plain, simple, leaves.

I cannot believe that it’s still fall right now. It’s the middle of November, and I have come to expect that at this time of year, I will be bundled up in several sweaters, walking to work through slushy wet snow. I sort of don’t know what to do with myself, when the weather is still this nice.

Which is not to say that I’m not enjoying it, because I am – as far as I’m concerned, fall is one of my top two favourite seasons – but it is a little unusual. And it also means that my usual fall instinct to Knit All The Sweaters is lasting a very long time.

Which – speaking of sweaters, I have been trying very hard to work consistently on just one at a time, and the second attempt at my knitalong sweater is going well. It doesn’t look so different from the photos in my last post, but it totally is.

See? It’s longer.

Even though I do sometimes grouse about miles and miles of stockinette, it’s kind of nice working with sweaters when they’re at this stage. They’re suddenly the perfect project to work on during a TV marathon, or at a coffee shop, or on transit. And slowly, if I just knit and enjoy myself without thinking about whether or not I’m making progress, I’ll look down and realize that I’m close to the next step in the pattern.

This second time around, I’m planning to knit the body much shorter. On my first sweater I worked 17″ of body before splitting for yoke shaping, and it was much too long. I know that this is much too long, because I have a pretty short torso, but I always seem to forget this when I’m knitting for myself. I also know this is the sort of sweater that will grow in length when it’s blocked, so I’m planning to only work to 14″ – which means I’m getting really close to being able to split for the shoulders. I really, really want to be at that step.

progress

I haven’t had as much time to knit this week as I did when I was on holiday (I know, surprise, surprise) but I have had some, and the second try at this sweater is coming along nicely.

It’s knitting up a lot faster than my first attempt, as it’s much smaller – I cast on 19 fewer stitches, and I’m including more decreases at the hips so that the waist of the sweater is closer to the size of my actual waist.

I’m hopeful that the second time around, this sweater will turn out to be the one I’m picturing in my head – because that sweater is pretty adorable.

a scary halloween story

So. As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve had a lot of time to knit lately. And a lot of that knitting time has been spent working on my Plain and Simple sweater. It is made of sock yarn. On 3mm needles.

Anyway. On Saturday, I had a chance to sit down and finish the body of the sweater, so that it was all ready to try on for fit. My goal for this sweater was to make something that fit really nicely, that looked put together enough that I could wear it to work. Before starting, I did a whole bunch of math and diagrams and stuff.

I was really, really excited.

I don’t know if it’s 100% clear from these photos, but – this sweater does not fit really nicely. There’s way too much positive ease for my taste, and that’s even before blocking. I also followed the pattern directions for body length, but didn’t take into account where I’d done my waist shaping, so the darts for waist and bust increases and decreases (which you cannot see, because there is too much positive ease for them to make a difference) are about four inches too low, on both counts.

Also, the yoke is too big.

So I went back to my gauge swatch, and remeasured. Turns out, I thought my gauge was 7 spi, as in the pattern, but on remeasuring it’s closer to 6.8 spi. Over 280 stitches, that’s actually a pretty big difference.

On Sunday night, I took a really deep breath, put on Shaun of the Dead, and frogged the entire body. Two and a half skeins of Merino Sock.

Then I cast on again. I think I’m growing as a person.