FO: Grandpa Cardigan

Presenting the very last FO of 2007:

I call this one the grandpa cardigan, and it's actually been done for a really long time. I finished knitting it really fast, but then took a bizarrely long time to sew on the buttons. Jon was very patient through it all. I really like it, actually - it's kind of like Mr. Rogers, but older and blander.

Yarn - 5 or so skeins of Knitpicks Cadena (70% wool, 30% alpaca, 110 yards) in mist and some random amount of purple Lopi yarn I had hanging around for the edging.

Needles - 29" size 13 Inox greys. These things are monsters! It was satisfying to knit so fast, but it was also like knitting with vienna sausages.

Pattern - I totally winged this one. I got Jon's measurements and just top-down raglan-ed it until it mostly fit him (what? It's a grandpa sweater...it's supposed to be slouchy and ill-fitting!). For the sleeves, I picked them up and knit them after the body straight, and then decreased a bunch right before the ribbing to ensure maximum floppiness. Then, I worked a nifty, manful shawl collar:


I'm beginning to have a thing for short rows. They are kind of like a magic trick, you know? I have to say, though, that what really pulls the sweater together are the buttons:


Don't you think so? I pulled them off an old, icky acrylic sweater I had and had been holding on to them for awhile, and was planning to use them for myself, but they fit so much better with this.

So that's it, I'm finally caught up in terms of FOs! I'll do a much belated annual recap soon, and hopefully before the end of the month, join everybody in 2008.

So, about those music videos...

...They were for Jon. More specifically, I posted them so that we would be able to rock out Friday night in celebration of it being his last day of work. See, what happened is that Jon's been temping lately (working on this book-scanning project for Google. It's apparently super-secret....and I may have already said too much), and he worked from 4pm-midnight. This was fine for now, but during the semester, he'll have afternoon classes and wouldn't be able to stay on. Classes start in a couple of weeks, so he decided to quit in order to give himself time to get prepared to start classes and find a job that's more compatible with his student schedule. He wanted me to make sure that everyone knows that he's not slacking off, and the he's at a job interview as I write this! He has several more scheduled for the week.

Anyway, I thought he'd earned a break so I threw him a surprise quitting party Friday night, and the music videos were part of it. I should clarify that said party was attended only by me, Jon, and the cats. It was selective.


So, these were the decorations. I printed out a bunch of words and phrases associated with being jobless and taped them around the apartment (Jon's favorite was "The Best Stand Down"). Originally, they were going to be suspended from the ceiling, but I'm short and that didn't work out. We had a good time.

To keep with the theme here, I have a couple more bits of Jon-centric news. In knitting news, I'm making him a sweater!


As you can see, it's not just any sweater....it's a full-out slouchy old man sweater. It's gone super-quick because i'm using bulky yarn and size 13 needles. I originally bought the yarn to make the spicy fitted V neck top from Fitted Knits. I ended up making the entire body of the sweater in, like, 3 days, and realized that something wasn't quite right. We've all been there, right? Awesome pattern, nice yarn, but the garment just isn't working. I set it aside for a couple of days and realized I'd never wear the damn thing because I look terrible in gray. I still don't know what possessed me to by it in that color. So I ripped it.

Jon liked the yarn, so I offered to make something for him out of it. Thus, the grandpa cardigan was born. About all I have to do for it now is make some big patch pockets, sew on some buttons, and weave in the ends. And it could stand a good blocking.

In non-kitting Jon-related news, he's got a blog now, too! Well, more specifcally, it's a blog where he's serializing his fantasy novel. He wrote the prologue as a project during college when he was too young to know better. Then, a couple of years later, a bunch of us were hanging out talking about what bad writers we were when we first got to college and Jon showed it to us. We had a good laugh, and then got weirdly obsessessed with it. Seriously, for the last 3 or so years, a group of about 4 or 5 of us have outlined the novel (and sequels, since all good fantasy books come in trilogies.), held dramatic readings complete with funny voices, and had heated discussions about such things as the philological inconsistency of character's names.

Jarthen, a most brave lad

If you're interested, pop on over and check it out! There's a couple of character bios up already and a magnificantly detailed map of the fictional country it's set in. I'm still tweaking the layout, so it's subject to change, but the story's already being posted.

I'll give you behind-the-scenes infor regarding Jarthen and co. And if you do check it out, leave the big guy a comment, will you? He's an absolute sucker for flattery or attention in general.