Greetings from the House of Germs

It's that time of year, I suppose. We've been pretty lucky this winter and have thus far avoided any illness other than the occasional sniffles, but this week we've been hit hard. Rainbow came down with a cold earlier this week and last night was complaining of a horrible earache. I was worried it was another ear infection, but miraculously she seemed to be fine this morning. I, on the other hand, seem to be doing my semiannual battle with the sinus plague and feel a little like death warmed over. I really would have loved to have spent the day under a blanket with my knitting and some cheesy movies on the TV, but there are too many deadlines to meet at work, so I had to make do with lots of hot tea and my space heater.

With all of this, it's no wonder that I haven't been all that productive this week. I did finish up a secret project earlier in the week (a new design, but it has to stay secret until it's ready to be released), and after that I wound that huge skein of rainbow Polwarth (by hand -- because I was too lazy to get out my winder and swift) into an equally huge ball and cast on for an infinity cowl. I had so much fun knitting the brioche section of Rainbow's Oakseed Cowl that I decided I'd just do that for mine. I think it'll look really nice with the color changes in the yarn, and I know it'll be soft and squishy. The bonus is that it's relatively mindless to knit, so it's a good project when my brain is all foggy, as it was last night.

I've also been knitting some socks for Rainbow, at her request, out of the leftover handspun from my TTL Mystery Socks. It's been quite a while since I last knit her a pair, so I retook her measurements before starting. The first sock was finished last night, and I'll say this: Her socks aren't nearly as cute as they used to be! It looks like she's inherited my big foot gene. Her feet are now 6 inches long, so it actually took me much longer than I was expecting to finish the foot.

I am planning to cast on a new sweater for myself soon, and I actually swatched over the weekend, but I've been unable to proceed due to a gauge conundrum. I swatched using US 8 needles, which is what I believe is called for in the pattern, and ended up with a fabric I really liked. Fresh off the needles, I was getting 17 stitches over 4 inches, but I was hoping that yarn would bloom a bit in the wash to the specified 16 stitches/4 inches. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. My gauge is now off by one stitch and one row, I think, over 4 inches, so I figured I'd knit a smaller size (because I think going up a needle size would result in a fabric that's too loose and holey). Here's where the problem comes in: I can't seem to figure out what the stitch count is for the bust for the different sizes in the pattern to do the requisite calculations and figure out which size to knit. This sweater is knit using the contiguous method, and the fronts are also meant to overlap a bit, so it's not as clear cut as you might think. It looks like I'll have to do some digging around on Ravelry (and probably read through the pattern completely) to see if I can work it out before I'll be able to cast on. And I'm anxious to do that, because I am constantly freezing and would really love a big, cozy new sweater right about now!