Mr. YouKnow came back from his family Christmas with odds and ends of cheap yarn that his mother couldn't bring herself to throw out. The quantities were very small, not worth saving.

I strung them together in a practice section of a sweater I'm knitting that is knitted diagonally. I had to make sure I was understanding how the pattern worked, and it was good practice because at one point I unraveled a large part of it and re-did it.



The stripes are made of 28 different very small bits of yarn, a yard or two at the most each. They are all different colors/shades but in some cases blend together.

This is the Las Vegas cat.



He has the same coloring as our Colorado cat, but his face isn't as pretty. He is a neighborhood cat that we let stay in the house when he wants to. He most likely has another family somewhere nearby, but he spends most of his days sleeping in a box under our bed, and is gone a lot at night, so they don't get much quality time with him. Not that we do, either, what with the box under the bed business.

He's nice enough to us, but we feel like we don't know him very well, and could never take him to Colorado in the car - we envision that as being similar to trying to transport a squirrel in the car for 700 miles. And once we got him there, animals would eat him if he stayed outside at night, so he'd be miserable being confined to the house.

Today was football playoffs. One of the players from Indianapolis Colts snapped his ankle so badly the network didn't re-play the injury happening, first time we've ever seen that. Tomorrow is more playoffs. I'll miss the football season when it's over.

Meanwhile, I'm knitting this sweater. Every new sweater project starts out with the hope that it will be the best one yet - the sleeves will fit, it will hang well from my shoulders, the buttons - if it has them - will work well in the buttonholes, and so on. I've made sweaters that started out with some of these qualities, but over time lost their appeal.

I wish this design allowed for pockets, but being diagonal, I'm not sure that it does, unless I simply applique them to the outside of it when it's done. Either that, or applique them into the inside of it: secret pockets. Or maybe no pockets. I just hope the collar comes out. Maybe I should dig in the yarn leavings and do a practice collar, and a practice sleeve. Might as well put the cheap, scratchy acrylic yarn to good use.

This will be a cool weather sweater, and I have another one ready to start, a summer type sweater. My dream for it, aside from hoping the sleeves fit, it hangs well, and the button band doesn't pucker, is that it will be something I can wear around the house and yard. I'm not sure if the pattern calls for a pocket or not. Finishing the current project well will give me confidence to look really hard for a good pattern for the next project that will have the qualities I'm looking for, so at least I'll have that head start. The reason it's all about serial sweater making is I finally cleaned out a closet and discovered more yarn than I thought I had. Enough to last me the rest of my life if I manage to make the most satisfying two sweaters ever.

And then I can move on to that quilt I need to finish, Project 2. Or maybe it's Project 3, if I count each sweater separately.