So Close.

The seaming is finally done. The collar is picked up and knitted. The sweater actually fits beautifully, it's not tight under the arms at all, I think the shoulders are just lower than I'm used to so I kept trying to hitch them all the way up. But if I just let them sit where they want to sit it feels great. Just one tiny problem:



Ick. See how floppy and sloppy that collar looks? Ick ick ick. I can't wait until I get to the point in my knitting skills where I can look at directions in a pattern and think jeez, that sounds like a horrible idea, instead of just blindly following them. The collar is K3, P3, except then the last round they have you K1, P1 all the way around.



Ick. I think this is mainly responsible for the sloppy looking edge, although I also somehow managed to bind off too loosely (which never happens to me). I'm picking that stupid K1P1 row out as we speak, then will try binding off a bit more tightly. Fingers crossed!

Oh and P.S., Costa Rica was beautiful.

Still no seaming

I have got a major case of startitis recently.

Some monkey socks:


My first toe-ups! The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug in Copperbeach. I really wanted to do Monkeys out of this, but I was worried about running out of yarn since the skein is under 300 yards (why is that? It doesn't seem any thicker than normal sock yarn, yet claims to be 100g. I don't get it.) I was doing mental acrobatics trying to convert the chart in my head to flip it over, but then I realized the pattern would look just fine upside-down. Hooray!

Started working on the Wedgewood blouse:


And finally, swatched for yet another cute summery top:


The Josephine top from Summer 2007 IK. In my defense, this issue didn't show up until after I had already swatched for the Wedgewood top.
The yarn is the SWTC Bamboo from this place, in Cobalt. It was an amazing deal, 10 skeins for $42.50, given that it usually sells for $13/skein. I was really excited when the yarn showed up, it seemed so soft and silky in the skein and had such a neat texture. Now I'm less sure. It felt really scratchy as I was knitting up the swatch. I hand-washed it and it feels a little better now, not scratchy anymore, but definitely not soft either. I can't decide if it's worth the effort or not. SWTC has changed their formula for this yarn, even though you can still find the old stuff for $13/skein at many places, but the new stuff feels amazing. Sigh. Why couldn't I have some of that for $4.25/skein?

Anyway, all this startitis came about because we're going to Costa Rica for two weeks for our honeymoon! Leaving in a few days. And I wanted to make sure I had plenty of knitting projects for the trip. First I started the Wedgewood top, then I thought maybe it was too much bulky yarn to lug on a trip, so I started the Monkey socks, then I realized they were on metal DPNs so I needed something else for the plane anyway, so I started the bamboo thing, then I thought maybe I would work some more on the Wedgewood top after all. I think I might end up bringing all of them.

The cabled sweater?



Banished to a corner to think about how difficult it has been.

New stuff

I'm actually procrastinating some real work now. Which means procrastinating with keyboards and internets, instead of sticks and thread. New look for the blog. What do we think?
The banner is some yellow Hill Country sock yarn I've had in the stash for ages. (Also the same stuff that went into J.'s temporary ring.)

A series of procrastinations

Not even excitement about the VK cabled turtleneck potentially being far and away the best sweater I've ever made for myself can induce me to finish the seaming.



What is it with seaming? Why is it so horrible? And why did just half of it take me the better part of a Saturday to do?
The good news is that I got far enough to try it on and realize that all the pieces fit almost perfectly. The sleeves are a little tight at the top, but I think I can block some extra room in there. More importantly, nothing is too long or too short, which seems to be where I have gone wrong in the past.

The other good news is that procrastinating the seaming induced me to finish these:



Boring stockinette socks that I started in December. I got serious second sock syndrome (SSSS?) on these.


Ooh la la.



Top-down, K2P2 ribbed cuff, stockinette socks. Instructions from Ann Bud's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Forest, less than 2 skeins.
Needles: Size 1s.

Even though they turned out OK, I think I'm going to be knitting from alternating skeins for handpainted yarn from now on. The spiralling doesn't bother me too much, but I would have preferred an even more random patterning. And there is a bit of pooling at the top of the instep, where the sock was the widest before the gusset decreases. You can see it in the top picture. I think it's kind of cute though how there were pools of about the same size but different colors on each sock. But it would have been cuter if there was no pooling at all.

What else could I do to procrastinate seaming? How about swatching for my next project?



Norah Gaughan's Wedgewood blouse from Summer 2006 IK. Cute cute cute! However, the whole thing is reverse stockinette in the round. I think I better learn that reverse knitting technique so I don't have to drive myself crazy with purling. Yarn is Takhi Cotton Classic that I had in the stash (which I accidentally forgot to flash, oops).