I Forgot to Give This a Title So I Am Now

Yesterday I made a deal with myself I couldn't post for the day until I'd finished the seeded rib bottom and picot bind-off of the body of my Motley Crew-neck. I'm still not quite finished, though I do only have the bind-off left.

It is a nice sweater body, though, isn't it? I'd try it on for you so you could see the little bit of short-row bust and waist shaping, but I only had two 24" needles in a size smaller for the rib here with me so trying on involves a few dropped stitches and I really didn't want to deal with that tonight. Trust me, it fits very nicely. I expect it to continue to fit nicely since my generous swatch changed not at all in size when washed.

I usually just finish out the ball of yarn I'm working with after I split off the body of a top-down sweater and then go back to do the sleeves without the weight of an entire sweater hanging off the needles and filling my lap. That became problamatic this time. The skeins have 350 yards of yarn each and I'm alternating two of them since they're hand-dyed and variegated and I don't want pooling or noticable changes between skeins. I also knit my swatch from one of the skeins I started the sweater with so that one ran out long before the other one, which actually still hasn't. I would have still had a ball of yarn hanging from the sweater body while I worked on sleeves and I know from experience that doesn't work very well. I also knit much of this in the car where a sweater body was easier than an attatched sleeve would have been.

Maybe it's my gauge, which is running just about a half stitch shy of 6spi over 4 inches and 8 rows per inch, but an inch of progress takes me a long time on this sweater. That's between four and five hours of knitting for the three inches of fancy rib you see.

Now, I rarely just knit, but usually read blogs on my laptop or watch taped TV shows at the same time. At least I do when the project is as uncomplicated at this. So I can't say it's five hour of concentrated knitting, but K3 P1 a round then P3 K1 a round doesn't really require concentration.

I should get the bind-off done tomorrow. Then I'll wind a skein of my alpaca/Jacob bulky yarn and start a swatch/sleeve to make sure I pack the right needles. I catch a plane tomorrow evening and the sweater's too bulky and the start of the sleeves too fiddly for travel knitting.

Besides finishing the 3/4 length sleeves on this sweater I plan to do two or three swatches for next year's sweaters before the end of the year. I think I need a running start at my dozen sweaters and swatching before next year doesn't feel like a cheat. I often swatch ahead of the start of a sweater.

And I expect simple swatches will be about all the knitting that can get done reliably and correctly given that I'll fly to Seattle and back, fit in a major holiday with two different families, and drive back to Seattle before New Year's Day.

Comments

[Rebecca]

The sweater is looking really good! Nice and comfortable, which equals just about perfect to me!

[moiraeknittoo]

I think it's a lovely sweater body! It looks incredibly comfortable. And I think it's also very smart to be swatching now for the twelve sweaters for 2009.