Over the last few weeks I could divide my scarce free time between knitting or blogging about knitting, and I chose the former so I’d have something to say when I finally could sit down and do the latter.
I finished the body on Sirdal, and I blocked it just to be sure everything fits.
It is a bit wonky to try it on now because it doesn’t have proper armholes, but the body size seems fine and I’m pleased with the progress.
I can’t say that I “mastered” the art of stranding backward. I can do it, and the results, as shown by the shoulder motif done flat, solely on the right side, seem pretty even:
But I am definitely not very fast at knitting this way, and I don’t seem to be getting much speedier as I continue to do it. Sirdal’s cuffs are knitted flat as well, and I’ve done one of them (many times now—but that is a topic for another post). Stranding backward does get me a shaped neck without machine stitching and cutting the knitted fabric, but it isn’t perfect. My mental image of the process had no loose ends, but the reality is that I often ended a row only to find that the color I needed was at the opposite end. And so I had to attach new yarn, leaving a lot of ends to weave in as part of the finishing.
There have been other doings in our household over the past few months, which are sort of appropriate to announce on Mother’s Day, because there is another potential mother in our midst. I have, first hand, learned the meaning of the birds part of the “birds and the bees.” Larry and Addi are what my vet calls “a bonded pair,” which means Addi could very well lay an egg sometime soon. In fact, she is quite taken by the nesting box:
You’d not think from his mild-mannered exterior that Larry has morphed into an accomplished Lothario. But here he is primping in case he has to look his best for later.
The courtship usually starts with Larry tapping/kissing her on the beak and proceeding with a lot of noisy head bobbing. This can take around an hour.
If he is successful, Addi will return his affection, and, well, one thing will lead to another.
For now, surprisingly, nothing has happened, but there is a chance I could end up as a budgie step-mother.
But in the meantime, I won’t be knitting booties—it is on to Sirdal’s sleeves in the hope that I can finish them before it gets too warm.
It's sweater weather here, we've had weeks of hot and sunny weather and now it's wet and grey and cool. I'm not sure that it's cool enough to want to snuggle under all of the sweater body while you knit the sleeves.
Posted by: Caroline M | May 15, 2011 at 03:56 PM