FO: Budgie

Budgie

About 10 days ago I turned in a final, full draft of my dissertation to my advisor. While I haven't received any formal feedback from him yet, he did assure me that I will be done this semester. It will take some time to schedule a defense date, but would I be overly optimistic to think that I could have this whole thing wrapped up by Thanksgiving? Maybe. But that won't stop me from trying. At a minimum it will be another week until I get some feedback from my advisor, and once he approves the document my committee members get at least 3 weeks to review it before we meet for my final oral defense. So...I am in the final stretch, but there is still more work to do.

Of course once I turned in that copy my body shut down and I came down with a bad head cold that I can't seem to shake. While annoying, I don't mind. It has helped me slow down, really pay attention to my immediate needs and get back into the groove of relaxing and sleeping again.

While I was putting the finishing touches on my dissertation, I knit up this adorable sweater. In my never-ending quest to find creative ways to use up my one-skein yarns I happened across this pattern. I used some left-over Cascade (from this project), and my one remaining skein of a silk-blend Manos del Uruguay. The final sweater requires a zipper, but I have yet to find the perfect one. Eight-and-a-half inches is a tricky size to locate at our local stores. I'm thinking a nice cream-color zipper would be perfect...

I love how this sweater turned out, and I literally used every last bit of the Manos - I actually ran out with about two inches of the i-cord left to go and had to finish it off with some blue scraps I had laying around. The shaping of the sweater is beautiful and the stripes are too cute - I can see one or two more of these in my future as baby gifts.