is good, but too open. I think I'll keep the same shape, but leave myself a few more stitches for the shoulders. My shy bra straps should appreciate that.

But before I go back and fix the front yet again, I decided to tackle the back. When I first finished the sweater I noticed that although the measurements were good, it rode up a little while I had it on, so my February fix-it plan was to invent a new neckline and go back and add an inch before the armhole shaping on the body and before the sleeve cap on the sleeves. Since the front is in time out AGAIN, I ripped out the pink of the back and am starting the re-knitting there.

Straight knitting - I can't get that wrong, right?

Starting off again this week with another finished weasley. After making one for her son, Katie made a second weasley for her daughter.

Apparently making weasleys is as addictive as making...

a close-up of the ribbing with twisted stich borders
and look at the cute little toes!

Socks! Yup, I'm all done with my pair. Whoopee!

More finished sockapalooza socks for your feet to dream of:

Erika's Travelling Socks
Cara's pink clown socks (and look, she made a little keychain sock too!)
Monique's spiral stripes
Iris' superlong Regia Brasil socks (wow, that was a lot of knitting!)
Angi's white lacy socks
Sibylle's lovely silk socks
Dawn's pretty blue socks (here's a lighter version of her picture)
Debi's purple wave socks
Cathi's brightly striped socks
Carla's Broadripples
Gracie's Broadrippless
Amy's blue retro ribs (on their way from New York to ???)
MA's Koigu ribs
Cathy's purple textured socks

And more underway:

Marie-France reports she's working on Nancy Bush's Conwy sock in pink.
Pam's blue/green striped socks
Christy's Firefighters sock
Parikha's gorgeous grey sock
Amber's beaded spiral sock
Kirsten's fun stripes
Sandy's Friday Harbor sock
Allison's blue ribs
Jody's gorgeous Regia Surf sock
Ginger's blue Elann Sock-it-to-Me sock
Nona's tessellation sock

Just one more week and one more update and then it'll be time to get those socks in the mail! Of course, those of you with international sock pals have most likely already started sending socks out. In fact, I've already heard that the first pair has made its way to its recipient! Check out how happy Helene is with her socks. Hooray!

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February may be over, but we're still fixin'!

Did you see Bonne Marie's fabulous little number that she made from her recycled cash iroha?! Or Shelby's gorgeous Gloria?! Check out Bethany's little cutie modeling the sweater she just fixed. And Dani modeling her poncho turned shawl. Colleen had to fix her Fix-it sweater a second time, but it's all done now!

Still ripping and fixing are: Emily, who is almost done with her Mariah. Brynne, who ripped a sweater and is charting out how to reshape it. Carla ripped her Rogue (no pics yet). Nancy is fixing her Rogue - cutting, lengthening and grafting it back together (oh my!). And Sibylle says that with all this frogging and fixing, she's been thinking about ripping her Rogue! And here I thought Klaralund was the big fixer-up sweater. I did hear that another Klaralund bit the dust over at Enchanting Juno. And mine is should be at least partially ripped by next week's update.

Amazing how our fix-a-thon has inspired so many others to rip, fix and finish old projects! Katie rescued a cute baby tart hat from her UFO pile. Sandy ripped out a hat in a fabulous Berroco yarn. And Ellen reports she's redoing a sweater - ripping the yarn out from the neck to lengthen the sleeves.

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Last but not least, a little bird told me that a nothing but a t-shirt along is coming soon!

Remember how I said I couldn't take the boys into a vintage store? Well, I was wrong. I can if it's the Garment District in Cambridge. On the first floor they have a pile (I'm talking a literal pile here) of clothes on the floor. You climb in and crawl through the pile, pulling out sweaters and blankets and god knows what, bag what you like and pay $1.50 a pound. The boys liked the pile.

can you find the boy in the pile?

And upstairs they have a huge vintage/used clothing store, complete with fun retro decorations. Happy is the three-year old boy who finds a train in the middle of mommy's clothing store.

What'd we get? Upstairs I found a lovely cashmere twinset. And out of the pile (for a total of $3!) I got a huge, soft (and blue!) cardigan that I can probably recycle the yarn from and my favorite find a fun little sweater that reminds me of Jenn's blog.

The boys got ice cream.

Pop's latest neckline.

