The (CAVA) eagle has landed

All 72.5 pounds of curriculum arrived today. I haven't unpacked it all, I figure I should open up that DVD they sent me a few weeks ago and do the orientation first. But good grief, 72.5 pounds! And I assume that if the program doesn't work for Bub, I have to ship all of this back!

FO-Twinkle Best Friend Cardigan, oversized for my Mom

Can you see that I've been busy?

 Originally, I restarted this project because I had the yarn, and I wanted to try a quick contiguous project to see how it worked. For the most part this fit the bill. I took a look at the Contiguous KAL but I didn't want to end up with an asymmetrical doll sweater and it was hard for me because after a certain point in the directions, we were supposed to have done something differently and I couldn't visualize it in my head enough to understand, so I decided to just plow ahead and try a full-sized sweater (albeit in huge, chunky yarn). Also, I wanted to knit Revival, but the yarn I have didn't make gauge and I was still trying to figure out the pattern (this is before the revision to the pattern, btw). Thus, this project.

 These are some notes of what I did:

c/o 16 sts.

Set up (ws): p1, pm, k1 (for shs), pm, p5, pm, p 9 sts to before end, pm, p to 2 sts before end, pm, k1 (shs), pm, p1.

Row 2 (rs): k1, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, k to m, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k1

Row 3: p2, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, p to m, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, k to 2 sts before end, sl 1, k1.

Row 4: k3, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, k to m, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k1, p to 2 sts before end, sl 1, p1.

Row 5: p4, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, p to m, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, k to 2 sts before end, sl 1, k1. (39 sts).

Rows 6: Like row 4.

Row 7: Like rows 3 & 5)

Repeat for rows 8 & 9. (In hindsight, I should have stopped at Row 7, the sweater turned out a bit larger than expected.)

pside: c/o 9 sts for front. 

K4, pm, p1, 6 st cable patt, p2, pm, k to 3 sts before SM, sl1, pm, m1, k2, remove old marker, k1, remove old marker, k2, m1, pm, sl 1, k to next m, remove m, k to next m, remove m, k to 3 sts before marker, sl 1, pm, m1, k2, remove marker, k1, remove marker, k2, m1, pm, sl 1, k2, [set up cable AND crochet c/o additional sts], PM, p2, k2, c/o 9 sts (pm 4 sts in for button band).

Work ws w/o sleeve increases.

Next row: k4, sm, cable [k1, p6, k2], sm, p to m, sm, [sleeve cap] p to m, sm, [back] p to m, sm, [sleeve cap] p to m, sm, o to m, cable [k2, p6, k1], sm, k4. 

4 sts for button band.

right side is using right side cable-- sts held in back

left side is using left side cable-- sts held in front

buttonholes on WS (even rows): k1, k2tog, yo, k1.

Maybe in the second picture you can see that next to the sleeve increases, I slipped the stitch on the knit side a la Tuulia and her Tailored Sweater Method, and I think it looks very nice that way. Not a fan of the purl stitch for the seam line though--in bulky yarn, it just looks holey:

What I wish I'd done differently:

-Not quite so many increases for the back because it ended up a little puffy (see back picture).

-Different increases (probably Cat Bordhi's LaRinc and LaLinc) because that would have been far less holey (take a look at the shoulder detail picture). 

-Better yarn. Ah, but I didn't know it would turn out all right!

But, my mother is more or less satisfied with it (her complaints: it's acrylic, and too holey at the top) and now I have a much better understanding of how the contiguous method works.

It's all about the worms

 I'm still confused as to why we are instructed to use moist newspaper, but this is what you see when we first open up the bin now, followed by worms (below) when you uncover some newspaper layers.

 A close-up of some of the worms:

 And one more:

Having the wrigglers has been a bit more work than I'd expected, I suppose mostly because I've ended up doing it all by myself rather than have Bub help out as much as he said he was going to (probably why we're going to hold off on getting a dog, too). The newspaper seems to dry out fairly quickly, but the underlayers stay moist and the worms have plumped up a lot. They seem happy. They have little colonies by the food, and they seem to congregate in the middle of the bin, for the most part staying away from the corners for some reason.

But they haven't all died, so I'm thrilled. And the bottom layer looks like rich, dark soil (I know it's worm casings, but that's what we're doing all of this for, right?) so I know they're eating and everything is going the way it's supposed to. Today I gave them a new newspaper layer and some eggshells.

What you have to understand is what I didn't post about the worms for the past two weeks: first, we'd been beset by fruit flies, who very much liked the fruit scraps the worms had gotten, and I guess newspaper doesn't cover up the smell well enough to hide it from fruit flies. But last week, I discovered a spider infestation--hundreds of tiny, red spiders all over the lid and edge of the box, along with a much larger, pregnant-looking (swollen) spider that I managed to fling out of the box that was in the top layer of newspaper. Hubby joked that next we'd have a plague of birds. But for the most part, they seem to be gone now, leaving red wriggling worms.

Worms, worms, they're good for. . .

Some of our worms are starting to look really big, and there hasn't been any other huge exodus (if for no other reason than the fact that most of them were wiped out during the first one), they seem to be doing well now! They're eating, they're thriving, they're reproducing (I saw little tiny baby worms). This is good. Very good. And slightly more work than expected--according to the Heifer International guide, you have to aerate the newspaper, keep it moist, I'm not sure why we have to use newspaper but I'll look into it more in the future. The bottom is starting to look loamy, but I wish we could get rid of the fruit flies. All of the food is already buried under several layers of newspaper. Pictures to come later.

Unnamed doll

She's in a hand-me-down Old Navy top that was refashioned as a dress, and the Little Leaves doll sweater. She looks happy. A happy, unnamed doll that went to South Coast today.