You know it's been a long time since you did laundry...

...when you can do a load of "turquoise" Don't think that I have taken separating your laundry to a whole new insane level; I had a pair of turquoise jeans that hadn't been washed before, and as I was sorting the piles of stuff to be washed, I kept putting other turquoise things aside. When I was through, the turquoise pile was pretty substantial - I only had to supplement it with a (navy blue) bathrobe to make a full load. For a change, the full hampers were not just due to work - we spent a long weekend in Montreal. The Gambler was competing in a fencing tournament: I had lots of time to knit (5 hour drive there, 8 hour drive back - nothing like hitting Sunday-of-a-long -weekend-traffic in 2 different provinces). By the time we checked into the hotel, I was back to the point from which I had ripped back: I am much happier with the silhouette of the garment now. I got much more knitting done during the tournament, and since we got back I made it down to the bottom ribbing: The original plan was to do the same length of ribbing at the bottom as at the top, but that would have made it a few inches too long - an unusual occurence for me! The top is intended to be knit as a tunic, with the bottom ribbing split to provide the "vents". Instead of knitting it full length, I just kept knitting in the round until the end. Interestingly, the bottom ribbing is looser than the top - presumably because the purl stitches were purled every row in the round rather than being knit stitches every second row. I don't mind it on this garment, but will have to keep this fact in mind in the future. All that remains now is to sew the shoulders together, and a crochet border for the arm openings. Hopefully I will get that done this weekend. Instead of starting a new project, I decided to pick up a WIP that has been hibernating for close to a year - The Mumble Cardigan: I had finished the knitting, and was halfway through casting off the bottom when I realized that I would not have enough yarn left to complete the cast off. I was going to rip back the sleeves a few rows in order to salvage some yarn, but was not particularly thrilled with how it looked on me. Specifically, I didn't like the fact that the bottom of the garment took off from the shrug portion right at my armpit. I theorized that after blocking it would have less of a "garment I have grown out of" look, but didn't really believe that would happen. So it sat in a bag all winter. This week I gave some thought to frogging the whole thing and using it for a Mythos Cardigan, but realized that I really didn't have any problem with the top part of the cardigan. So I ripped back the bottom and started it higher up in front. The pattern as written instructs you to knit 4 sets of short rows so that the bottom edge will be straight rather than curved. I knew I would have to do extra short rows to get that effect, and actually ended up doing the short rows all the way back to the middle of the back: This is going to lead to the bottom at the back being a bit higher than in the front. But given the popularity of "wrapigans" this year, I don't see it being a problem. Luckily I was able to pick up another 2 skeins of the yarn - I don't think it is dyed, because the colour looks exactly the same a year later. The only decision I have to make now is how often to increase along the edge - as written, the pattern has you increase on every knit row, but I am thinking of doing it on every second knit row.