I finished the back, worked out this nice neckline for the front and even sewed the two pieces together, so I could slip it all on and make some decisions.

Decision: it's still not right. It's fine and all, but I now that I've redone it six times, I want it to be really awesome! I've got one more idea I want to try out. If it doesn't work, I'll go back to this neckline. In the meantime, I'm going to work on lengthening those sleeves. Maybe making progress somewhere else will keep me from throwing this whole project out the window.

Maybe.

Two hourglass sleeves done! Oh, how I love the subtle shaping on these sleeves.

I started the body, but am concerned about how it's coming out. Others had said that their hourglass sweaters were running a little large, and there's a big gap between the two smallest sizes, so I decided to cast on a number of stitches between the two sizes. Well, what I've got fits me like a glove, but I'm thinking that the whole hourglass shaping needs more ease to really look lovely. What do you think?

Supermerino socks are all done and I think they're pretty super.

So super in fact that I went out to Circles and bought more supermerino for some socks for me. And you're not going to believe the colorway I couldn't resist.

I know what you're thinking: who the hell am I and what have I done with Alison?!

So I'm watching Match Game and the question is:

"Fred said, 'I knew the honeymoon was over when I took my wife to an X-rated movie and she brought along her ________'"

If you said "knitting", you matched me,

Brett Somers,

and Raymond Burr!

No way I was gonna make it through the two-month fix-a-thon without fixing both boys' blankies. I rescued S's blankie at the start of February. B's blankie has been hanging on by a thread (literally) for a while now. He has rubbed the edges down so much that there were at least five spots that were just one snuggle away from developing into holes. Last week, I saw him stick his fingers right through the garter stitch edging and knew it was time.

no denying it, that's a hole

Sure, I could pick up that stitch, patch up that hole, but everything around it is about to go. I'd be fixing another spot in less than a week (and even worse, just look at how thin some of the yarn is in some of the first pattern rows below the edging!). Nope, the entire edging and last pattern repeat had to go.

Of course there was no variegated Baby Merino DK to be found round here no more, but we found some in blue that B approved of.

he's grinning ear to ear behind the yarn

He snuggled with the ball while I got all the stitches back on the needles correctly, then passed it to me to start the reknitting.

Two days after first seeing the hole, the blanket had a new border ready for lovin'.

together again at last

Last official Sockapalooza update! I've got about half of you listed as all done, so time to finish those socks and get them in the mail, folks.* I'm off to the post office to send off my sock pal's socks later this morning.

hint: this package doesn''t have far to travel!

Here's the latest bunch of finished socks that I've seen. Ooooh, the anticipation!

Mary's Conwy socks
Brynne's blue lace socks (Kristy has already received these!)
Holly's cable & rib socks
Christy's Firefighter socks
Neysa's beautiful cable socks
Erica's Pretty Comfy socks
Julia's aptly named Bob Marley's Grandma's Carribean Shell Socks
Dawn's flame Retro Ribs
Mary's Retro Ribs
Sandy's Friday Harbor socks
Kim's flock of chocolate socks (scroll down to March 8)
Polly's green New England socks (go Pats! hee, hee)
Wendi's blue Denmark socks
Keri's Dublin Bay socks
Cece's Party Ants socks
Rowena's Crusoe socks
Kristi's Spearfish socks (her own design!)
Parikha's elegant grey ribbed socks
MamaCate's Broadripple socks
Ginger's blue Sock-it-to-Me socks

If you've received your socks already, feel free to give a shout-out in the comments here and let your pal know how much you liked 'em!

* - If you're still working on your sock pal's socks, no problem. Just send them out as soon as you're done. If it's going to be a while, it would be nice if you sent me or your sock pal an email so they know that socks will be coming. The date's not as important as the socks, so keep on knitting!

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I may be done with my socks, but not with my fixin'! In fact, I just acquired a new fixer-upper. My LYS was having a little clearance sale of old shop models. I immediately grabbed this sweater, which I remembered always liking. I was drawn to the colors when I first saw it and then once I felt how soft it was, I wanted the yarn.

But I never saw the yarn in the store (now I know that it's OnLine 76 Cup). So I had to have the sweater. The style is just silly though. Look at those puffed out sleeves! I've ripped everything back to the ribbing and am working on reknitting it. Stay tuned for its reincarnation as "Banff on Safari" coming soon!

