Sunday sunshine on ice

The temperature is predicted to get clear up to freezing today. But the sky is crackling clear, and sunrise spilled all over the old walnut tree, here.

OK, afterthought neckline. Figure out where you want the neck to be, pull up a stitch there, and snip it.

Yes, with scissors, cut it. And then, pull that strand of yorn out of the stitch next to the one you cut. And the next, and the next. It's sort of un-kitchnering the fabric.



Go in both directions for a while. If you make the opening even, you can do a turtleneck. I went for a shawl collar, so I pulled out stitches down the front to the armhole level.


I knitted this with a size ten needle, but used a size 3 to pick up the live stitches on both sides of the new opening. And then, to make a shawl collar, I did my well-beloved k2, p2 rib back and forth for several inches.

Finally, I sewed the collar down, and there we are, afterthought neckline.

When you are knitting back and forth, and you decide it might be neat to put in inset pockets, you can use this technique to make an opening for them. I was knitting a shawl, and decided it would work better as a cardigan, so I opened armholes this way and knitted the sleeves in the round. No seams that way. I hate sewing seams.

I have been glacially lazy this weekend. DH and I went to the mall and did our four laps (two miles) and that has been IT for our weekend activity. I DID go outside to get the paper, and again to dump the solid waste after I cleaned tha litterboxes, but I just don't have the cohones to take myself out into that razor-edged wind for any but the briefest necessities. Heck, just walking around at the mall, my ears got so cold it was giving me a headache. Had to ask DH to blow in them to warm them up. (That was very nice. Warmed me up all over!)

The Friday mamo went quite a lot easier than I had anticipated. Usually, it hurts so bad I break into a cold sweat. But over the last two years, menopause has been doing her cronely work, and between the missing collagen, and the two extra-strength Tylenols I took before I went in, heck, it didn't even bring tears to my eyes. Also, I wore my poncho over my gown, so I didn't get the bone deep chills that usually afflict me. Why do they have to keep examining rooms so cold? I think I should buy them a heating pad to keep on the plates.

And instead of a cookie, I bought myself a full-sized Cinnabon. YUM!! sugar and fat and synthetic flavors and refined flours . . . I was in hog heaven!!

I am knitting a hat for a bald co-worker of the DH. Then I am knitting a pair of fingerless gloves for another co-worker of his. Then I will finish this green sweater. Then I will hammer down on the Western. I have been fiddlefarting around because I have not had a deadline. So I commit to you, my ethereal friends, that I will write the final twenty thousand words by April the first. Nag me for reports, ok? Thanks!!