Ever since I started this tiger sweater for my son, the Purlygirls have been keeping tab on its progress…or lack thereof, as was usually the case during the past couple of months. This weekend, I decided to tackle the tricky knitting. After hours and hours of struggling, I managed to knit the legs and belly:

Click on the thumnails for a closer look, if you dare…

Pretty hideous, eh? The front side is bad enough, with all the nasty tension problems…but the back side…well, I’m sure you can see why the image figures prominently in my nightmares. I almost wish I had knit the sweater in wool, because blocking might have helped some of the tension problems. I have my doubts that blocking will do much to this cotton. *sigh*

With most projects, if I were unsatisified with how they were turning out, I wouldn’t hesitate to rip and redo. I just can’t bear the thought of redoing this, however. It’s too late to start over, so I’m bravely forging ahead.

Sam tells me he’s not going to wear the sweater anyway (although he does keep asking to see the tiger–so who knows if he’s serious or not), so I’m not sure why I’m agonizing over it. Sheer perversity, I guess!

After the recent debacle election, I feel the need to concentrate on the good things in life:

Halloween was fun. Sam had fallen asleep around 5:30 that evening and I started to worry that he’d sleep through the whole event…especially after I had gone to such great pains to explain what was going to happen and how he’d end up with a bag full of candy. He was very excited about that bag, you see. So, we woke him up around 7:00, stuffed him into the tiger costume my mother made for him last year and which he still loved and paraded around the neighborhood.

At first, he had no clue what was going on, but after a couple of stops and a few pieces of candy later, he caught onto the idea. That’s when the trouble began. He became so excited that he wanted to run in the dark in our somewhat poorly lit neighborhood. He stumbled and fell once. After a couple of tears and a hug, we were on our way again. At the next house, Robert told Sam to go knock on the door. Sam looked at his daddy, looked at the door and started to run towards it. He tripped again and banged his head loudly on the door.

When the lady answered the door, she found a crying tiger on her porch. She gave him some candy, which went a long way towards consoling him. After that, we decided to cut our losses and head home.

Sam immediately dug into the sack of candy.

Knitting? You want to know about my knitting? I’ve been having a lot of fun knitting, although I’ve been a bad girl :devil: and haven’t started either Gerbera or Butterfly, which I’m supposed to be working on for the knit-alongs I’ve joined. With Sharlyn’s encouragement, I’ve started working on the “Apricot Jacket” (mine will be renamed “Berry Jacket” on account of its purple hue) from Rebecca 27, which has been so popular in Blogland of late. I’ve already made it up to the armhole shaping on the back.

Despite the subpar instructions (even with the English translation they’re difficult to decode), I am having a ball knitting this sweater. I LOVE the design details…the ribbing and eyelets. It sure beats miles of stockinette. I’m using Rowan All Season’s cotton for this instead of the yarn called for by the pattern. Overall, it seems to be a great substitute, although I don’t generally enjoy knitting with cotton. It’s hard on the muscles. ASC makes a nice, soft squishy fabric. It’s going to be a pleasure to wear this!

The last photo pictured here shows the contents of the incredible package I received from my secret pal, Eileene of woolgathering.net. All I can say in reaction to it is WOW!!! The stitch markers, necklace, soap and coin purse are beautiful and I can’t wait to put them to use. The chocolate looks divine and I can’t believe I’ve held off this long from gobbling it up. I’m totally gaga over the red boucle yarn. I keep petting it to reassure myself that, yes, it is in fact that soft and gorgeous. I don’t know yet what I’ll do with it, but it’s going to be something wonderful. The blue yarn (it’s hard to see in the photo…) is definitely going to become a scarf. I’m thinking about making one of the textured scarves found in Scarf Style. The beige mohair is very lovely too. I take perverse pleasure in knitting with hairy stuff like that, so whatever it turns into, it will be something fun, for sure. THANK YOU, EILEENE!!!!