Trish Knits.com

I’ll be sure to get photos tomorrow when it’s done for real, but look:

I finished the second sleeve while at family night at the pool tonight. So, while Diana was busy belly flopping and Steven was bouncing to the moon, there I was, under the floodlight where the light was good, knitting away.

Shower’s at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. I want to add another buttonhole to the body, do some minor finishing, and sewing on of the buttons. We’ll see if I come even close to getting done.

Stop laughing. I know you are.

Lookie! I got a sleeve done! Unfortunately I still don’t think I’m going to be done with the whole sweater by Sunday, but once in a while, miracles do happen. So, just in case I’m due for one, I’m going to keep at it. Either way, I can taste FO status coming. C’mon everybody, say it with me now:

I think I can
I think I can
I think I can

My favorite part of the sleeve is the little cuff, with the split cuff on the inside so it flips up so cute. It’s a little hard to see in the photo because the sleeve cuff is blending in with the sleeve right there, but I happen to think it’s darling. I did sort of wing it as I went, but I was smart enough to make notes on the sleeve as I worked it so that I could replicate the same sleeve on the other side.

Wanna see the cute little buttons I found?

My mom and I went shopping at Jo Ann’s over the weekend. The buttons say “genuine shell” on them, which I suppose means they’re made of seashells, but who knows? I hope they are. In any case, I think they’re a great match for the colors in the sweater.

Ok, I better shut up now and keep knitting. Keep the positive vibes coming! I’m feelin’ it!

Thanks to those who commented via the comments and Plurk. As you can see, I did start the sleeves. The first one is getting close to being done, but alas I have admitted to myself that there is absolutely no way that I can get the sweater done by the baby shower next Sunday. It’ll be close. As long as I can get it done by September 1, which at the moment seems more reasonable, I should be ok!

I’m glad now that I have two pairs of each size of smaller needles in Harmonies. I actually had the sweater on the 24″ needles, but also had a pair of 40″ needles. I knit the sweater body onto the 40″ needles and started the sleeve in the round with the 24s. I incorrectly stated the other day that I was using size 2.5 mm needles; I was wrong. They’re 2.25. I like the nice, dense fabric I’m getting, which despite the light weight of the fabric should still make for a fairly warm sweater. I don’t think I’ll be doing a baby sweater with really thin sock yarn any time again soon, though… this one is taking me forever!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, here’s a closeup of the cables:

I didn’t like them at first but they are growing on me. It’s a simple braid, over 12 rows, crossing on row 5 and row 11. It’s a much more relaxed braid than the 8 row variety that is my usual favorite, so the relaxed look wasn’t doing it for me at the beginning. But as fussy as this yarn is I wanted to spread the cable crossings out a bit so that the yarn would be easier to work with. Did it help? Not sure, but I bet it probably did. I found the cables fussy to do as it is, and had to fix them several times during the process. I’m not quite done with the body length yet, so there may yet be more fixing up of this sweater as I near its finish, but I do think I’m finally getting the hang of it. We’ll see.

The title of today’s post is a nod to my favorite podcast, Cast On, and its wonderful host, Brenda Dayne. She seems to be struggling a bit with a podcast format/frequency schedule that works for her. I just wanted to give a shout out and say to Brenda that I love Cast On, and will take it in whatever way works best. Just please don’t go away. I need Cast On for the connectivity to knitters, much the same way that you say you need it. I’m glad you’re back and can’t wait for the next one, whenever it happens to be.

Over and out… I actually have to put the knitting down for the night and make some progress on some writing I’m doing. Yuck. I’d rather knit.

Dear Michael Phelps,

Congratulations on being able to achieve that which so many thought would never be done again. I am a fellow Marylander, and, with the exception of a minor dozing off incident last night, I have been watching you with most rapt attention and cheering you along.

But you see, Mr. Phelps, therein lies the problem. I have this deadline to meet. And with you being on TV nearly every night for a week now it has been hard to pay attention to what I need to do. I know you understand about making it to the finish line in time. Mine is next Sunday, and I’m never, ever going to make it if your races continue to be this exciting. I just can’t take it! I’ll never make it to the end this way.

So, do me a favor, and just knock that last one out of the park, ok? No more nail biters. I know you can do it. A nice, boring win for the last one would be ok. I’m rooting for you.

Thanks very much,

Nervous Knitter in Maryland

What Should I do?

I’m thinking at this point I should cut the yarn at the end of the row, pick up and do the sleeves, then go back and do the body. Maybe that way, I’ll have a better chance of having a completed object by next weekend? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts. Please leave me your opinion!

Back to the knitting….

When you knit something as small as a baby sweater on size 2.5 mm needles, progress can seem slower than slow, and very ungratifying. Especially for a sometimes hyper ADD knitter such as myself, who wants it all, and wants it all, NOW. Some time ago I read on Kelley Petkun’s blog that she uses a row marker to help her track her daily progress. She was particularly impatient with the progress of her plain black socks for Socks for Soldiers, and this little row marker thing seemed to help.

