Sickie

Our trip to the Pyrénées didn't turn out quite as expected because I was unfortunately sick the whole time; I still am sick! It's just a bad cold, but fever, sore throat and clogged sinuses do not mix well with snow and high altitudes. So I spent more time in the hotel than I would've liked. My view most days consisted of this:

Nonetheless, on the few days I ventured out I got a couple of interesting photos:

We stayed at a famous ski station, Cauterets. It's been visited by many celebrities, including George Sand (not a favorite writer of mine) and Marguerite de Navarre (definitely a favorite writer of mine).

In fact, I had completely forgotten that de Navarre's most well-known work is situated in Cauterets. The characters of L'Heptaméron are in Cauterets for a cure (it's known for its hot springs) when they become stranded there due to flooding.

So to pass the time while they wait for the water to go down, they tell each other tales. It's very sad that I had forgotten about this link with L'Heptaméron because it's one of my favorite books! Luckily there was a nice statue to remind me.

The one day that I went up the mountain, it was gorgeous, but the climb in altitude killed my ears! I took photos of the mountain and the stream and of the kids sledding.

I was able to work on my knitting a little while I was there, but I didn't touch it much because I didn't want to contaminate it with my germs.

In other news, I finished one sleeve of my green muslin just before we left the house on Friday. And here's a shot of the work in progress:

As you can see, for the next round I should let it out a bit. And here's the horrible back!

To me, all that fabric pooling means I should do a sway back adjustment. Are there any counter views about that? And I think in the future, I should perhaps do a broad back adjustment because I think it's a little tight on top. I am rather triangle shaped, but it's not due to the bust!

After reading various posts about the sway back adjustment, I've decided that I'm going to go about it by letting out the seams in the back; here, they are princess seams. However, I'm really not motivated to undo the button placket and the hem and the top/bottom seams in order to do the adjustment. So I think I'll just always have to wear this shirt with a sweater or cardigan so that the back is covered up. And for the next version with nice fabric, I'll know in advance to try it on with the adjustments before I've done too much finishing. Stupid me, that's the whole point of the muslin. This is the first time I've done a shirt that is so fitted and it's a bit horrifying to see all the adjustments I have to do to get it to fit correctly.

I've been playing with the photos a bit on Picnik to liven things up a bit :)