Long Awaited Photoshoot

Yay, it's the Christmas Tree of Life Pullover, also known as the River Forest Gansey from Handknit Holidays, possibly my favorite knitting book ever.


In spite of all of the complaining I've done over the past three months about this sweater, it really is great. I have to thank one of my friends at the yarn store for the assist on picking out the Harrisville Highland. I was leaning towards some Ultra Alpaca (which I love), but thinking about the Harrisville, and she convinced me that Harrisville was the way to go.


I was afraid that this color, while it is Jorah's favorite, would be too dark, but in the end I think there's great stitch definition. He really seems to love it too - he's worn it several times since it's been ready, including to that conference last week. He has also referred to it as "classy."

I made the smallest size, but at a slightly larger gauge. Jorah himself requested the slightly short arms (he has slightly short arms anyway) and I am expecting them to grow a teeny bit with use. I wince a little at the short arms, but he likes them, and since he most always has the sleeves pushed up anyway, I am determined not to worry about it.

Work continues on the Wisconsin Heartwarmer (I've started the suns) slowly but surely. I'm at the point where it's taking me about an hour to do two rows. This weekend I took a break from that and started a little sample Cathedral Window Quilt, using this tutorial on Hyena in Petticoats. It seems to be the industry standard - all the quilting blogs link to her. I'm certainly not about to give up knitting, but this Cathedral quilting is pretty beautiful.


I don't know what I'll do with it, but I've been thinking about it for a while now and I thought I'd give it a try. Honestly, I'm pretty enchanted and could see this becoming a long term project - it would probably only take me two or three years of dilligent, uninterrupted work to make a king size . . .