So I got myself some row markers, and I’m giving it a try. What you see here is my progress since this morning, which doesn’t seem like a lot, until you remember that I work full time and so I only have had some commute knitting and a wee bit of time after dinner so far today. And, need I say it again? This sweater has more stitches per row than my giant brown ripple afghan (sadly, still in progress). Big blankets are a challenge to do because of the size of the project. But, I’m discovering, so are tiny baby clothes in sock yarn with small needles. These itty bitty miracles of knitting are actually, quite deceptively, enormous.

Did I mention that the shower is on the 24th? That’s right folks, 11 days to go. Yikes.

And, for the record, here is today’s shot of the whole sweater. See? I am really getting there:

But alas, this is my own personal Olympics. Finishing this would be as good as gold to me.

We had a sudden downpour this afternoon that included tiny, marble-sized balls of hail. (Haildrops? Whatever.) I tried to catch a photo of the action:

Meanwhile, not a whole lot of action on the inside today, either:

Does it look any bigger than it did the other day? The stitches are so tiny that sometimes it’s hard to tell, even after what feels like a lot of work. The kids will be away at Mom’s for most of the week though, so I imagine that there will be much knitting. Wish me luck!

Back to the Swimming… er, watching the swimming. While knitting. Come on, you knew what I meant.

Ack! Just found out yesterday that the baby shower for the recipient of this baby sweater is in two weeks! I don’t think I’m gonna make it, but I’m gonna try!

So here’s today’s update:

This is the cable I twisted at the pool this evening just before coming home. No dropped stitches, yay! I was having my doubts about this cable in the beginning but now I think it’s starting to look nice.

I did take a break away from the knitting today to get a totally new “do”:

I’ve been wanting wash-and-go hair for quite a while now. Mostly because I wear lots of hats in the winter and my hair always gets so smashed up in my hats because it’s so fine. But now, all I need is a little pomade and water, and instant hairdo! Not bad, eh? Can’t wait to give it the hat test this fall.

All for now… back to the knitting!

This morning before work I fixed some dropped stitches in my baby sweater.

I’m getting tired of this routine! It seems every few rows or so lately I’m having to do some major repair work. I’m pretty sure it has to do with my fatigue level, so I need to fix that, too. But for now, I’m focusing on the sweater. In the photo above you can see the extent of the damage. Not too bad, I guess, compared to some other stuff, but I do detest picking up yarnovers and trying to make them look right again.

The job called for using my favorite go-to metal crochet hook, a red, dime store variety that used to belong to John’s great aunt Honey. (I never remember whether Honey was Mary or Frances, but she was Honey to family, and her sister was Duddie. Mary or Frances, Frances or Mary? Wait, I’m digressing…)

Anyway, I figured the easiest thing to do first would be to pick up the column of knit stitches on the purl side, the stitches that offset the cable. This wasn’t too hard. I find that when I have lots of columns of stitches to pick up, I’m constantly flipping the work back and forth, because it’s always easiest for me to pick up stitches from wherever the knit side is. I’ve never quite been able to wrap my brain about pulling the loop the other way ’round the yarn to make a purl stitch, so it’s easier to for me to just flip the work over and over, so I’m always creating knit stitches. Hey, it’s slow, but it works.

And here is the sweater fixed once again, ready to continue with the regular knitting routine. Please wish me luck that the streak of dropping stitches is over for a while–I’d really rather be getting this project done soon.

More later!

Well, I was successful in getting the sleeve stitches onto holders today before knitting group, so here is the latest photo of the baby sweater in progress. It finally looks like a sweater, no? I’m finally seeing a light at the end of this tunnel.

Now some scenes from today’s knitting group:

Rhoda knitting on the BYOB bag from Knitty.com

(Dina is our new group member. She didn’t want her picture taken, but here she is!)

Lola saw that I posted on Ravelry to Jo the other day, asking if she had a drop spindle that I could play with at group today. Jo said no, she didn’t, but then Lola surprised me with this:

A drop spindle to play with and a bit of roving! I tried for quite a while to make yarn tonight and it was interesting to say the least. It looks so easy when I see others doing it! Maybe I’ll have to ask Lola to give me a lesson or two. I’m thrilled that she’s letting me borrow this spindle before I buy my own, though… it’s good to figure out whether I can even do it first. So far I’ve had yarn falling apart and lots of spindle crashing to the floor stuff, and very little yarn stuff, but I think I’ll get there. Wish me luck, and what a great afternoon it was. Thanks again, ladies! I had a great time.

Just a Monday night at Trish’s place. I’m tired tonight, so we all had something simple for dinner, then I sat down to do some knitting… and then blog about it! I frogged my purple sock last week, and restarted it on size 0 needles. This time, on smaller needles, 56 stitches around seems to fit me just right. I forget sometimes that my feet are so smal, because I tend to wear shoes two sizes bigger because of my brace.

I kinda gave up on the idea of doing toe-up monkey socks for now, too, because the stitch repeat is so long that getting the right amount of stitches for my size is a bit of a challenge. So for now, I’m doing Wendy Johnson’s sock pattern that she designed for Summer of Socks, 2008. Well, sort of. I’m doing her stitch pattern, but my own heel and my own toe.

And here’s a shot of the baby sweater:

Half an inch til I put the sleeve stitches on holders. I’m finally starting to feel the progress. Yay!