Have a happy hand-knit holiday…
2008 @ 9:53 am
All our best at the end of 2008. Our hand-knits are all being put to good use and I hope yours are too.
If I look tired to you it’s because I AM. My New Year’s resolution is to get my eyebrows waxed.
Cobblestone Complete!
2008 @ 9:15 am
I finished my husband’s first hand knit sweater just in time for his birthday! We will no longer speak of which birthday it is, okay? I decided I’ll block this when it’s dirty.
I had two false starts with this sweater and wound up knitting the entire body twice. It wasn’t until I was done with the second knitting that I realized I had made a major boo boo in the stitch pattern for the side panels (I knit reverse st st instead of garter). No way was I going back. Now, I like it better this way! it gives the sweater an eensy bit of negative ease.
Full details can be found on Ravelry, but the main details are that I used Rowan’s Scottish Tweed Aran on size 9 needles. The kitchener under the arms looks great and I used the ends of that yarn to tighten up the pit holes.
Considering my original deadline, without any screw ups, was January 2009, I am really happy it’s complete before the year is out. Jason is very happy with the sweater and I think it looks great on him. I highly recommend this pattern for a man in your life.
PS-don’t even think about skipping the short rows. This is where the magic of the fit lies!
ugh and double ugh
2008 @ 9:04 pm
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but when I started my Cobblestone Pullover I neglected to add in the side detail–two panels of purl stitches under the arms. About three inches in I realized my mistake and dropped 15 stitches on either side, reversed them, and moved on. Turns out I placed one of the panels a little too far forward. Ugh. Now I have far too many stitches across the back of the sweater and far too few in the front. Exactly 15 stitches too many and too few, to be exact.
Stitches on the needle show where my panel should be.
So, double ugh is the fixing it part. I began to correct by dropping stitches and pulling them back up, just as I had done in the beginning, but it looked pretty bad. I am not sure blocking would help, but maybe? Or perhaps once they are all finished they will look even?
If anyone has experience in the area of dropping and reversing a large group of stitches, please help! I would rather not rip the entire sweater. Of course I will if I have too–I’m a year ahead of schedule on this one, after all 
Then again, maybe it won’t be so bad to be bigger across the back–should I just keep going?
In progress… or a very grey post
2008 @ 10:16 am
A bit of news: there is a HUGE sale on knitting supplies and yarn going on over at Brooklyn General through March 2nd. Needles are 10% off and some yarns are up to 40% off! The good ones too…
I’ve rounded up my WIPs for a photo shoot. To see anything on Ravelry, click here.
First, I’ve finished the body of Mr. Sassy’s Cobblestone Pullover:
and the detail:
I’m using Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran and size 9 needles. I’m pretty happy that I didn’t stall out on this section–it gives me hope of getting through a sleeve by the end of winter!
Next, I’ve joined the sleeve onto my Twisted Tree Pullover for MJ:
The joining was not that easy… I think I confused a couple of yarn ends and I definitely have one huge mistake to fix after the fact. Somehow, there is a large strand of yarn across one armpit. I’m planning something totally sacrelig to fix it… cutting and tying it off on the inside. Shh, don’t tell on me. The pattern is written just fine, I just spazzed. Perhaps I had left it sitting for too long and was out of touch with the knitting of it. I also forgot how tough the first few rounds of knitting can be when joining for a raglan from the bottom up. Is that just me?
I thought I had a couple more (in color!), but it turns out there’s been no progress since the last time I updated the Herringbone Mitts! Sweaters are distracting… and there was that sock thing. I’ve got a cuff on my second Twisted Flower sock from Sandra, but have been too tired to think about the chart. That must be contributing to my plugging away at the Cobblestone!
