Finished Object: Legwarmers

Much time has passed between posts, but I have a list of good reasons for that. A sampling of my excuses:

• We took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate our wedding anniversary (because that’s the place where it all began). Thanks to modern technology, I could have blogged during the trip, but I chose to neglect you in favor of my sweet husband, margaritas, The Apprentice slots, and the Flavor of Love marathon on VH1.
• We’ve been cleaning the house. Like, seriously cleaning the house. We even rented an industrial carpet cleaner from Home Depot. I am determined to make everything clean and pretty while the weather is still nice. When the serious heat descends upon us in a month or two, we will be trapped in the air-conditioned house and I will go mad if it is dusty and smells like dog.
• I’m in first place in the basketball pool. The $600 prize would buy a lot of yarn (or a perhaps a Roomba Scheduler). I have to give my full attention to the games, or I will certainly lose. (My bracket is busted, so we’re rooting for LSU and George Mason now. They’re my only hope.)
• The kids were on spring break. Which wouldn’t have been bad, except for the fact that spring break led up to St. Patrick’s Day, which was quite chaotic for our family. Quinn (my son) is an Irish dancer, so it entailed lots of driving to various performances across the Valley.
• I started dancing in February. I am eager to move out of the adult beginner class and into the grade 3-4 class (Quinn’s class) so I won’t have to sit in the dance studio lobby for 2+ hours every Thursday night (although I do accomplish much knitting during that time) while I wait for my class to start. Moving up means forgoing blogging, knitting, reading, etc. in favor of practicing my single jig.

I did finish something during my time in the lobby, though…

Pattern: Legwarmers from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Cascade Quatro #5016 and Rowan Kidsilk Haze #600
Other Details: I cast on 52 stitches instead of 46 because I am a very tight knitter. I had ordered the Madil Kid Seta that the pattern calls for, but it looked too pink when held together with the Cascade, a situation which necessitated a desperate run to my LYS for the Rowan.

This project was a bit boring to knit (even by my standards), but was a fine choice for those times when I needed something portable that I could do while distracted. (Like, I’ve taken the Lucky Clover wrap along with me and usually end up frogging whatever I knit in the dance studio. People talk to me and everything goes to hell.) The legwarmers don’t look as cute and slouchy on me as they do on the model. (I know there was a stylist who set up that back-of-the-book shot to look just so…Sigh.) I always thought that I had pretty twiggy lower legs, but I think these make them look kind of elephantine.