Blues Traveler

I'm headed to the Gulf Coast this weekend for a visit with my family.  I'll be putting some blue yarn and needles in my suitcase, along with a fantasy of sitting in the porch swing of my parents house, looking out on the water and knitting my blues away. Actually it's supposed to be pretty chilly there this weekend and I imagine any knitting will be done indoors while looking out the window or in the car on the way. (Its a girls' trip with my daughter and daughter in law!)  Either way, I'm taking this little treasure with me - another try at the cardigan.

I've switched patterns in an effort to find a better match for my gauge.  This time I'm using bulky yarn on size 9 needle.

I've been looking for this pattern since I decided to make a cardigan sweater as a New Year's resolution.  The other day I walked into the garage near my stash and saw a magazine laying right in front of everything.  There it was, the very issue I'd been looking for over the last several weeks.

I would have sworn the pattern was in Interweave Knits, but I was wrong. It was this one-time issue of Knit It (2002) from BHG.

Immediately I grabbed the yarn called for in the instructions and the needle recommended and lo & behold, gauge perfection!  Woo hooo! (me taking off my cowboy hat and swirling it above my head)

I'm going full speed ahead this time around.  I am giving myself a year to do this project (can't fail, right?) but I keep getting discouraged with so many failed attempts.  So if I do it real fast, I might jump over some of those hurdles, like the scene from Speed where the bus jumps over the unfinished overpass. 

Now in the area of books, I finished a novel by Patricia Falvey and have made good progress with one by Jed Rubenfeld.  I put down a book by Catherine Coulter that was an FBI thriller - no go. But I really like The Death Instinct, the one I'm taking on my trip.  Its based on actual events and isn't rated-R like some books.  The pacing is good and very interesting to me, keeping my attention even while on the treadmill which is saying something for me.  Only I have to keep a clothespin nearby when I'm walking to keep the book open!