Knitting an Omelette?

No, it's my La La's Simple Shawl, made in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (color is Sunshine Stripe, a Purl Soho exclusive color - thanks Jenny!) It just happened to be Tyler's breakfast's twin on Sunday morning. For some reason, yellow and white together always make me think that things look like eggs (including Big Bird's forehead, which has reminded me of scrambled eggs since childhood). I don't even like cooked eggs, really: they're too squeaky.

And speaking of Tyler, I'm almost done with his new* sweater!













*According to Ravelry, this thing has been in progress since 2007. That is a long time to wait for a sweater, but this thing has given me problems. I started with an Elizabeth Zimmermann Seamless Raglan Sweater pattern, but the proportions didn't make sense with the measurements I'd taken, so I tweaked the numbers quite a bit. Then I tweaked them back towards the guidelines to avoid gorilla armpits (mostly successful, if he keeps his arms up).

Then I knit for ages and ages, and the knitting was finished. He tried it on, and it was about 4" too long. So I let it languish for a looong time, and he was very patient and good about not bringing it up. A few days ago I got a very innocent "So, do you think my sweater will be done in time for cold weather this year?" I had promised him it would be done for cold weather LAST year, so I immediately made him try it on again in case it had magically shortened itself. It hadn't, and he hadn't gotten any taller, so I set about to shorten the damn thing.

The sweater is worked in the round from the bottom up, with a knitted-in hem. This meant that I needed to either take the whole thing apart from the neckline down to below the armpits (not gonna happen, dear) or cut it near the bottom, remove length, and reknit the hem in the opposite direction, then sew it in place - not an attractive option, since I really like the finished edge on the original hem. I ended up snipping the yarn 4" into the Stockinette above the hem and picking up the live stitches above the snip (all five million of them), then unraveling down to the row above the hem and picking those stitches up as well. Then I kitchenered the two sets together, which took two days. It was worth it, since the length is now perfect.

Now I just have to teach myself duplicate stitch and apply the crest. Maybe by spring?