Knit One, Purr Too

Re-sleeving

Here is what happens when you run out of yarn while making sleeves.

Step 1: You have sleeves that are *almost*, but not quite the right length (missing about 3 inches on each side).

Notice the yarn in between those two sleeves? That's all that was left. And yes, they are, indeed, both attached to the same length of yarn.

Step 2: You unravel both sleeves while watching the Olympics, and occasionally muttering impolite words when the yarn tangles on itself, until you are left with these.

Step 3: You start over again, this time from the top of the sleeve, and figure out how to read the pattern backwards. You measure obsessively and keep a close eye on the amount of yarn remaining. And then you finally end up with these.

They come to a little below the elbows, so I am really hoping that they work. Plus, I included the teeny little ball of yarn that remains in that last picture. If I am really lucky it will be enough to at least seam the sleeves onto the shoulders, since that's the area where I'm not exactly confident in my ability to make invisible seams.

Next up - putting all the pieces together. Phew.

Spoke too soon

Sigh.

Not enough yarn. Missing about 3 or 4 inches worth on each sleeve.

I think what I'm going to have to do is rip both sleeves out and start from the top. I think this sweater is just going to have to be content with 3/4 sleeves - something that goes to just below the elbow. That'll leave me with a little extra yarn for seaming, and I think it will still look okay. I hope.

Sigh. More ripping. Grrr.

And she rounds the elbows and heads for home

I am starting to be cautiously optimistic that I might just have enough yarn to finish these sleeves after all. I'm doing them both at the same time, but one ball of yarn started off a lot bigger than the other and it's getting close to the point where I'm going to have to just finish off sleeve #1 and use the rest of that ball to (hopefully) finish off sleeve #2.

I've done 16 of 22 increase sets, and, it looks like I just might actually make it, with even a teeny bit to spare. Extreme emphasis on the 'teeny' part of that statement - at this point I'm saving every single piece of scrap yarn just in case I have to resort to some hasty knotting to extend that last bit just long enough to bind off the last sleeve. All fingers crossed that it doesn't come to that, though.

Obviously, I'll be using a completely different yarn to seam the sides, but the beauty of mattress stitching is that no one will ever be able to tell. Heh. Or at least I guess it'll prove how good my mattress stitching is (or isn't, as the case may be).

Oh, someone asked where I got the pattern for the Seabreeze sweater. The body is the Oversized Sweater pattern from 1000 Sweaters, by Amanda Griffiths, the sleeves are the basic dropped sleeve pattern (but using the detail from the sweater body), and the neck is the rolled keyhole neck pattern from the same book. Basically this book provides all sweater pieces as separate patterns, letting you mix and match to customize what you want. I should point out that as much as I love this pattern and like the book, the largest size is only for a 38 inch bust. Or in other words, if you want to try to fit someone with a more womanly figure, a little creative math may be required (Seabreeze, for example, required some of that creative math of which I speak).

Neck up

I would like to point out that it is extremely difficult to graft two pieces of sweater together when you have a certain usually well-behaved torttoiseshell cat 'helping.

However, despite Rosemary's best efforts (which mainly involved sitting on it, and trying to catch the yarn every time I moved the needle), I did get front and back attached at the shoulders, and I cast on and completed the neck.

The light is poor enough in these pictures to make the color look a lot greener than it is, but at least the collar shows up quite well. It's just ribbing with some stockinette on the top to make it curl. It's kind of cute, if a little floppy on one side. Nothing a few well-placed stitches can't fix later, though, I'm sure.

Quick, quick

Quick updates (sans pictures, which will come later, I promise).

Seabreeze: Back and front are done - which means I ripped out that section of the front and redid it as well. Camping out in front of the television watching the Olympics is a great way to get oodles of knitting done! Tomorrow night I will graft the shoulders and whip on the neck and then I get to play a marvelous game of 'do we or don't we' and cross all my fingers that I actually have enough yarn to do long sleeves because after everything I went through to get the *last* skein of this stuff, it *still* may not be enough. Gah.

Needles: Denise needles rock. I like the feel of them; I like that I can leave the knitting on the cord and just switch out the heads; I like that they come in a nifty little box and I no longer have to go rummaging in the drawer with all the miscellaneous knitting paraphenilia to find the right size circulars. Um. Guess what I got on eBay recently?

Stitch counters: How on earth did I ever do any knitting without one? My knitting-enabling friend let me borrow one for that pesky front section on Seabreeze and I am in love. I sense a trip to a local yarn store, very soon, to acquire some stitch counters of my own.

Such a (sea)breeze!

I finished up the front of Seabreeze and cast on for the back, zipping along to get the first eight rows of ribbing done. I'm happy that when grafting in a new piece of yarn in the front you cannot tell a difference at all in the color, but not so happy about the fact that it seems as if somehow or other I did a few too many rows on the recently finished chunk. So I may just break down and rip out that part and redo it later - but that will wait until after I am done with the back, now that that is on the needles.

Surprisingly I am not all that upset about the prospect of having to rip out that entire piece and do it again. After all, it's not the whole front - just one piece from where the front splits for the v-neck, up to the shoulder, and for such skinny thread and tiny needles it went pretty fast. Yes, I know size 7 needles aren't so tiny, but they still *feel* tiny. Three months of afghans and a shawl on size 10 and 13 do not disappear from my fingers' memory so easily!

What I did not mention in my last entry is that I have found a new knitting group! One of the librarians at the main library in Vacaville has organized a group on the second Tuesday of each month (although this month was an exception since it was this past Tuesday night). There were probably 15 or 20 women there in every age. I think the little 11-year-old working on her very first scarf sitting next to me was the youngest, and quite possibly the sweet grandma type fussing over a Christmas stocking was the oldest. There was also every range of knowledge about knitting - from the lady across the group who was whipping up a raglan with an intricate pattern of cabling, to the two women who had bravely purchased yarn and needles and came to the group hoping someone would show them just what the heck to do with it.

We sat around in a circle and we chatted and knit and those of us who have a vague clue what we're doing did our best to help out those who didn't. There was a lot of laughing and sharing of projects and talking about yarn stores and needle preferences and it was just the most marvelous thing. This is definitely going on my calendar for a regular monthly appointment. It was so nice to be surrounded by so many other people - people who all fully understood why it was that I broke down and went back on eBay and now have more pretty, pretty yarn (pink and mauve and purple!) winging my way from around the country. It's an addiction, I tell you. This can be my 'support' group. Heh heh heh.

One blue to another

The second afghan is done. Done, I say! Woo! And while I was getting awfully tired of stupid boring diagonal stripes I have to admit that I like how it turned out. It's wider than the other one I made, which means it'll be more conducive to snuggling.

Here it is in all it's glory, spread out on the floor because that seemed the best way to show it off. Tangerine is sitting behind it pretending she doesn't care (actually she's just miffed at me because I tucked in all the ends and now she has no string to eat), and Azzie is inspecting it from the middle.

So now that the afghan is finally done, I have returned to Seabreeze. After nearly three months of using nothing less than a size 10 needle, the size 7's feel impossibly tiny, and the yarn feels far too thin. But it's nice to be back to something that doesn't involve a heavy pile of finished work on my lap.

Here's Seabreeze, just in case you were wondering. Finishing up the front right now.