Two Sleeves Down, One to Go

Yesterday during an hour's wait for a doctor to see the Spousal Unit at Prompt Care, I finished knitting the first sleeve of my Jaeger Biscuit cardigan. SU injured a rib during our drive to California two weeks ago when he leaned across from the back seat to pick up one of the cats off of the floor at the front of the car. The Dx is a ripped cartilage which will take three months to heal.

The wait made for a forced knitting session after a couple of days of no knitting. I realized I kept putting it off when I felt like I needed to do more figuring to determine if the sleeve would fit the armhole. When I looked at it finally, I decided that this yarn has so much spring the whole thing will fall into the realm of blocking to fit. This fabric has a huge amount of elasticity and, within reason, I can make it almost any size I want without much distortion.

We'll see how much of that is good analysis and how much wishful thinking.

Today I finished up the knitting on sleeve #2 of the Mountain Colors top-down cardigan. Tomorrow SU and I drive my mother a bit over an hour away to catch a train. On my turn to be passenger I'll sew in the last four ends and hem the sleeves. Then this one needs a good blocking to unkink the wonky bits and make all theses hems behave, I hope.

I have yarn for another shoulder shawl and for one more sweater with me here. Plus I brought a couple yarns for large swatches to remember the pattern I designed a couple years ago for a big rectangular basket weave shawl and to try it in a couple other gauges. My mind only wants to think of sweaters right now, though. Luckily the sweater I want to knit will follow an Elizabeth Zimmerman 'pattern,' my first attempt at one of hers, and I want to add cables, a zipper, and a double-knit collar.

I've done none of these things before. Oh, I've done cables,but not on this scale or adding them to a pattern. And I've done collars, but not in double knitting. The zipper I'll hand sew in, but I want some kind of facing covering the edges.

That should keep me busy for a month, easily. I think I'll find myself grateful for a bit of swatching and other small projects once I get going on it.

And if I get desperate, there is a decent LYS in this town now.

Comments

[Karen B.]

Yikes! I hope the SU's recovery is swift and relatively painless.

Re: the song of the sweater? May as well heed it as resistance is futile. Besides, think of the rewards!

[RobinH]

Ow! Sorry to hear about the injury- that sounds really annoying and inconvenient. Best wishes to your SU for a swift recovery.

I'll be following your cabled sweater with interest- I'm currently working on a top-down cabled raglan sleeve cardigan, and getting rather apprehensive about sizing. I kind of winged- well, everything- but especially the addition of more stitches to compensate for the draw-in of the cables, and I have *no idea* what it's going to do after blocking. None. And I need it to be done for Christmas! (I'm trying to embrace my inner spontaneity.)

Will there be a pic preview on the yarn for the new sweater?