giraph

In which the knitter tidies up

Lookie! Lookie! What cute little cuffs on the sleeves!

Now all she needs is a collar neckband (don’t want to scare you) and a few more inches down the bottom.

It’s lovely getting rid of the extra balls of yarn and the cables from the sleeves. I thought of picking up the neck now to get that PITA out of the way, but cable. I also wove in all the ends thus far and trimmed them off. Feels like a big, scary bit of finality, that snip.

Some of those few more inches have been knit. It was such a pleasure to get back to real knitting in the round. It was so effortless that for a brief moment I considered making it a dress. And that would make so much sense because I wear the heck out of dresses.

I don’t know where to stop though. This yarn does tend to relax a bit when it is washed and I don’t know how to take that into consideration. I can do the math, but it doesn’t help when you’re looking in the mirror. I decided to knit narrow ribbing like on the sleeves, so that will add an inch, which is hard enough to imagine.

The drama of it all is so overwhelming.

In which sleeves are knit

When we left our intrepid first-jumper-knitter on day 18, the stockinette section of the sleeves was about a third complete, i.e., according to the Master Spreadsheet they were 33.3% complete. As of five minutes ago, they are now ready for ribbing with lifelines is in place.

I used sewing thread for the lifelines because it was something I could easily get through the hole in the IC cable. It looks flimsy and I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to knit around. I did it more for the chance to try the technique of drawing it through on the needle than because I think I need them.

Disaster is imminent.

The sleeves looked a little shortish where I intended to stop (52 stitches), so I did two more rounds of decreases (48 stitches), so the count would be divisible by four for 2:2 ribbing. Now they look a bit longish, but without any experience it is hard to predict if any/how much length will be taken up in the transition area. I think you want a tad bit of blousiness where the stockinette changes to ribbing.

Tomorrow.

At the shorter length, it looked as though each ball of yarn would just be finished. This left me again entertaining the idea of another colour for the ribbing. But the ball ran out in the second sleeve eighteen stitches from the end. I took this as an omen to continue with the same colour.

I’m trying something new, knitting one sleeve from the centre pull of the new ball and the other sleeve from the outer end. But I didn’t want to open/break/what-is-the-correct-term? two new balls and I want to be able to go back and forth between the two sleeves as needed to make sure they are the same.

This could end in tears.

There isn’t much else to say. No life-changing revelations, just round and round and round and round. Which is why I glommed the posts for these days together and didn’t bore you with SSDD.

In which the knitter works out

I worked out I could fix a split stitch a few rows back by dropping it down to the problem and laddering it back up. Captain Obvious, I know.

Also I worked out tensioning with magic loop, or whatever you call what I’m doing with the sleeves. (It isn’t magic loop like in the movies.) When you make the turn, you tend to want to pull tight to avoid the laddery gap. But pulling resizes the stitch to the cable. So you need to either pull up the stitch and leave a little ladder to compensate or pull up the ladder and leave the stitch loose (is this even possible?). The first few inches I kept having areas where the stitches were so tight it was hard to get them back on the needle when they came around again. But now I have it sorted.

Elaine usually wears the jumper at night. We turn off the heater in the lounge room and she gets cold, poor dear.

I made a spreadsheet to keep track of progress on the sleeves, as you do. Also used as a motivational tool. Because boring.

I worked out (again?) that it was somewhat easier to work on the sleeves while Elaine is wearing the jumper. The yarn doesn’t get so tangled and I remember to twist the sleeve back and forth rather than round and round.

Don’t laugh, but in the photo I edited out the larger dust bunnies on the carpet. I know, who does that?

In which a new project is contemplated

The sleeves go on and on. They are slow and fiddly. My gauge has changed and I just found a mistake (accidental increase) further back than I’m willing to rip out. I learned from earlier experience that dropping the stitch back to fix this issue will be too noticeable. No one will notice this but me.

Well, I know you would, but I think I would have to give you a hint where to look unless you had plenty of time with nothing better to do.

So, today I found myself planning the next jumper. I haven’t learned all the lessons from this one yet, of course, but I want to try a different style.

Here are the considerations:

• I’m not afraid of sewing a jumper together
• I hate working small circumferences in the round
• Stockinette in the round is ace because, otherwise, purls

This led to consideration of a dropped sleeve jumper, because:

• I could knit the body in the round, no purls
• I could do something a bit fancy on the yoke to jazz it up
• The small circumferences would be knit flat, because purls win over circular here

Here’s a calculator for the drop sleeve sweater. I used the raglan sweater calculator on the current project.

I have some concerns about gauge with this plan, but then my gauge changed on the sleeves this time anyway. With three distinct bits, the differences should be less noticeable.

I think it’s a plan.

In which the knitter is disgusted

The giant holes in the underarms are disgusting, even though I knew they were coming and kind of know how to fix them. Surely that area will always be weak.

Knitting sleeves in the round is disgusting.

The jumper is disgusting.

Later…

I found a dropped stitch and fixed it, easy peasy. That was not disgusting.

VeryPink Knits to the rescue under the arms, using duplicate stitches to fix the holes. My holes were a bit more pronounced, shall we say, than the ones depicted in the video, but the technique still worked. The underarms are less disgusting.

Knitting sleeves in the round is still disgusting.

The jumper isn’t that disgusting.