KnitMe

Salvage operation

It was finishing weekend on Emily's 'Cats' sweater. The project ended up consuming almost all available fiber time. I hardly spun. I hardly knit anything else. I just worked on this, then worked on fixing everything that went wrong.

Luckily Emily was obsessed with playing Blues Clues Preschool Saturday because I needed every bit of the 4 hours she spent doing it. First, I sewed armholes. Then, I crocheted the front neck steek. I steeked the neckline because I was having enough trouble following the eensy weensy chart knitting in a forwardly direction, without also trying to go backward. Upon snipping the neatly crocheted steek, one side lay over quite nicely and the other side disintegrated. I tied as many knots as I could muster, then zigzag stitched the bejeezus out of the little dangling bits of yarn so I'd have the equivalent of a steek. I hope nobody will notice that on the left side of the neckline is a tidy little edge stitch and decrease, and on the other is - well, nothing you can see, the pattern just sort of ends at the edge of the neckband.

I didn't attempt to crochet the back neck steek, I machine stitched it well.

With the sweater temporarily pacified, I picked up for the neckband - better stabilize those little wobbly steeks before trying to set in sleeves.

A couple of hours later, upon completing a tidy stitching-down of the live stitches of the neckband facing, I had something that would never go over Emily's head. At that point I threw the sweater on a chair and went to bed.

Yesterday I unpicked the neckband facing, stitched down the steeks carefully, and reknit a roll-neck. It's not as neat looking as what the pattern calls for, but it does go over her head, and it won't produce princess-and-the-pea neck effects ("mommy it's TOO TIGHT").

The sleeves went in quite nicely, with their little facings. I didn't even wait to block it before reassuring myself that it was going to be a sweater.

I had blocked the sleeves last weekend so I would have armholes the correct depth, so I knew the sweater would spread out wider once it hit the water. This will fit Emily for a couple of years.

The sweater wasn't done with me yet, though. As I laid it out to dry I saw I'd dropped a stitch while binding off the neckband, and I had to run for a crochet hook and a scrap of yarn.

When it's dry there's some blanket-stitch ornamentation on the cuffs and hemline, so there'll be another picture next week. But it's off my back for now.

I'm clinging to my finished New England Socks (Nancy Bush, Knitting on the Road, and Lisa's Sock! in Mardi Gras) as proof that I can make things without huge crises. (We won't mention that I regrafted one of the toes when I noticed that I'd spaced out and not passed through one of the center stitches enough times, resulting in a little hole.)

We had skyblue-pink feet yesterday.

I also finished the back of my Emerald BFL Cutaway last night, but I was done editing photos for the day, so that'll have to wait.

I have been wanting to make another pair of gloves for awhile, so finishing the socks was my cue to start gloves with my handcombed grey Rambouillet, using the Ann Budd Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.

I swatched on size 3 needles and got a gauge that varied between 5.5 and 6 stitches per inch, and a nice elastic fabric, so I compromised by making the 6 SPI pattern but going down a size. I'm not sure I'll have enough yarn (it metered at a total of about 600 yards but I think there was stretching going on so I don't trust it and hope I have 450). I hope these will work up quickly, I can't wait to wear them.

I'm pondering starting another sweater. I haven't decided exactly what yet, but I have a candidate.

Posted by Prudence at December 5, 2005 08:44 AM