Purpley is all finished, just in time for Rhinebeck (now watch, it won't be sweater weather again this year!). I'm very pleased with how this sweater came out. I couldn't quite convince myself of the practicality of knitting a maternity sweater, but as I already had this sweater half done on the needles and it was coming out a little roomy, it seemed like a no-brainer to finish it up and wear it as a maternity sweater. And since I'd made it a smidge longer than the pattern called for, it's just the right length now to let a little baby bump poke out the bottom.

Overall, I enjoyed this Ella Rae pattern, although I have made several alterations to it. And although the Debbie Bliss cotton angora yarn is admittedly a strange animal (it does shed and it's rather limp), I can't help but really like it. It's so warm and fuzzy! And it's perfectly purpley for covering my girl-filled pregnancy belly.

My purpley t-shirt sweater is fast approaching the finish line!

I added the collar and sewed in the first sleeve.

I made a lot of changes to these two parts of the pattern. The neck as written in the pattern is very angular with straight bound-off stitches in the middle and regular decreases on the sides after that, giving it this sort of look \_/. It just wasn't very classy looking and didn't work very well with the tiny rolled edge collar. So I rounded out the neck shaping more and did a few more rows of stockinette on the collar. It's much smoother and prettier now, I think.

The sleeves had your basic sleeve shaping: narrow at the wrists with extra ease around the upper arm. I prefer sleeves with more at the wrist and less at the upper arm, so I went with a straight sleeve. You get a subtle bell shape when it's on and it's sooo much easier to knit too!

I may just end up liking this sweater even more than my original!

Purpley is definitely going to make it! One sleeve down.

This was the only knitting I could do last week when my nose was really running. I could lay with my head tipped up, resting on the back of the sofa, and just knit with my hands (which was about the only thing working last week). No looking, no thinking, no shaping.

Only one sleeve to go and a month to finish it. Heck, I could do that even with this stinking cold.

What can you knit when you're so sick, you've got no energy, you're head hurts so much that you can't think straight, and you can't really look down because your nose is constantly running? A stockinette stitch sweater in a fluffy nose-tickling angora yarn. You can't bore a woman who's been trapped either on the sofa or in bed for four days; any activity is welcome - even miles of stockinette stitch. And what's the angora going to do? Make me sneeze? That'd be an improvement.

So, very slowly and only in my best moments, I've started the sleeves of my purple cotton angora t-shirt sweater.

I couldn't think about where my normal length circular was without my head hurting, so I'm using the 16" circular that I could find. And I my head wasn't working enough for me to remember that I had been knitting this sweater continental, but I got gauge, so there!

It is cheering me up though to be resurrecting this sweater. I had tossed it into the UFO pile because I thought it was going to be too large (the pattern gives you quite a bit of ease!), but since seeing that little blue line on the pregnancy test strip, I'm thinking, hey, a little big is maybe a good thing. So if I get sleeves on this sweater, we could be wearing it to Rhinebeck!

The last time we saw my purple t-shirt sweater it was just a poor neglected front. Where is it now? Well, back in May, I finished the back (now I remember, this pattern has you do the front first, weird!) and even seamed the two pieces together.

I always sew the body pieces of a sweater together to get a sense of the fit before I continue on to the sleeves. When I tried this on, it was waaaay big. Now, my synchronicity top (knit from the same pattern) is also roomy, but there's so much shaping to the sweater that it hadn't bothered me. Somehow however in the cotton angora, this one felt freakishly large. So I stuffed it in the back of the knitting basket for a month.

I tried it on again last week and decided it was okay after all (I figure if I want something snug, I should find a more elastic yarn and knit another nothing but a t-shirt!). So this one's back on the knitting shelf, ready for when I need a break from all that lace and silk. Simple stockinette to the rescue!

Be sure to tune in next week for a new installment of Where Are They Now?! See what's happened to your favorite blue blog knits. Are they being worn? Are they packed away? Are they slated for ripping? Any requests?

I've had no time for knitting things for myself these days, what with those socks to finish and design projects taking over all my free time. So, I don't really know how I managed to finish the front of the purple t-shirt sweater. A half hour stolen here and there really does add up, I guess.

Poor neglected purpley sweater. (Poor neglected barely begun pink eyelet sweater. Poor neglected unstarted baby geek sweater. Poor neglected unfinished hubby sweater. Poor neglected hurting my hand afghan squares.) The continental projects still have the advantage in the battle for my attention though, so expect to see more of the purple sweater as time permits!

I find myself in the unfamiliar situation of only have one current project on the needles: my sockapaloooza socks. (Yes, there are all of my works-not-in-progress, but they are waiting for my right wrist to feel fully recovered.) I'll knit for a while - like all day Sunday - on my sockapaloooza socks and then my hand needs a break. And I find that on days when I've been knitting continental, my wrist feels really good. So I will continue with the continental projects. The same continental projects, in fact. T-shirt sweater number two is underway.

purpley

The cotton angora is knitting up quite nicely and quickly. I've used this yarn before, for my mother's jess sweater, so I was ready for the angora fluff up the nose and the slightly smooshed appearance of the stitches. I love the color and the feel though and think it'll be nice as a simple, casual top to pullover another tee.

knitting in style with addis and a knowknit pouch

And since I've just knit the same pattern, it is completely mindless knitting now. Gotta save that mental energy for my design projects! Wow, I'm resting my hand and resting my head; this project is like total knitting sloth!