And if you thought I was a frogging and fixing fanatic, just look at Carissa's to-do list. Incredible, Carissa! And really inspiring. If anyone else out there is still fixin', let me know what you're up to in the comments!

Can I help it if the Match Game people keep talking about knitting?!

Brett Somers began this show by mentioning that she gets lots of fan mail from women wanting to know where they can find the pattern for this poncho that she often wore. (Sound familiar?) She was sorry to say that no, she doesn't knit and she has no idea if there is a pattern anywhere for it. Lion Brand? Herrshners?

In the last few days, there's been no sock knitting, no hourglass knitting, no pop repairing, and no vintage sweater starting. I've focused exclusively on my new fixer-upper, "Banff on Safari."

I am having so much fun reknitting this sweater! Since the original version had such nice ribbing already, I kept the old ribbing and adjusted the Banff pattern to work with that stitch count. The OnLine sweater had 10 fewer stitches for each body piece and almost 30 fewer for each sleeve! In order to get that little poof after the ribbing, I needed to add more stitches to the total stitch count though. I wasn't worried about adding to the width of the sleeves, since they were so poofy at the top, I figured there'd be plenty of yarn to redistribute the poof over the whole arm. But I was nervous about adding stitches to the body and then still having enough yarn to finish the sweater. I decided to do only two increases on each body piece. But then I joined the two pieces and started knitting them in the round. This has the effect of further increasing the total stitch count (including in the body the four stitches that were previously sewn together in the seam), without using up any more yarn. I was very proud of myself for coming up with that little idea.

The yarn is holding up very well to the reknitting. It's so slubby and bumpy that there wasn't even any need to wash it after frogging. And the fact that the gauge matches that of Banff perfectly was really serendipitous. It's made reworking the raglan sleeve decreases merely a matter of adjusting for size. I've shortened the armhole a bit and to adjust for the dramatically smaller stitch count on the sleeves, I've decreased a bit more slowly there. Again, the slubby nature of the yarn will help me, since it will hide the fact that the decreases on the body and sleeves won't match up perfectly.

I should have this finished this weekend! And things should stay green around here for a while longer, because a big box o' green yarn just arrived yesterday!

Artful Yarns' Candy in sour apple

This Candy yarn is so neat. It's a soft, light cotton/acrylic/elastic blend and look at how nicely it knits up. I may have to make another "nothing but a t-shirt" with this fun stuff.

Hourglass progress?

I ripped the body out entirely and cast on again including the eight stitches I'd left out before. I haven't quite made it to where I was before, which is why my formerly perfect ball of cashmere is still being strangled by the frogged yarn. I was just discussing with Shannon the other day (as both of us were knitting from wads hanging off of center-pull balls) that the center-pull ball is a wonderful thing, unless you make a mistake. It's very unforgiving!

The new version of the body isn't really looking too different than in the last picture. It is most definitely looser, but still doesn't look big or drapey. It hugs my curves rather than stretches out across my widest parts. After seeing Diana's finished hourglass, I think it'll be a nice look. So onward to the increases and the yoke!

Have you heard about the yarn bus?? Not only did Flying Fingers' shuttle bus, which takes shoppers from downtown NYC to their yarn shop out in Westchester, make the Channel 7 News, it got a write up in the New Yorker!

Next time I'm in New York I so want to do this! But there are still plenty of fun yarn trips to be had up here in New England. In fact, I'm off today on an excursion out to Webs in Western Mass. No giant fiberglass yarn balls on the car, but I'll be knitting all the way!

Update: I just found this awesome post of Bevin and Sooner's yarn bus adventure. Check it out! Thanks to Illana for the link.

What an incredible knitting weekend! First the yarn trip out to Western Mass all day Saturday, then a few hours of working at the yarn store on Sunday, and last but not least, our Knitsmiths' yarn swap yesterday afternoon. Whew!

colorful stitchers at Colorful Stitches

Saturday, I met up with Kerstin, Claudia (note new blog address!) and a few knit-bloggers in from out-of-town (Annie, Leigh, Melissa, Mary, and Mary Beth) and we hit the road in search of yarn. Every single one of us had a sock-in-progress to knit while in the car. And because I'm now crazy sock lady, I took a picture of each of them: Claudia's, Kerstin's and Annie's, Leigh's, Melissa's and Mary's (note gorgeous peace fleece sweaters!), and Mary Beth's. Fabulous, aren't they? Oh yeah, the socks too! I worked on my supermerino zebra socks (more on them later!)

