a photo and an award

The sun came out today, so I got Mr. Husband to take a few pictures. I still think this could be shown to better effect, but at least you can sort of see the whole thing. This is Aliénor, and it is very warm and comfy. I should have made it a bit longer, but it's been really cold and I wanted a warm sweater to wear NOW.

It's Valley Yarns Stockbridge, in Deep Teal, and I am thinking a nice alpaca silk blend would also be good for this. Maybe I'll make another one. Yeah, right, like I ever make anything twice, I can barely manage to make two socks. Maybe next winter?

And look! Elemmaciltur called me an awesome designer! Thank you! What have you been smoking? Just kidding, isn't he sweet? I changed the colors of the award, though, hope the original artist doesn't mind. I'm really not a pink person.

The rules are:
1. The winner must copy this Award to their own blog. (check)
2. Link to the blog from whence you received the Award
3. Nominate a minimum of 7 other bloggers
4. Link to the nominated on your blog
5. Leave comment about the award on the nominated blogs.

Right, well, Amy, of course, because she only just started sewing recently - at least I think she said she started recently, though the things she makes don't look like a beginner's work - and also because of the way she writes: I really hope that she spends hours editing and fiddling and agonizing over every sentence like I do, but since she's a homeschooler with three children under 7, she probably doesn't. Sigh.

Speaking of sewing, Tini sews clothes that can be worn by actual grown-ups. I think babies and small children are a lot easier to make clothes for, knitting for grown-ups is harder, and sewing for grown-ups is so hard that if I decided to learn how, it would take me longer than I am currently expecting to live.

Hm, who else? Gonna cheat and say Elemmaciltur because he really belongs on the list, even though he's already gotten the award.

...and then Blogger ate my post, and this is what I was able to fish out of the drafts list. Dang. I'll finish it tomorrow.

love/hate

I love winter because you get to wear all those fabulous sweaters that you spend the year knitting!

I hate winter because the light is so bad you can't photograph said fabulous sweaters. Aliénor is a FO! Washed and blocked and on me right now, and fairly fabulous, actually, though it would look better on someone a tad more swanlike and princessy. Whatever. It's done! And you can't see it because I can't take pictures in this light. Garg.

Almost-almost-almost done

So I had this idea for a sweater, and I swatched extensively and knit it halfway in purple and then decided it should be green. Then I started it in green, and divided for the sleeves in the wrong place and frogged back, did it right, made the plain bit too long, frogged back, finally finished it, decided the sleeves were too tight, and frogged again. In terms of stitch count, I have probably knit this thing three times over. I still like it, though, and will probably be quite pleased when I can finally wear it.

Wikipedia says Aliénor is an alternate spelling for Eleanor of Aquitaine (because Ravelry lists one zillion projects named Eleanor), and I thought of her because the sweater seems kind of high-middle-agey, though there wasn't much in the way of knitting back then. She was a big proponent of the cult of courtly love, something DrBob has written about - well, he writes about courtly love in Spanish literature, but it was Eleanor who brought it to the French and English courts. So there you go. Can't you just hear the lutes a-twanging?

Beileid

Back in August, Tini had a blog contestlet in which you listed things you were grateful for in the comments, and the winner (me) got a skein of hand-dyed yarn. It was purple and blue and black, and the colorway was called "Sorrow," and it was so very soft that I knew it had to be for something special.

Tragically, something special was needed before long: in late November an uncle died - my husband has a lot of uncles, all getting on in years, but this one was comparatively young and had no health problems that anybody knew of, and his death left the family reeling, his widow grappling with reality, and his daughter was the family rock. It was a rough Christmas for them, and for all of us, really. The yarn said it wanted to be a scarf for this cousin, who lost her father unexpectedly, like I did 15 years ago, and still managed to be there for everyone else (like I didn't - I checked out totally. Sorry, family).

So. A FO: