You would not believe how quickly I am cruising along on Sapporo, despite time constraints:This is an oh-so-exciting picture of the first sleeve, which is completed up to the point where it will be joined with the body (it is going to be a raglan sweater). A close-up of the beginning of the fair-isle design:That is definitely a lot of plain black stockinette, though! I'm still waiting for the "other shoe to drop" when I get to the body and things slow waaaay down. I think the next stranded color project I do will have to be an all-over design so I don't have to do these boring plain sections anymore!

Not much else new to report here. Last weekend was a lovely long weekend, so G and his buddy convinced me to go skiing on Saturday.I hadn't gone in about two years and threw out my old skis before our move (they were the old straight kind and just not working for me anymore). So I rented a set of the newfangled shaped skis (er, guess they're not that newfangled, I'm just a "late adopter") and had a blast. Still couldn't get the courage up to hit the black diamonds and I guess it was just as well because they were apparently quite icy. It was all great until the day after when I could barely walk...skiing uses some strange muscles.On the left: a trail I could not ski, even if it were open. Here's my kind of hill: Have a fantabulous weekend!

Oh, and P.S. Quincy thanks you for all the well-wishes! He is feeling much better now and seems to be a happier kitty.

We had a bit of rough week here at our house...poor Quincy had to have all of his remaining teeth yanked (he was already missing about a third of them).Sad little beast. Unfortunately the post-op care included an antibiotic pill two times a day and as I'm sure many of you know, cats + pills = no fun. Finally on the second day we picked up some Pill Pockets from the vet, and they totally made my week. Quincy wolfed 'em down like they were nothing, despite the rather large pill inside. I would definitely recommend trying these the next time you have to medicate your cat!

Anyway, he is starting to get back to normal and doesn't seem too fazed by the lack of teeth. Animals are stoic about these things, I guess. As sad as it is, it seems like it will be a good thing in the long term, since apparently his mouth was probably in serious pain before. I only wish that one of our past vets had paid a bit more attention to his dental care--no one had ever said a thing to us!

I picked up my Victoria Shawl again a few weeks ago, which I last blogged about in September (!). Trying to get back into the rhythm of the thing was a bit challenging, as my new edging was not looking the same as the previously completed edging. After numerous rips and re-dos, I realized that the edging was supposed to be done as garter-stitch lace (which is what I was now making by reading the charts correctly) and I had originally started it in stockinette lace! Well, no way was I ripping back to do it the "right" way, so now I have a garter-based center and a stockinette-based edging. I think shawls usually use the same type of lace throughout, but it looks OK to me! Hopefully that won't create a blocking nightmare.

Thanks for your comments on my Setesdal cardigan! I know a lot of people wouldn't make something that labor-intensive for a baby, since it would be outgrown so quickly, but I did have a bit of an ulterior motive in making it. I have been planning to make G a fair-isle ski sweater but wanted to try something a bit smaller for my first steeking project, just so I could gain some understanding of the construction. Setesdal was perfect for that, and now I am ready to start the "big" project:That is the very first cuff of the Dale of Norway "Sapporo 2007" ski sweater. I am using Dale Falk for the yarn, and it's amazing how much bigger this yarn is compared to the Baby Ull used for Setesdal. It already feels like it's going to be fast knitting, although I do have miles of stockinette for the body so I may be singing a different tune later!

Before I close my post, I wanted to let you all know that I may be posting less frequently for the foreseeable future (although I've only been posting about 2 to 3 times a month anyway, so maybe it won't be that noticeable, ha ha). I'm taking a couple of night classes which will probably keep me from knitting and posting as much. Like a lot of people, I debate a lot on how long I want to keep this blog thing going...I don't like writing all that much (which probably shows) and really started it just to keep a "scrapbook" of projects. Even though Ravelry has taken over a lot of that "scrapbook" function, I figure I'll keep this thing going at least a bit longer since it's still fun to share non-knitty aspects of life. So, I'll be still seeing you around though perhaps a bit less frequently! Take care, and have a great week!

The Setesdal Cardigan is complete--and despite making the 12-18 months size it looks more like a 3 year old size to me. Better than being too small, but I guess baby will have to grow into it!All the finishing was pretty time-consuming, but I love how the edgings do double-duty as a tidy little facing to cover the raw edges: I just got some cheapie metal buttons at Joann's but I think they are in the spirit of the traditional pewter buttons used on Norwegian sweaters without being too flowery/girly:Overall, this was a fun and surprisingly speedy knit given the complexity of the sweater (I think it took about 2.5 months, and I was working on other projects concurrently). There are a couple things I'm not happy with--one is that I made the sleeves a bit too long. The other is that it would look better with a wider section of plain blue knitting between the design at the top of the sleeves and the sleeve join. It's shown that way in the pattern photo but the charts just show two rounds of plain blue before knitting the reverse-stockinette facing. I should've taken my cue from the photo rather than the chart but I just wasn't sure whether that would be a problem, never having made this type of sweater before. Oh well, not a major deal.
Pattern: "Setesdal" from Dale of Norway book #8101 "Favorite Baby Designs"
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull in colors 5545 blue and 0020 natural, knit on size 2.5 mm needles.

Before I go, here are a couple of my attempts from New Year's Eve at taking some pictures of the cool holiday decorations downtown. They look better in real life ;)