ready to spring

The Emperor of the Garage and I leave tomorrow for our trip to England. Are we excited? You bet! If I can get online every now and then, I'll post something here. Meanwhile, here's a bit of eye candy -- the Gardiner Gate for Yellowstone National Park, dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. It says "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People," a significant, enchanting and frightening thought. Exactly who ends up determining what benefit and enjoyment mean, and to whom, has been argued about since parks were first created. But there's no argument, Yellowstone National Park is beautiful.

Now, the Seamless Hybrid... ahem. Here's a breakdown of how I did the decreases, what happened, and what I finally figured out.

• Elizabeth Zimmerman tells us to do a double decrease at four points around the sweater, and she recommends a knit-three-together. When I did this, it resulted in one side being the correct slant, and the other being the same slant. Ripped.

• I tried doing what I thought were mirrored double-decreases, as in a k3tog, knit across the front, a sl1-k2tog-psso, knit across the sleeve, k3tog, etc. This resulted in one side slanted correctly, but the other side with a straght-up line. Ripped.

• Confidence shaken, I thought about this for a day, then decided to treat the sweater like a sock. At the first decrease spot, I did a s1-k1-psso, knit across, then k2tog, k1, s1-k1-psso, etc, doing the mirrored single decreases wherever I wanted one of those raglan slants. The first few rounds seemed to be wonky, but then I did a little bit of online research into raglan patterns and found that others did this same thing and got real sweaters out of it. So, I'll just keep on doing this until I see for sure that it's working and quit worrying about it, or until I see that it's wonky and have to rip it out again. But after the fourth set of decreases, it looks okay. So the word is, do mirrored single decreases at the four shoulder places.

Maybe the Emperor will have his Seamless Hybrid after all... but I'll finish it when we return from our trip. While I'm on the road, I want to keep things light, as in lightweight, and that sweater is anything but light.

Bon Voyage!