WIP Wednesday: The Light At The End ...

You guys! I am going to finish my cardigan in time! It's a small miracle, sure, but I am thrilled :) I really buckled down this weekend - Saturday night I did the short row shaping on my second sleeve, then Sunday I knitted the entire sleeve AND the button band. This is crazy speedy for me - just shows you what true desire and dedication can accomplish :) So, on Monday morning, my sweater looked like this:

 Sorry for the crappy photo, but you get the idea - lots of tails to weave in, blocking to be done. You know, the usual "after work" of sweater making. I also had quite a few nasty spots in my yarn that had to be deep cleaned out. The yarn just came that way, but I figured it would wash out when I went to block it - nope, I had to pull every trick I could think of and after 2 days of soaking with various cleaners, tide stain remover powder + dawn dish soap paste won the day. The glory of this yarn is that it's machine washable, so after soaking out the stains I just put it in the washer for a white load and let the washer spin out the excess water. This was SO MUCH EASIER than squeezing the sweater in a towel before blocking and it left the sweater much drier than any previous sweaters I've made. So it doesn't take 3 years to dry due to the lovely Florida humidity. Hooray!

I laid the sweater out last night and I actually didn't even have to pin it in place! Man, I love cotton yarn :) I was weary of getting rust spots from the blocking pins like I have in the past, so I just stretched it to the size I needed and let it lay there. This morning, it was drier, but not totally dry so I decided to go rogue and set it up like this:

Since the cotton was already stretched, I figured it couldn't hurt to dry it on my drying rack so it gets good air flow. Hopefully this does the job and I have no problem backing the button bands tonight after work - after that this baby will be FINISHED! Huzzah! Also, I have my dress done as of Saturday night, so I will get pics of this tomorrow, then post them on Friday, the 31st - just under the deadline! Yay!

Since my sweater is done, I decided I'd earned a cutesy palette cleanser last night. Last week, I went thrifting in Melbourne and hit a major yarn score - 36 skeins of brand new (with the bands and in factory bags) yarn ... and they were only 25¢ each! I couldn't throw those babies in my cart fast enough, let me tell you. I even got 6 skeins of Bernat Dippity Dots in the white colorway, which is a yarn I've always wanted to try but always talked myself out of buying at $3.99 a skein when I have such a crazy stash already. But for 25¢ ... I think I can justify that, don't you? I was itching to try this yarn out, so I brainstormed in my pattern stash and decided to make something ridiculously adorable.

I will confess, this is not my favorite yarn to crochet with - those dots make things pretty complicated. Most of the dots end up on the wrong side of the work just due to how crochet stitches are formed, so I just turned each piece inside out :) It sounds strange, but it actually feels the same - the biggest difference is that normally I would be looking at the stitch from the outside of the animal, but this time I'm forming the stitches from the inside of the tummy (hopefully that makes sense). I haven't managed to get all of the dots on one side of the work, but there are definitely more on the side you can see here. I love the effect, so I'm willing to put up with the perschnickity yarn. The yarn is also a weird gauge - it's listed and sold as Worsted weight, but the yarn itself is more like a sport weight, so I'm using a size F hook and I had to pick a very light worsted weight for the contrasting color. Anyway, this is going to be my entry for the Ami-Along (I may make more entries, but this is it so far). I'm not sure if it will get finished tonight, but it certainly will be in the next few days. I can't wait! 

So, that's it around here this week :) I feel like I can breathe a bit, and now I can focus on my other long standing WIPs. Of course this hasn't stopped me from planning another new project, but I'll say more about that soon. For now, head over to Gracey's Goodies to see what others have going on :)