Green Sleeves and Green Leaves

While I love the green growing things, I am not always very good at keeping them alive. Thus, I can't help but get excited every year when my clematis voluntarily come back from their winter hibernation. They're only three years old, so I think they're still getting themselves established, and I still worry that something tragic will befall them. So far though, all three of the plants that we settled up against our garage (in the hopes of giving them a protected space) are alive and well. The poor things are desperate for a little more light, though, so all three of them have sent up vines as far as they can go.

The first couple of years, I got a few blossoms from each one, but I think they were concentrating on getting their roots and vines established. This is the first year that I'm getting a real show. The first one to get going this year is the one that is supposed to be the early bloomer, a variety called "Nelly Moser". Nelly has big showy single flowers (they're probably about 6" in diameter) that have whitish/pinkish petals with deeper pink to magenta petal centers.

Nelly still has plenty of buds to share with us, and the second one is also getting ready to put on a show for us. We may be urban, but we still get to enjoy our little garden.

Speaking of green and growing, I made good progress on my Phil'Onde pullover this weekend. I now have both sleeves finished.

Sleeves for Phil'Onde Pullover

The astute amongst you will recongize that these sleeves are fraternal, rather than identical twins. I'm actually pleased that this is somewhat difficult to see int he picture, because hopefully that means that it will not be completely obvious in the sweater. But just to make it completely clear, I also present this closeup of the sleeve caps:

Phil'Onde Sleeve Caps

I'm actually considering myself quite lucky that I decided to do the second sleeve before I did the front and that I grabbed the ball of Phil'Onde that I did to knit the second sleeve. You might notice in the sleeve on the right (the second sleeve) that there is an area just around where the shaping starts that looks a little whiter than the rest of the surrounding area. Well, as I was knitting through the last and lightest color, I suddenly encountered a rather lengthy area of white, followed by a big globby green area that was rather thicker than the rest of the yarn, followed by a return to the appropriate color. Because I was knitting in a low light area I didn't notice that the light green went to white before hitting the glob. Once I got it into high light areas, there was some ripping (and a little grumbling) to do.

Now, a truly dedicated knitter would rip the first sleeve back in an attempt to make the two match. I decided that since the two sleeves would be separated by the body of the sweater, the imbalance probably wouldn't be very noticeable. And it seemed a real shame to rip back, just to give myself a few more ends to weave in. Hopefully I will not regret my decision after I have painstakingly set in the sleeves.

So far, this is the only problem that I have had with the Phil'Onde. Unfortunately, the yarn's format makes it almost impossible to anticipate flaws deep within the skein. Kureyon and Silk Garden have given me similar problems in the past as well. I guess it is just one of the hazzards of working with striping yarns.

Even so, I'm getting quite excited about having this sweater done. On Saturday, I met up with Julie to do a bit of shopping and a bit of knitting. I got quite a bit done on the last piece of the sweater, so I'm thinking that I could be wearing this sweater next weekend. And then it will be time to focus on Audrey! I'm so inspired by all the lovely finished Audrey's that have shown up as part of the knit along. If you were worried about the shaping decreases and increases or wondering whether the lace would lie flat, worry and wonder no more! We've got 6 beautiful finishers who got incredible results!