A whole weekend off!

Last weekend was a "fifth weekend".  I don't work this weekend and when it comes up I'm always happily surprised.

For starters, I (mostly) stayed in pj's.  Always a deliciously decadent thing to do.

I made sure I had some moderately productive moments like putting away all the Thanksgiving paraphernalia and cleaning out a shelving unit full of books.

On the knitting front...

I began in earnest to finish this Cupcake scarf.  Joe said he might wear it.  Yay!  Another gift for him.  This was great tv knitting and I caught up on season 3 of the Game of Thrones.

I started the Superior Poncho on Thanksgiving day, the perfect project for in between basting the turkey and other Thanksgiving Day details. Superior is a lovely cashmere silk yarn. We have a sample at the shop that I wear constantly, I figured it was time to knit my own.

Then there was Not Just Plain Jane's Super Crescent Renaissance Shawlette.  After Jane helped me the other day, I applied myself to finishing it.  There is a crocheted bind off and I am THREE STITCHES SHORT.  I am not happy about this. I took it to work to compare it to the store sample and have decided to live dangerously and block it as is.

Looking through my knitting bag, I found the Koigu Fairisle Cowl that has been hibernating while I've been knitting deadline gifts.  I've set a goal to knit at least one motif a day. It would be a shame and embarrassment not to finish this in time to wear it this winter season considering I started it at the end of last winter.

Lastly, after finishing the front on my Lima CustomFit sweater, I considered how I wanted to handle the sleeves.  I didn't feel like knitting them at the same time.  Even though it's a useful method, I didn't feel like it.  Plain and simple.

I decided to try picking up the stitches from the shoulder/armholes and work the cap in reverse.  It took two tries to get the numbers right.  Using this formula for picking up stitches, I got the stitch count even on both sides:
 1 stitch for every bound-off stitch

 3 out of every 4 stitches along the diagonal

 2 out of every 3 stitches along vertical sections.

Since I'm knitting it from the top down, I got to try on the sweater and I was pleased with how the cap looks.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable, 

knitterly weekend

 complete with dog cuddles.