Mr Poopers Day Out

This weekend was quite busy. The Mr & I spent most of it cleaning & getting the house ready for Sunday on which we had a bunch of his co-workers over to bid farewell to his manager. She’s leaving to live full time with her long time boyfriend in Hawaii so you can’t really feel bad for the woman ;D Though I do have to say, I’ve never seen 3 of my pies eaten so quickly. Seriously, all 3 were gone in 5 minutes. Even the one my Mr tried to hide from them.  What does this tell us? Californian’s really LOVE strawberry rhubarb pie. (none of them even knew what it was before I made this pie).  I will tell you though, this is the best strawberry rhubarb pies I’ve ever tasted. I think it has something to do with the fresh strawberries. Now I just need someone to ship me really fresh rhubarb!

Amazingly I finished this before anyone came for the party. I’m quite thrilled with this. Every time I really look at my stitches I’m just so pleased (please don’t point out where I had problems in the beginning, I see them too). The color of this sweater will make it my go-to sweater I’m sure. Grey goes with everything! The grey is a little warmer but the whole feel is very Ralph Lauren to me

The shoulder shaping is amazingly easy. Usually, and I’ll be honest here. I never count my bind off stitches right. I don’t know why, I just can’t.  Add that with regular shoulder, every 4 rows decreasing & honestly, I fudge a lot.  So imagine my pure joy when I realized I had reached the under arm & needed to switch gears when it read:
“Bind off 19st next two rows, knit in pattern for 10 more inches”
OMFG I love you. Then after those 10 inches?
“Bind off 19 st next two rows then bind off remaining 43st”
F-ing awesome. I love that though this is a little bit busy on the stitch pattern they kept the silhouette of the sweater pretty laid back. The collar is what really sold me on this piece. I left the collar stitches live so that I could easily line up the twisted rib stitches.

Look at that lovely lovely collar! You can see in the mirror behind her that it’s long & really folds over. I’m a sucker for this for sure!
Mods I have already made:
My gage is off because this sweater stops at 48″ bust sizing. The way I did this is just by using the same weight yarn & suggested needles. I’ve done this before to up my sweaters and have hit my target number right on.

Second mod I’ve made so far is making this a cardigan. I live in SoCal and unfortunately pull overs just don’t suite me here unless they are whisper fine gage. I just split the stitches in 1/2 added another purl stitch to each side so that I’m keeping in pattern & off I go.

Also, crazy I know, but I shortened the length of the overall sweater. This piece wanted me to knit 20 inches before the underarm. Well, that’s coming dangerously close to putting knit fabric over my hind end & that just won’t do.  I chopped off 3 inches so this will hit just at the top of my pockets.

FO pictures of my red snail camp coat are coming this week. I have been ridiculously lazy in sewing in the zipper but now have a free week to get it done in. (am I alone that I really hate to see all the WIP’s on my ravelry project page? I always feel behind! LOL)