Progress!

I'm making progress, anyway! I finished the body of my sweater tonight. Two sleeves to go, but at least there's some clear progress, huh? Now I have to figure out the math for the sleeves--not only from the gauge being completely different, but because I'm going to need to make them a little shorter. I think I'll go for narrower sleeves, too, since too large a "bell" is just going to make wearing it difficult (grin).

I'm happy so far, though--just hope that the curling hems are going to lay flat once I block it.

--Deb

Almost finished!

After persevering through a setback with the sleeves (they were too long, so I frogged them and reknit them then had to block them to death b/c the yarn had been kinked up by the first knitting), the sweater is completely sewn together and some of the ends have been woven in. I have the button for the front, but I have yet to find the right buttons for the shoulders. My LYS doesn't have a good button selection, so I need to go to my favorite fabric store, but I don't have a chance to do that until Friday or Saturday. I also have to make my son's Halloween costume (he's going to be Dopey and I'm going to be Snow White), which obviously takes precedence, but hopefully I'll have a finished USM by Sunday evening. I will post pictures when I do.

Body blocking

I thought I'd post my body section while it's blocking:


Union Square Market body 

Once again, mind the water spots.

Measurements are pretty good, I'm happy to say almost exactly spot on. The armhole mesurement is exactly what is called for in the magazine, so unless I have mutant short armpits it should be well. I'm thiking the unblocked front flap may have given the illusion of huge armholes along with the lack of shoulder seams.

Arm shaping question

Now I have a question on the arm shaping. :)

After the short row shaping and you join the MC, the instructions say:

*Work even in St st with MC for 2(31/2, 31/2, 11, 11)" next round: dec 1 (dec 1, dec 1, dec 1, inc 1) st at each end of round* 2 sts dec for smallest sizes...

I'm confused on how you decreased 2 sts if you only worked one decrease round where you decreased one st at end of the round?

Big arm holes?

I'm finished with the body. It seems to fit OK, but the armholes seem really huge longwise for some reason. The measurement is correct. Did anyone else have a problem with the size of the arm holes? Perhaps it's just the way it looks because not having a shoulder seam?

Progress thwarted!

Last night I sewed in one of my sleeves, and it's too long. I knit them to the measurements the pattern calls for, but now I'm frogging them back and shortening them by almost 2 inches. Sucks, because I thought I was just about done!

Also, I did the loop for the button on the front of the sweater last night, and I didn't enjoy the whole twisted cord process. Seems like so much work for something that isn't really supposed to be seen. Is everyone else doing these twisted cords, or did someone do something else?

a question of length

Several of those who have finished (amazing knitters that you are) have mentioned that the sleeves felt too long when all was said and done. Can you estimate by how much? I realize, of course, that we're all different sizes, with different arm lengths, but this seemed to be a common complaint--and I'm pretty petite, with short arms.

The proscribed length for the sleeve is 17" before starting the cap shaping. I figured I'd go to some number less than this--I've stopped at 15 and that seems a little too short. But I'm not sure if, once I add the cap shaping, it'll come out OK. Any advice? I'm kind of stagnated on the sleeve, unable to decide!

Progress report

Inspired by Eunny's quick progress on this sweater, I've been working on my sweater like crazy lately. Here are some pictures:


Obviously, this is the body of the sweater on my blocking board. (Please ignore the ugly fabric.) There aren't really spots on the front; those are just where the sweater got a little wetter in the blocking process.


This is what my left sleeve looked like on Friday night around 6:30...


...and this is what my left sleeve looked like about 9:30 Saturday night! Yippee! Fits perfectly! I was trying to pose like the cover of the magazine, but my husband made me laugh, so I just look silly. But at least you can see the sleeve. (The shirt I'm wearing, by the way, is from the AIDS Walk I did early on Saturday. A group of my friends from my LYS, Angel Hair Yarn Company, formed a team for the walk and raised money. In return, the store made these cute shirts for us to wear. Nice, huh?)


I've started the right sleeve, but it hasn't gotten quite to a picture taking stage yet. My goal is to have it done by Friday. If my husband doesn't get sick like he did this past Tuesday and leave me being the single parent while he's in the bathroom puking, I should be able to do it.

Finished Spinning

Now to knit the sweater.

Jessica

progress - some

the progress on USMP is being hampered slightly by the progress on Irlandais, which is the purple Inca Alpaca number just behind. I can only handle so much stockinette at a time. ;)

i finished the back! or the front! take your pick!

Since I'm not doing the flap, I'm knitting my front and back simultaneously and with identical shaping. (I thought about altering the neckline, but opted instead for pure laziness--er, simplicity. If it rides up too high on my neck, well, then I'll think about changing it.)

As I mentioned earlier, I was having weird tension issues based on having frogged back a bit--I'd never had this happen before. Helpful readers of my blog were horrified as well, and suggested I stop everything and try blocking it out. Afraid of accidentally blocking the horrible line in place, I took a crochet hook to it. No, not to do any kind of stitches, but to pull and tug and swear at the darn thing until it is far less noticeable. See?



My blog entry on the topic, in which I gripe a bit more about the process of tugging, is here.

It's curling something crazy, but that I feel certain will come out in blocking and buttoning and the like!

Only need buttons ...

Sorry for the dark picture. I'll try again tomorrow.



I quite like it but next time, I'll shorten the sleeves & leave out the fold in the front.

weaving in ends

I read somewhere awhile back that someone else using Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino was having a bear of a time weaving in the ends without them showing in this circular knitting.
Well, I'm using the baby cash also, in rose-pink, and have stranded the ends in as if I were knitting fair isle, catching one yarn along the back of each stitch for about 10 stitches, then cutting off any remaining, then on the next row picking up the other end and stranding it along. It is not detectable at all from the right side. And the best thing is, there won't be any ends to weave in at the end.

tension woes

I put my USMP aside for a short time and now that I'm back, it seems that my tension is slightly different--and it's caused a noticeable 'line' where I picked it back up. I even took out everything I'd done to try again, but I just caused a new line in a new spot. Very frustrating, and hoping that blocking will fix it. I'm now hyperaware of my tension, and that's no good either.

I also had some confusion with the armhole shaping. Confusion is the wrong word--I just must have missed the bind offs for one of the sides, so they were off from each other. So it's just as well that I took it out, because I've fixed that and things are moving along just fine. I blogged about it earlier today, but don't say much of anything different.

Mostly I'm now looking forward to one of the balls of yarn ending, because I just learned about that felting join and I'm dying to try it out!

Nearly Ready

I have spent the past week focused entirely on finishing spinning the yarn for my sweater. Very late last night/early this morning I finished the main color. Now I have 400 yards of the contrast color to spin. Then I can finally begin.

I've been enjoying see everyone's progress. Thanks!

***Update***
Here's some photos.




Jessica