Team Entrelac

... but first, a bit of gratuitous cat torture.

There's a story. My husband has a very special backpack. You see, it's not just any cheap-oh blue backpack. It's a backpack and kitty bed all in one. The second it hits the floor and all the books are gone, Ella is more than happy to demonstrate how perfectly it conforms to her curled-up kitty figure. She purrs contentedly for hours while infusing the backpack with her essence, guaranteed to give the boy hairy-backed T-shirts for a week.

So she did it again a couple weeks ago, and I was bored. So I found out just how special is this backpack. In three easy steps -- pounce, zip, lift -- it's also a handy cat carrier.





Note that she forgave me. Also note (see below) that getting chubby after moving to new digs is going on among all the ladies of the household, not just me:



Her gut's almost as big as mine!

And speaking of big, we got a new entertainment center. And despite what a certain cousin-in-law who lives down the street tried to claim, I put it together all by myself, thankyouverymuch. It's farking huge, but it consolidates everything, including our medium-sized TV that's dwarfed by my spouse's huge and ancient speakers.

To the cats, it's all measured in terms of climbability:



But anyway. What you're all here for, I know it, is to see my sweater. Entrelac is addictive, and it's also eye-catching. I got more comments while working on this thing than on all my previous projects combined. A big knitting group happens to meet once a week at MY Borders books cafe (ahem) where me and my sweaty self go after the gym to knit and caffeinate every other day or so, and they actually STOOD UP and CLAPPED for my sweater on Tuesday, and it didn't even have the bands on it yet.

First of all, it was a Sarah James pattern that I had to work hard to find and ended up getting on eBay. Second of all, RUN do not WALK to your nearest bookstore or knit shop and get "The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques." I will never have a problem sewing seams again. Third of all, I don't like drop-shoulder sweaters and never make them, but this one was so cool it was worth its boxiness. Fourth of all... a whole sweater's worth of Noro. Hello! After I lost my ever-loving mind and bought it I knew I had to find a primo pattern to even halfway justify my splurge.

I think this did the trick:



(This is my sweater being shy.)



(This is my sweater waving hello.)



(This is the pattern my sweater was based on. Click on the photo go to the store where I finally found it after looking FOREVER. Note the gut-sucking huge band of ribbing around the bottom that I decided had to go.)



(This is my sweater practicing yoga and defying gravity all at the same time, all in the name of a camera angle that doesn't show I have too many shoes on the floor of my bedroom).



(Speaking of Zen, this is my sweater on my Buddha belly.)



(And this is my sweater and I dancing around in front of the window trying to show off our sleeves.)

I am a little scatter-brained and forgot to take a picture of the back. It looks the same except it has a back neckline instead of a front neckline. Actually, I did such a good job of seaming, I probably could have justified taking a picture of my armpits.

Anyway, if anybody wants to know where to find the pattern, I'll help, because it's very well written and easy to follow. Ridiculously easy, in fact. I left the pattern at home most of the time because I didn't need it once I got started. I even learned to knit backwards so there was no turning every 7 stitches, and the entrelac panels went QUICK.

Now I get to go back to being an anonymous knitter instead of a superstar -- the weather changed from freezing to warm the day after I got it finished. Boo.