Groundhogs and Gophers

When Groundhog Day rolled around, I think more than his shadow scared the poor bugger back into the ground. It is nearly mid-April and there are no signs of winter letting up.

Did Spokes scare the groundhog?

I’m not sure what the relationship is between groundhogs and gophers; both are large, furry rodents, right? I have been working on a University of Minnesota-Minneapolis hockey sweater; a university proudly devoted to the gopher mascot.

I am using E. Zimmerman’s percentage method and plan to use the saddle shoulder or hybrid technique. I have finished the body up to the point where the sleeves are added; I have also finished the sleeves. I am using Reynolds Lopi Lite yarn and US5 needles. The sweater is making me nervous because the yarn grows about 30% when washed. I blocked the body half way up and the partial garment transformed from a 34” circumference to my calculated 42”.

I am working the “M” with intarsia in the round, tricky because the “M” and body are knitted separately. I started with three colors and about 1/3 though switched to one. If I knew the difficulty, I would have opted for seaming. This project is taking a short vacation; I am trying to finish up some smaller projects first.

I created the “M” chart by printing out the University of Minnesota “M” and taping it to my monitor. I then created the outline manually in Excel.