serious cleaning, and a new sweater

Happy Labor Day weekend! We've been laboring -- we spent 7 hours cleaning the house yesterday. For reference, see Thom's opinion of my housecleaning skills here, near the bottom.

We're still cleaning today ... serious cleaning. I just vacuumed the lint filter in the dryer, and Thom is scrubbing the sump pump as I type. He's afraid that the mold on it is toxic, and has asked me repeatedly if I think it will make him sick. He just came upstairs to ask if I'm blogging about his fear of the mold. (I wasn't, but of course now I am!)

Dude, I don't plan to clean like this again for at least another six months.

Labor Day always feels like the last day of summer to me, regardless of when the season really ends. And once fall rolls around ... it's sweater season!

So, last week, I cast on for a new cardigan. I'm really working to eliminate keep the stash from expanding, and hopefully get it to shrink a bit. You may have forgotten about this, since this was a resolution that I made way back in January 2007. Since then, I've only purchased a few skeins of sock yarn, and yarn to make gifts, which are both allowable exceptions. Somehow, the stash seems even bigger than when I started, though. I guess that's because I've also received yarn as gifts, and in swaps, and when other people have destashed. Oh, and that spinning habit that I picked up seems to add yarn to the stash, and take away from the time needed to knit and eliminate stash!

Anyways, there will be NO yarn purchases for myself (except sock yarn, and I don't need any more of that, since I have enough for 26 pairs in the stash!) until ... umm .... a long time from now! Needless to say, the new sweater comes from the stash.

This is the Apricot Jacket (Rav link), knit in Cotton Ease. $1.39/ball back in 2005. Or 2004? A $10 sweater, woo hoo!

Technically, it's not really the Apricot Jacket. I'm using a yarn at a smaller gauge, and wanted a larger sweater than the pattern was designed for. Basically, I took an Ann Budd cardigan pattern (all hail Ann Budd), tweaked it a bit for my preferences, and threw in the design features from the Apricot Jacket. We'll see how that all works out. So far, so good, though.

Last night, I finished the back, and cast on for the two fronts. We're taking a vacation next week -- spending a week in Maine -- and I hope I can finish this in time to have some FO shots on the beach. Let's see how that works out.

Whoops -- gotta run. Off to a cookout, and then picnic with Thom on the beach. Toxic mold not included :)