In honor of today being St. Patrick's Day and green being the order of the day, I thought I would show you what my next sweater project is going to be. The sweater pattern is named Stellar, it's a Jo Sharp design from her Knitting Emporium book. My sister, Lynn, found this book for me, she also showed me which sweater she would like for herself. So, this one will be for her, in green, not the pistachio green that is in the picture but a cedar green, because Lynnie likes the color green. It is her belief that green is a neutral color that goes with everything, like blue jeans does.
Who am I to argue? I happen to like the color green, very much, in fact it's one of my favorite colors. What's my other favorite color you ask? Well, truth be told, I like red, though not quite so much as I used to. In fact lately it has been green that's had the edge, yet I'm still rather partial to the color red.
I've signed up for the Project Spectrum. The idea of Project Spectrum is simply a celebration of the colors around us, and taking the time to notice them.
Each month over a six month span will be devoted to a color group. It is really about expressing yourself creatively - making something beautiful, and creating something unique with your hands. It is also about thinking outside of the box - perhaps taking up a new hobby, or a long neglected one, or finally dabbling in design.
The color for the month of March is red or pink, I know you're thinking that red/pink would have been perfect for the month of February but because of the Knitting Olympics the project began with red or pink in March instead and that's fine.
So I've had a few ideas of what I would like to do for the spectrum project. I'm not fond of the color pink, it's not a color I would normally choose. There's nothing wrong with the color pink, it's just not my thing. However, there is a heart doily pattern by Nicky Epstein in her Knitting for the home book that I've been contemplating knitting, in fact I was thinking about knitting it in February but I set the thought aside for the Olympic Knitting Project. I think this would be a good project to knit in pink.
When I was at my mom's home for Thanksgiving last fall she let me have some of her red fabrics because there is a Red school house wall quilt that I've been wanting to make for quite some time so I plan to start that this month as well. One other thing that I've pulled out of cold storage is a cross stitch bedspread/quilt that has a red and yellow tulip design. I started it using a Rayon thread and decided that it was a mistake, which is probably why I put the thing away for so long. I've decided to use regular cotton embroidery thread rather than the other thread that I was using. There are four colors that I'm using for the quilt, red, yellow, blue and green. My thought was that I would work on the red tulips for the month of March, or if I can get Ani interested in working on the project with me then I'll have her do the red tulips. Other than that I continue to work on my Forest Path stole, I won't post another picture of it for a while, it looks pretty much the same only a little longer. I've started knitting the second sock of the socks that I'm knitting for Ani and I plan to start working on the Latvian Mittens again. I just checked, the month for green is May, it will probably be that long before I get to knitting the sweater for Lynn.

Day 30: This just in... An Olympic knitter last seen heading in the wrong direction, wandered down a forest path in a vain and misguided, if not valiant attempt to attain a gold medal has been discovered meandering her way through the woods and talking to the trees. Deep in denial she has been seen muttering dark and demented rants and clutching her very sharp and pointy bamboo double pointed needles.
(rumor has it that in a bold move to improve the efficiency of manipulating the fine material into lace, it was the knitter herself that honed her instruments to the potentially hazardous points and having done so, put her work at risk of being bled upon or of possibly suffering an even worse fate of splitting the strand. None the less, she contends that it would have been nigh unto impossible of having any hope of finishing without having done so.)

Although appearing calm, the knitter seemed disoriented and confused as to how or why she came to be in such a predicament, seeking answers she sought consolation from the trees about her. Who's stupid idea was this anyway? Citius, Alitius, Fortius, indeed, just who does she think she is? What makes her think that anyone could actually finish such Herculean tasks? I heard that she doesn't even know any Finnish. Okay, so who knew that she would actually pull it off? I mean really, who thought she would actually be able to pull off knitting the Hardangervidda? And in sixteen days, no less. Whatever. She's just trying to make me look bad. I've been set up, that's what, yeah, that's it, set up.
Well, I'll show them, I'll show them all. I will follow this path that I've been set upon, I'll follow it through to it's completion and when I reach the end I will have a drop dead gorgeous shawl that is delicate and airy, so soft and deceptively warm. Who needs a gold medal anyway? Ppff, gold is all like, yellow and stuff, gold is for chicken wusses anyway. Who wants gold when you can have white gold? That's right white gold, I'll have platinum grey Forest path stole, so there.

Okay, a few specifics for those who have asked. I am using the needle size the
pattern suggests which is 3.25 mm. I am using bamboo double point needles that
I've sanded to sharper points because I can't pick up or knit multiple stitches
together on such a fine strand with blunt ends. To purl the five stitches for
the nups in the lily of the valley pattern I find it easier to slip the first
two stitches, purl 3 together and then pass the slipped stitches back over that
stitch. The yarn I'm using is an extra fine Merino cashwool. I don't know, but I
think that it is a finer yarn than the lace weight that the pattern uses. But it
seems to be working fine, so I'm going with it.
The cat's name is Hobbes and
the reason it's so white behind him is because there is a doosey of a snow storm
blowing outside the window.