A Little Vacay and a Lot of Knitting

Ayup. I've been in Rhode Island all week playing nurse for my dad who had knee replacement surgery last week. He's been looking forward to getting the surgery done, and he seems pretty happy. They sent him home earlier than they usually send people home because he's been recovering rather quickly. The physical therapist came yesterday and she seemed to be very impressed with the amount of movement and bendability that he's got, which is always a good thing.

So, since he's more or less self sufficient, taking care of dad has meant sitting in front of the TV all day watching Orange County Choppers or American Hot Rod (neither of those are as boring to me as you might think, I am after all a tomboy when you take my knitting away) or other sorts of documentaries. To keep my hands occupied, I've been knitting the back of my brother's sweater to beat the band.



I've got 13.5 inches so far. I need about 27.5 inches. This might not make sense at first. I'm kind of knitting a small. This has been a math intense project. The smallest size in Knitting Nature is for a 46" bust. My brother's got about a 35 inch bust (he plays baseball and is in pretty good shape). So I had to narrow the middle section a bit. There's less ribbing since I had to get rid of about 5" on the front and the back. Also, my brother's torso's a bit longer so instead of knitting the back for 26.5 inches as described for the small size, I'll be knitting it for 27 or 27.5 inches. I've sort of done the math for the front, but I'll have to make a nice little color coded chart for the cables in the front, which I'll also be shrinking a little to account for the 5 inches that need to be taken away from the front for the smaller bust. It's so much easier for me to figure out what I need to do from a chart with colors than a chart with symbols.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I'm knitting this on size 4 needles? Good thing I've got all this time to knit it before Christmas!