A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Well even though I haven’t mentioned it I’ve been barreling along on my Christmas knitting. I finished the sweater for my son. My husband agreed to model it then did all the fashion poses so I’ve clipped one to use here. It’s a bit big on Paul but you can still see the texture on the yoke, cuffs, bottom, and up the sides under the arms. I did use the 3 needle bind off for the underarms and then sewed up the gaps. I figured that would give additional strength to the weight of the sweater and the stress of arm movement.

I must say this pullover knit up very quickly. There’s just enough pattern to keep it interesting during the long stocking knit sections. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow. I tried it on me and it looked good too (except the arms are too long). I’m hoping the arm length is okay for my son — I didn’t have his measurements so was going on the average and figure he can push up the sleeves or roll them if they’re too long because they seem to be just about right. I’ll find out on Christmas day for sure.

After finishing the sweater I had left over yarn — that wasn’t so much a surprise since I’d bought extra just in case. Backing up a bit in time, I’d made my husband a pair of fingerless gloves this summer to wear when he was in the data center at work. It’s basically a big open room where all the computer servers are kept. It’s also kept cool for the equipment (by cool I mean about 55-60 degrees). He spent hours in there wiring up his computers and getting them up and running (this years it’s in the 60s in there) but his hands were freezing. But in order to do the wiring and assembling, he needed his fingers free. So, I made him a pair of fingerless gloves — developing my own pattern. They came out pretty good if I do say so myself.

This is the husband cutting in. Not only where the gloves “good”, they were great. I was the envy of the data center, and people kept asking if they could borrow them whenever I wasn’t going to be in there myself.

Knitty had a great pattern called Dashing that I thought would look great and keep his hands warm. So, I made a pair. Then I thought why not try them in a fluffier yarn for me (then I can put these on, then put on my coat and then put on mittens so the wrist stay warm when I’m outside working in the cold). And since I’m on a roll, I plan to make a pair for my son since he also has to occasionally do outside work that requires his fingers to be free. Once Christmas knitting is over, I may try to add fingers up to the middle of the middle joint but for now I’m enjoying these — they also knit up fast and look really good with the cables. The pattern is well done but I found I had to move stitches around on the 3 needles in order to make the cabling more efficiently — but that’s more than likely just me.

Meanwhile, I’m struggling to find a decent book holder because if I don’t read while I’m knitting, I’m going to fall behind on my reading. When the knitting is fairly consistently the same, it’s easy to read while doing it, but then you have to have a way to hold the pages open. I’m fine with hardcovers – I have a great holder for when I sit at the table and when in my knitting chair I can use my feet. The problem is paperbacks. The hardcover book holder can’t take the force of the paperbacks and keeps folding up and the book pops out. So, I need a holder for paperbacks — found one that looked very good online but everywhere that sold it was out of stock — guess I have to wait…