Fresh start

Spring here in the midwest is such a welcome relief. I've lived here all my life and still this first week when everything turns green and the weather is consistently warmer that freezing gives me hope for the future. We get into this feeling about mid-March that it just will never get nice again and stay that way. We cry and curse that we never get a real spring and why the hell is it snowing AGAIN? and on and on. But every year the daffodils and magnolia bloom and before we know it we are cursing the mosquitoes and dandelions.

This is the time of year when things that have been in hibernation for months and months make a reappearance. In some cases what goes into the cave at the beginning of the winter makes a transformation into another form once the warm air of spring arrive. Take for instance the lime green cardigan knit with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece a year ago.

It was yarn and a pattern purchased on a whim about a year ago at a Friday knitting group when the project I brought to knit either ran out of yarn or something and I needed something new to work on. I've always admired this yarn and the color just screams SPRING! to me. The problem was the pattern. The photo in the pattern book appealed to me, totally something I would buy for myself, I love cardigans. But it is constructed all in pieces with a lot of seaming. I hate seaming. Also the store only had 4 skeins of the Cotton Fleece in that color. I figured it would be enough and being cotton it would stretch. But once all the parts were knit I could just tell it wouldn't fit in the loose unconstructed way it appeared in the photos. So I put it all in a bag and stuck it in a closet.
Then the other day I finished my Ripple Afghan (oh my, I just realized that I never posted the finished pictures. I'll get to that, it is gorgeous!) and was going to cast on a new project. I had picked up a huge amount of Paton's Classic Wool at Joann's last month on sale with a Central Park Hoodie in mind. But then Turtlegirl posted that she was starting a Mama Escuelita sweater and I really wanted to make that. But then I realized that Rosi hasn't made the pattern live yet so I was out of instant gratification luck. Plus it was nearing 80 degrees that particular day and knitting a wool sweater was getting less and less appealing as the temperature rose, especially one in a dark neutral color like the yarn I had on hand.

This of course led to a few hours of browsing on Ravelry (second only to Facebook for sucking any and all spare minutes of my life right out of me.) Through no logical progression I found myself admiring Ysolda's Liesl. A light went on in my little knitter brain and I remembered the unfinished lime cardigan hibernating away up in the guest room closet. Let the downloading begin! While the pattern printed I started frogging.

I am now a few repeats past the armholes. Another day or two and I'll probably be knitting sleeves. I debated making the sleeveless version but with this pattern I have more than enough yarn so I'm going for the 3/4 length sleeve.

I did order a new usb cord for my camera so getting photos to my blog isn't as time consuming and annoying as it had been for a few months there. I will do my best to get some updated pics and finished project photos up here in a more timely manner.

By the way, I changed my blog template the other day but when I hit the "preview" button I still get the original template. If you read this in a regular browser window (not a feed reader) could you take a second to leave a comment and tell me what the template looks like? Thank you.