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Showing posts from June, 2011

Knowing When to Fold 'em

The Light Rose sweater is no more. I was unraveling it when I got all of these strands of yarn and couldn't figure out why. I checked the sketch and yup, was undoing it in the direction it had been done. Except I wasn't. After I turned the sketch around a few times, I realized that I was trying to undo it in the opposite way that I should have been. Doh. Yes, it was made across, cuff to cuff. I was thinking the right front was the last part knitted. Doh. Had I continued and begun to unravel it from the right cuff up--the correct way--I would have undone more than 3/4 of the sweater. It was doomed from the start. My yarn wasn't quite to gauge so I used larger sized needles. Then I discovered that I knitted with a looser tension when working on the part with the circular needles. I wound up using four different sized needles. At the same time I was trying to knit to two sizes, one for where I was narrower and one for where I wasn't. There is no sense of giving up, frustra...

Measure, measure, measure

http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/multi-directional-striped-cardigan For those of you asking to see the cardigan I'm doing in Light Rose--and you know who you are--there will be a wait. Why? Because I didn't heed my own advice of measure, measure, measure. I was knitting the front bands when I realized that the two upper front portions weren't the same length! How in the world did that happen? This sweater is knitted from the left cuff over to the right cuff (basically), so the upper right front is the last knitted for that portion. Usually I do compare and don't know why I didn't this time. For some reason I was knitting more loosely than I normally do; usually, I tend to knit more tightly as I progress. There might have been a way to knit the band and ease in the right side but it probably would be obvious, plus I would know that it was not right. The bottom portion is done by "picking up stitches" and knitting them to the upper portion. For you non-...

Knitting Sweaters

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Knowing that I need to thin out my yarn stash, I've been doing some knitting. I'm more of a crocheter so my knitting won't win any awards. A lot of my stash is just one or two of the same yarns, but I have some yarns which are enough for sweaters. I'm currently working on a sweater--and even remembered to take progress pics--with yarn I bought at a yard sale. It is Caron Gold Sayelle in Light Rose. It is almost summer, so why am I making sweaters? Because 1) I need to use some of this collection of yarn, 2) they will be ready for the cooler weather when it comes (actually it's been on the cool side for this time of year), and, most importantly 3) because I am in the mood to knit sweaters. This mood doesn't come that often and I need to take advantage of it. The Caron yarn in the pic was a gift for XMas 2009 and I forgot I had it. It is Simply Soft, and it is. The person who gave it to me is not a knitter so didn't know how much to get. Well, she got plenty: ...