USB cable found

My husband found the USB cable for me. Actually, he found a miscellaneous cable near the modem and asked me what it was for. So, now I'll be able to post pictures from the camera again.

The first is of my DH's sweater after I frogged it back to the neck ribbing. It was very satisfying to see his sweater that way. I hadn't liked how it looked before the frogging. But, now, with the yarn ball about half the size it was, I still like how the sweater now looks. So, so far, so good. (The doily is one crocheted by my mother-in-law.)

I have some hopefully good news to report about the tree in our backyard. It's possible that it isn't an Ailanthus. Although, Ailanthus is the tree featured in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", it is also as close to a weed as a tree can get. According to the web, it looks like a walnut tree -- except it smells and is very aggressive. My hope that it isn't an Ailanthus comes from the facts that the only smell I can detect from the leaves is a "green" smell and that we've found 2 green walnuts in our driveway in the past week.

The other picture is of the game we went to at Shea Stadium. It was fun to go to a ballgame again. The last few "ball" games we went to were soccer games in England -- which were fun as well.

The only other thing I have to add is that I've finally made my sweater planner into an Open Office spreadsheet. I should have done it a long time before -- It's such a help. I wasn't sure about the row gauge for the tweed stitch and, in fact, changed my mind about what it was a couple of times. (I've finally settled on 7 1/2 rows per inch and 4 sts per inch.) Having a spreadsheet made it much easier to redo calculations. (By the way, I'm using Open Office instead of Microsoft because I'm using the laptop that I inherited from one of my sons.)

Tweed sweater update

I still love the tweed pattern for my yarn and am still very, very happy that I frogged the old half completed sweater that the yarn came from. I'm past the bottom of the armholes now after doing a provisional crochet cast on (for the armhole base) which (--the cast on--) I learned about while making Tubey. I've changed my mind about the front center of the sweater twice now. I originally decided on a k3 for the center -- but after a few rows decided it didn't look good and besides it had accidentally been started off center. So, I got out my crochet hook and redid 2 of the k3's into the tweed pattern and then knitted a few more rounds of the sweater. It still didn't look right. So, I got my crochet hook out again, dropped stitches to the bottom of the v, and redid it in the tweed pattern. It looks good now -- even with rounds starting at the center front of the sweater. (I'll post a picture of it after I find my USB cord. It got lost again.)
On another note, we (my husband, one adult son, and I) went to Shea Stadium Monday night -- our first time there. It was a good game. We followed online directions to get there (by going through Manhattan and also through a couple of tunnels) and then after we got there discovered where it was in relation to the airport. So, when we left, we decided not to risk the Manhattan traffic again and instead went through Staten Island on our way back to New Jersey. It was just over 10 miles further but, in our opinion, worth it in terms of the aggravation of waiting to enter a tunnel.
Let me preface the rest by saying that weird things often happen to me. I don't know why. Anyway, while at the ball park, I decided to take a couple (and by a couple, I mean exactly 2) pictures of the field and scoreboard before it got too dark to take pictures. I took the pictures with my little Sony digital camera and was seated at the time. Well, a security guard comes over to me to say how dangerous it was to be taking pictures. He said I might be hit by a foul ball or a bat. I explained to him that my son and husband would protect me and I was done taking pictures anyway. (While our seats were just a few rows from the field, we were seated about halfway between first base and the outfield fence.) I still can't figure out why he felt it necessary to come over to give that warning. Other people were taking flash pictures. A lot of them were a lot closer to home plate (and "danger") than I was. So, I decided to root for the Cubs -- who eventually won the game.

Tweed sweater

I'm really enjoying the tweed sweater I'm knitting for my DH. The stitch looks so good with the yarn I'm using. I'm very, very glad that I frogged the sweater to the neck ribbing and started over. While frogging it, I discovered that I had started the sweater before I'd even heard of wrapping and turning or short rows. I'd used short rows in making the sweater, but there were many big gaps because I hadn't known about the proper way to make short rows. I had attempted to hide the holes by ending the neck ribbing with a knit round followed by a purl one. I kept these rounds when making the sweater anew. (Details of how I'm making the short rows for this v-neck sweater are in my other blog which is linked in the sidebar.)
At the bottom of the V, I decided to use something else I learned and knit the 3 stitches at the bottom of the V together to make that sturdier and to keep there from being a hole.
Now I have another problem. Rounds begin and end at the center front of the sweater. For now, I'm having the 3 center stitches in plain stockinette and the rest in tweed stitch.

WIPs

Using advice offered in the WIP KAL at knitty.com, I decided to frog some of my WIPs. The first one I frogged was a sweater that I had started a couple of years ago. Once I finished the body of the sweater, I discovered that I didn't have enough yarn to finish it. Then about 6 months after that, I discovered that the yarn had been discontinued. (It took me that long because I didn't remember what kind of yarn it was.) I even checked on eBay and actually found it -- a couple of hours after the bidding had ended. So, it kept sitting in the back of the closet -- until I finally decided that I really wouldn't care for the sweater even if it had sleeves. So, I frogged it and made it into a shrug. It was even touch and go for the shrug. I finally finished it with 3/4 sleeves and with a garter stitch cuff for the sleeves.
Today, I frogged a sweater that I was making for my DH. I frogged it all the way to the neck ribbing. It was a top-down sweater that I'd finished the body for. I had actually started on one of the sleeves. But, the cables, etc. that I had made on it never really fit with the yarn. I decided that the reason that it was taking me so long to finish the sweater was that I didn't like how it looked. I'm going to make it in tweed stitch -- and have my fingers crossed that this time it will look ok.
By the way, I'm also working on the mid-July dishcloth from the Yahoo dishcloth group and a Zokni sock.

mid-June dishcloth

The house we moved into a few months ago is next to a small stand of trees -- as many places in NJ are. Having never lived in the Northeast before, I recognize some trees here, but some are a mystery to me. This tree recently finished blooming. It's a good looking tree, but I have no idea what kind of tree it is. The flowers were pretty, and so I took a picture of them, and here it is.

The other picture is of the mid-June dishcloth from the Yahoo dishcloth group. It turned out pretty well. And I even got some help knitting it from one of our cats. She and her sister are 15 years old and still alert and still really, really sweet. We got them from a friend of ours who was adopted by a stray cat. They're world travelers, too. They were born in NC, but they've also lived in Ohio, Sweden, England, and finally NJ. They even understand a little Swedish.

By the way, I also finished a new pair of socks. It's the mix and match pair described in the June 11th post. Details and a picture of the sock are at my other knitting blog (on aol). By the way, thanks to one of my sons who is here on break from college, I now know what a Wyvern is. He showed me the Wikipedia article. He's played a few video games that had Wyverns in them. The sock pattern does look like a Wyvern's scales now that I think about it.