First stop was Colorful Stitches, which ROCKED! Beautiful store in a lovely house, with gorgeous yarn draped everywhere and Rowan Magpie on sale and many lovely blue yarns which somehow made their way into my basket. Yay! Then it was on to the main event, Webs.

Webs' super wall of supermerino

The front of the store has been remodeled and is now HUGE! They've got everything and in every color. Just look at all that ArtYarns Supermerino! I talked several of my fellow yarn girls into taking some of this yarn that I'm using for my zebra socks home (more on those socks later!). The thing that makes Webs really cool is the warehouse in the back, where you can rummage through bags and boxes and giant cones of yarn. We opened one unassuming box to find over a dozen rather tribble-looking cones of Berroco's Mohair Classic (remember tribbles?). And look, up in the sky, it's scores of blue yarn cones. Ooh, I like this place!

No, I didn't get that blue coned yarn, but I did get one skein of this incredibly soft malabrigo merino yarn and the last of the KFI Cashmereno (the finer, even-softer precursor to Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino), enough for a sweater for me.

And if that weren't enough, Sunday was our Knitsmiths' swap! I brought in some lovely yarns that hadn't inspired me recently, and came home with enough Debbie Bliss cotton angora and Rowan Polar to roll around naked in (uh, no picture of that moment, you'll have to trust me!) and some wicked cool retro yarn that Amber brought in in an old bread bag. Too fun!

Oh and with all that knitting time, I finished my supermerino zebra socks*.

Now I must sleep.

* - Since I seem to be the new supermerino yarn-pusher, I will tempt you by telling you that this pair only took two skeins to make on US6's and it's soooo soft!

So far almost 120 pairs of socks have been made and sent off to pals. Incredible!!! I can't thank you all enough for doing such a great job coming through with wonderful socks for your pals.

My pal (both in the sock swap and in real life) Sandy got her socks from me! I'm so relieved that she likes them. And I received two pairs of wonderful socks from my pal, Andrea.

Yes, my socks were crocheted! Aren't they pretty? The yarn is Knit Pick's Color Your Own sock yarn and it feels great. I love the color. Yes, "color your own" is meant to be dyed, but you see, I like me a good plain sock. I put that in my sock pal info and Andrea came through for me. It's not easy knitting socks for me! Thanks so much Andrea!! These socks are going to be well-worn, I can promise you!

And winding up the sockapalooza, another list of amazing finished socks:

Barbara's pink crazy stripes (she finished these ages ago and I totally missed them!)
Jessica's dainty fair-isle socks (I missed these too!)
Elspeth's socks in repose (another oldie!)
Sandra's beautiful purple waves
Anja's blue retro ribs (lucky Julia got these!)
Pam's blue/green stripes (my favorite colors!)
Kathy's Kool-Aid dyed socks (these went to a very grateful Brynne)
Nona's unbelievable tesselating socks
Jen's broadripples (she's also showing off the stunning striped socks she got from her sock pal, Kathy!)
Wendi's cables
Chris Q.'s purples
Illanna's Broadripples (see them here on the blog of the happy recipient Jody)
Gina's Briggs and Little socks
Allison's amazing first socks (shown here on the feet of another Allison who was her sock pal!)
Lu's pink (PINK!) broadripples
Jody's spring stripes
Dawn's Purple Club socks
Nancy's pretty purple ribs (also shown are the lovely socks she received from MK!)
Cindy's cute blue ankle socks
Steph's Crusoe socks
Jenifer's squiggle ribs (look, she got the lovely grey socks that Parikha made)
Emma's oh so lovely Broadripples
Amber's gorgeous beaded socks (you have to see the close up here!)

Just a few more dozen socks to go and this sockapalooza tour will be o-vah! And once everyone's gotten their socks, I'd definitely be up for another go round. (No sign ups now, please. I'll let you know when I'm all set up to start another tour.) Until then, keep knitting those socks!

Lookie, it's my finished Banff on Safari. Just so we remember what the sweater looked like before.

and after

From silly, poofy thing to legitimate sweater. Right on! This ripping and fixing stuff RULES!

