I do it Enough that I do it Sometimes

Hey there!

I'm having a difficult time getting into this post.  It feels like nothing has happened since I last posted, but that's a lie.  I've been stitching a lot in the last few weeks, and I've made a lot of progress on things.  Heck! I even made a whole sweater in that time!

So, shall I get started?

Last I left you, it was Christmas Eve!  I was about to wake up to some new sweater yarn!  I got enough to make a sweater I'd planned to make for years and years. Tastu by Marie Wallin.

 

And yeah, I got the yarn from the pattern.  I promise I don't *always* do that, but apparently I do it enough that it's a thing I do sometimes.

I am pretty sure I didn't even stop to make a gauge swatch.  That's also something I do enough that it's a thing I do sometimes: cast on with wild abandon!

I did a tubular cast on, which is a favorite for a nice polished stretchy edge.  And then I went for it.  The pattern is written flat and seamed.  I normally would probably convert it to the round, but I'm not begrudging the flatness this time.  That's a whole lot of ribbing at the bottom of the sweater.  It was nice having it broken up in two parts.

I believe this picture was two days of knitting.  I abandoned everything to work on it in the days after Christmas.  I wanted to get it done before NYE-- or at least mostly done so I could cast on with everyone else.  Well, I could always cast on anyway, which I did, but I wanted a clean palate. Anyway,  I didn't bother taking pictures of the finished halves, I just seamed them up and picked up for the collar:

This was another enormous chunk of ribbing.  It took HOURS.  And then I did a tubular bind off, which as I mentioned for the cast on is a lovely polished finish for a garment.  But it's extremely time consuming.

Finally it was finished:

Here it is damp and blocking.

And here it is dry.  It fits!  I'm extremely happy with it!  I'm hoping to get to wear it through the summer at least, it's cotton/yak, so not very warm.  It should fit nicely into my wardrobe!

As I mentioned, I participated in the NYECO! I started my raglan sweater on New Year's Eve. After a quick swatch so I could plug my gauge into a raglan calculator I casted on.

Now you'd think it would just be simple, especially with the calculator I used, but it wasn't.  I ended up abandoning the calculator after establishing the cast on and just doing my own thing.  I don't know if I'm just a fuddy duddy (I am definitely a fuddy duddy) but the pattern was just... off.  When calculating the size to knit it asked for gauge and a few other measurements.

Which sounds fine, but the measurements weren't ones I would necessarily care about.  When doing my own sweater designing, I need chest measurement and upper arm circumference. They asked for desired raglan depth (that is the length from cast on to underarm, so sort of arm circumference) and desired collar circumference. It didn't require the chest size in the calculations.  Just a really bizarre way to do a sweater. For my size, 36" bust, the chart in the pattern would have you knit a raglan that's 12 inches long!  That's over 4" longer than any raglan depth I've ever seen in any pattern I've ever knit to fit myself.  It also didn't ask for row gauge at all, so I don't know how it was going to fit.  At all.

I did find the beginning of the pattern useful, the cast on and division of stitches into front back and sleeves.  For a crew collar, which is my go-to, they have you increase for awhile in the front, knitting flat, and cast on the center front stitches.  I like this a lot, cause you don't have to do short rows to enable a good fit at the neck.

That was a lot to say very little.  oh well, it's my blog. I get to complain about weird pattern instruction if I want to.

So, that sweater has been evening knitting these days.  It's relatively mindless, increasing every other row and switching colors every inch or so.  I'm enjoying the way the colors look together.

During the day I'm stitching pokemon!

 

Here I am almost done with page 23! I had a difficult time with this page cause it's mostly browns and oranges and yellows.  A lot of the symbols were scattered across the page, so it was difficult to determine when to switch colors.

I often struggle with that when I cross stitch.  I don't want to wander too far from established stitches cause it's so easy to get off track with the counting.  I found a good balance though.  Eventually all the little exes will be crossed and the monsters will take form.  It's inevitable.

I hope you enjoyed my post! I hope to be back in a few weeks with more pokemon and more sweater!

cheers!