A finished Shalom and I'm off to Squam!

Popping in (hello!) to show you my finished Shalom which I cast-on for a couple of weeks ago, as part of Linda's Shalom Knit Along.  It came off my needles during a mini-marathon of the Dick Van Dyke show (love that show!) on Saturday night.  Something about the simpleness and slower pace of the old black and white TV shows really soothes me in the evenings.

*** Sidenote - today happens to be the LAST day of our cable TV service, so it will be strictly Netflix for us from here on.  And I think I speak for all four of us when I say that we will do just FINE without TV in our life.  I am looking forward to it, and I am also looking forward to the $40 extra dollars in our account each month. 

Anyway - back to the knitting.

I think I am in love with my Shalom, although I will have to reblock soon because of those wrinkles on the front  (darn it! - I was rushing the blocking because I wanted to wear the thing!)  The color is brighter than my normal choices (to say the least).  I never knit in pink.  Never mind this yarn, which you might call "hot" pink, but I can pull it off I think (I hope).  I modified the original to add sleeves, and 4 more buttons, and a repeat of the pillar motive further down along the bottom hem.  I didn't do any waist shaping, because meh... I didn't want to.

When it was all finished, I decided I really wanted orange buttons for this one (don't know why - but my mind was made up.  That happens occasionally.)  But I couldn't find any orange buttons (of course) so I made them instead.  With some scrap fabric and a button kit.

I can't tell you whether my version is short-sleeved because I truly wanted a short-sleeved cardigan, or because I just became really lazy about this sweater at the end, or because I just really wanted to WEAR it and I was impatient to knit all the way down to my wrists (!!!)

But either way - I am super happy with the end result, and will be packing this sweater into my suitcase for my getaway to Squam Lake and the Art Workshop I will be (blissfully) attending for the remainder of this week.  If you are in NH, the Saturday night Art Fair will be open to the public, and sounds like an awesome fair!

I will be back here on Monday, however, I do have some posts scheduled (I did after all, promise to reveal a secret project here on June 1st, and I fully intend to hold to that promise, except that I got my dates a bit mixed up and I have that post scheduled for tomorrow instead.  Please come back!   But having said that, my "scheduled" posts on blogger never seem to show up when I schedule them for some reason.  So check back tomorrow if you like, but if it's this same old post - well - I won't know about it, because I'm going to go "unplugged" during Squam, and just relax and breathe for 5 WHOLE days.

If you're nearby and you know us, you can check in on my boys at home if you like (all three of them) but I know they will do just FINE without mama, and I also know that they have a bunch of fun things planned to do together while I'm gone.