But that's not my new favorite sweater. This is.

Coco from Jo Sharp's Book Two

This is another older shop model that I picked up in my LYS's sale bin. It fits me perfectly! When I first saw the sweater on display in the store a couple years ago, I immediately bought the book because I wanted to make one for myself. I never got around to knitting the sweater, but actually I'm glad of that now. I would never have thought to knit the short-sleeved version of the sweater, but it's really comfy to wear. The wool is warm enough that it seems to make up for my arms being bare. It's making me rethink all those charming short-sleeved "vintage" sweater patterns that I discredited in my mind as impractical. Cause I like this one. I really like it.

But what makes me love this sweater so much, besides the fact that I love the pattern and the yarn (Jo Sharp Silkroad Tweed), is that I didn't have to knit it. I don't have any family members who knit, which means that there isn't anyone out there ever knitting for me. So it's really cool to have this beautiful handknit sweater that someone else knitted. It makes me feel special somehow.

The beginnings of Retro Rib socks in Lorna's Laces China Blue for me. This time I'm doing the whole pattern, since I have a nice solid color yarn to really show it off. I've allowed myself a little handicap though: I'm using Lorna's Shephard Sport on US4's so the socks won't take an eternity to knit. It's making the knitting easier, but I'll have some number crunching to do when I get to the heel. Until then, I'm enjoying the pattern immensely.

There was no time for knitting yesterday. Guess where we went!

Yes, despite the snow (another snowstorm? what's this spring coming to?!), we drove down to Ikea for some fun and buns. B even got to visit Smaland. You know what that means - one boy potty trained, one to go. Another one? What's this motherhood thing coming to?

Two pop sleeves, nice and long now.

As for the front, I'm just going to keep passing the open windows.

I've had some requests to share the modificiations I made to the Banff pattern to make my Banff on Safari. I didn't start out with the idea of making a downsized Banff, but as I was limited to only the yarn that was in the original sweater I was recycling the yarn from, I couldn't make a genuine, big Banff, and yet I just kept thinking that this sweater had to become a Banff, somehow. So here's the somehow for those of you who are interested in a Banff with a more standard fit.

Banff on a Budget

Measurements

Bust: 42"
Length: 22"
Sleeve Length: 17 1/2" to underarm
Sleeve Width: 14" at underarm

Instructions

BACK: Cast on 74 st. and work in 2x2 rib for 4 1/2", ending on WS row. Switch to stockinette stitch, increasing as indicated in the pattern. Work even on these 78 st. for 10". Bind off and do raglan decreases as written in pattern until 34 st. remain. Follow shoulder instructions as in original pattern.

FRONT: Work as for BACK above, doing ribbing, increases, armhole bind offs and decreases until 46 st. remain. Then follow instructions as given in pattern.

SLEEVES: Cast on 38 st. and work in 2x2 rib for 4 1/2", ending on WS row. Switch to stockinette stitch, increasing 6st. evenly over the first row. Increase one stitch at each end every 16 rows until you have 50 st. on needle. Work even until sleeve measures 17 1/2", ending with WS row.

(Note: I kept the original ribbing from the store model that I was working with. That sweater had narrower sleeves at the bottom. If you want to have a bigger, straighter sleeve like in the real Banff pattern, I'd suggest casting on 46 st. at the beginning of the sleeve, increasing 4 st. evenly on the first row after the ribbing, and leaving out all other increases.)

Bind off 4 st. at each end of next two rows. Work raglan decreases as given BUT instead of working the raglan decreases every row, *decrease in next four rows, then work one row even*. Repeat from *to* until 8 st. remain. (This has the effect of spreading out the decreases, similar to if you were doing decreases on both ends of a single row every two and every three rows alternately.) Follow pattern for top of sleeve.

Sew it up. Pick up 64 st. around neck for turtleneck. Work neck in 2x2 rib as long as you want (I had enough yarn for 8") and bind off in pattern.

These modifications are also posted in a separate Banff on Budget page in my free patterns section.

Even in Boston, it looks like spring is here at last. Except for our little snowstorm last week, we've had sunny days and temps up in the high 40's. We've reclaimed the sidewalks and the playground from the snow and reacquainted ourselves with neighbors we haven't seen all winter long. And the final proof - a visit from the Easter Bunny.

yes, we are using the Halloween pumpkin
as an Easter Basket

And look what he left in mommy's (knitting) basket.

more on these yummy treats tomorrow!

