That there is the body of my Argyle Kitty Kat Cardy FINISHED. Well, not technically finished. I have to weave in a million ends and embroider on the white diagonal lines and the cat faces, but the actual knitting is done. (I used a three-needle cast off for the shoulders.) Folks, that is a total of eight days from start to finish for that sucker. And did I mention it’s in BLACK 4-PLY? I’m a little amazed myself. I was helped by the fact that halfway through the week I checked my row gauge and realized that doing five diamonds up the front was going to make it too long. I fretted about the non-symmetry of only doing four, but the girls at the guild meeting today convinced me it’d be fine. So that saved me 20% of the expected time.

As of this moment, I have exactly thirteen days left before the exhibits have to be turned in. And of course, I still have to knit the sleeves. Anyone want to take bets on whether I make it?

And in health news, I think I’m feeling better. My temperature seems to have stabilized and my throat isn’t getting any sorer. Of course, this damn bug might just be incubating til my holiday starts…

My Kitty Kat Cardi continues to grow.

The two fronts will each have five diamonds, so I’m 30% of the way there…

It’s done. It’s really and truly done. After an aborted attempt at sewing in the zipper last weekend, I hit upon the idea of sewing down some ribbon along the inside of each front to hide the cut edges and provide a more stable foundation for the zipper. So I got four meters of ribbon from the shop (which turned out to be the perfect amount) and got to work. Unfortunately the Cursed Nature of this project meant that first I had to do things completely wrong. I sewed down one ribbon with the sewing machine (without pinning), then sewed down the other (after pinning). I’m sure some of you can see the problem already. I tried it on and groaned. The side I hadn’t pinned had stretched at least an inch or so in the process of sewing, so it was all ripply and crap-looking. Why the hell didn’t I think to measure and make sure the two pieces of ribbon were the same size? Because of the Curse, obviously. So I ripped out the ripply side and then wet it down for the night, hoping it would spring back into shape. (It did.) The next day I measured out the ribbon, pinned it down, and sewed it into place. It looked good! I then used the rest of the ribbon to face all the seams inside the garment: around the arms, the shoulders, and the hood/neck steeks. Lastly, I sewed in the goddamn zipper. It’s done! This sucker took me exactly SEVEN MONTHS to finish. I learned so much along the way! I learned how Debbie Bliss patterns can SUCK; I learned how photos that don’t show vital parts of the garment – like the collar – are a big ol’ WARNING SIGN; I learned that steeking saves you knitting time but doesn’t necessarily cut down on finishing. And you know what? After all that, the bastards will probably reject it for the Show. That’d be just my luck.

Didn’t Snookums do a good job of taking Interweave-esque photos?