Here's hoping that the Easter Bunny and the spring sentinels make your day a special one.

Yes, Kat, you're right, my Easter basket was filled with the "white bread" yarn that I got at our Knitsmiths yarn swap.

I stopped by my LYS last week to pick out some lovely (and by lovely, I mean horribly 70's retro) coordinating yarn to use with my swap fun find. Johanna and I were trying to decide if the yarn was all acrylic or if it had some actual wool in it and I'm thinking, well, the only label we have says it's bread, so that's no help... We decided that if it wasn't wool, it was pretending to be, so I choose Classic Elite's Bazic, a wool with a similar look and texture to the white bread yarn in an awesome retro spring green. And here's what I'm thinking of doing with it all.

from Vintage Knits (click for larger view)

groovy, baby

And the socks just keep on coming!

Chrissie's incredible pink patch socks (Beate was the lucky one who got these!)
Denna's retro ribs (as worn by her sock pal Samantha)
Lynne's slouchy socks (as seen on Lindsay's happy feet)
Lisa's super stripes
Ann's ravishing reds
Yasmin's pinky socks
Marti's blue ribs
Hannah's diagonal rib socks (seen on Jessica's blog)
Gina's sweet ankle socks (her first pair, people!!)
Lori's Broadripples (on her sock pal Amelia's feet)
Stacey's toasty toes socks
Selena's winterberry Crusoes
Nicole's Bittersweets
Lizzie's blue ankle socks (seen here in Lydia-land!)
Traci's rainbow socks (seen on her pal's happy feet)
Allison's beautiful blue/green socks

Again, feel free to use the comments here to give your sock pal a big shout out. Hooray for sock pals!

So far, I have confirmation that over 80% of the socks are done and on their way or already arrived. That's awesome! If you aren't marked down as finished in the main list and you haven't already reported in, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me a quick email to let me know how far along you are. I'm sure there are more finished socks out there that just haven't been blogged about. So let's make that list all green, people!

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Hey, fixers and weasley knitters, what'cha up to? Anyone out there still working? I'm still plugging away at pop and my hourglass sweater and collecting yarn for new fix-it projects.

Did you realize that revamping a sweater is an excellent excuse to buy new yarn?? I recently bought this lovely Debbie Bliss wool/cotton to combine with the Rowan wool/cotton in hubby's practically never-worn and destined-for-frogging brown butter vest.

Some time next fall this lot should become the sweater version of Cyd (which I first fell in love with when I saw it in progress over at crankyknits). Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I'm never going to stop fixing. It's just too fun!

Warning: this will be yet another post about my losing battle to keep the boys' blankies whole!

One morning last week, S comes to snuggle in bed with me, and this is what his blankie looks like. That'll wake you up pretty fast!

This one was easily fixed though. All those neat stitches stayed right where they were supposed to be (despite being dragged around from bedroom to bedroom) and I had merely to rework that cast off row. In order to strengthen some other danger zones, I wove in about a foot of extra yarn over some thin areas. I'm hoping this will keep us big-blankie-crisis-free for a while.

So if we're all lucky, it'll be another month or so before I have to write another one of these posts!!

...I like to knit my giant white bread sweater. It's my favorite brand.

I couldn't wait any longer and cast on for my white bread sweater! Since the yarn isn't the fanciest (far from it!) and the colors are only pretty in the sort of so-ugly-that-they're-fabulous kinda way, I decided to at least go upscale with my techniques and am doing a tubular cast on for the ribbed edges.

People, tubular cast on is a good thing. It looks lovely and makes the stretchiest edge, which is very good in this case because this top is going to be snug! There wasn't that much yarn in the bread bag (it all fit into a bread bag - how much can it be?!), so I know I can't risk lengthening the original or widening that ribbed edge, which I would normally do with a slightly cropped design like this one. I'm already going to have to do the back in the solid green yarn that I bought to coordinate with the retro yarn and I may have to make the sleeves solid green as well. But that's okay, because I love these two colors together.

bad lighting = wrong green, here's a new shot in the morning sun

This. Sweater. Is. Going. To. Be. So. Cool.