put your money where your mouth is

IMG_7978, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

Clearly, it was a productive weekend. You can tell because I have evidence – the second sleeve of my modified Owls cardigan is done! This photo was taken just before I joined for the yoke, which is going to be in a contrasting colour of LL called “Blackberry,” because this is almost exactly as much knitting as you can get out of the four skeins of grey Lorna’s Laces I originally bought, thinking they would be a sweater.

I. . .am not very smart sometimes.

I’ve started the yoke, as of now, and I’m knitting it up, but fitting 300-odd stitches on a 24″ circular needle is going about as well as you’d expect it to (that is: poorly), so it’s not the most photogenic thing in the world. I’ll see what I can do.

Song of the Entry: Katy Perry – Waking Up In Vegas (Listen)

tell your mom you joined a boy band

IMG_7952, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

Whoa. You guys, even I’m surprised at how fast this sweater is going. Less than two weeks of knitting, and I’m already onto the second sleeve.

Part of this is because this one, unlike my last sweater, is several thousand miles of plain stockinette, so I’ve been able to take it to school and knit during class. (To keep me focused – seven straight hours of opthalmology is not my favourite thing in the world.)

Working on the sleeves, I gave up on the original Owls pattern almost entirely, going back to Elizabeth Zimmerman’s EPS method because it makes them fit beautifully. I always waffle, when I make sleeves, over whether or not to put in thumb holes (because I’m the type of person who enjoys sticking my thumbs through the sleeves in my sweater and looking like a sullen emo kid), but I decided not to for this one. Thumb holes are for hoodies, not pseudo-indie-kid round-necked owl cardigans. Probably.

Oh, and I’m still in love with this yarn, especially in garter stitch. I’m suddenly starting to really, really appreciate the appeal of working with Lorna’s Laces’ products.

Song of the Entry: Son of Dork – Boy Band

can't you hear, can't you hear that thunder?

IMG_7927, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

In keeping with my lazy weekend, I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on TV and knitting, and this is the result – I’ve made a lot of progress on my Owls sweater.

I mentioned this obliquely before, but I’m actually adapting this pattern quite a lot. I really, really wanted to knit this yarn up with smaller needles at a tighter gauge, because I liked that fabric better than the closer-to-pattern-gauge one that came out on larger needles. Ordinarily, my strategy would be to just knit the pattern as written but with a larger size to compensate for my tighter gauge, but in this case the math didn’t quite shake down properly.

So, I sat down and redid all of the math for the entire pattern, rewriting it for myself in terms of proportions, rather than numbers. That way, I can (theoretically) work it up on whatever gauge I want, and still get the basic shape of the thing pretty much right. It’s going alright so far, and I have a fair bit of confidence since this is really a very intuitive construction, but we’ll see what happens when I get to the yoke. I may have to do a double row of owls or something to make this work.

Oh, right. I’m also cardiganizing this by adding in a steek, rather than working this side-to-side. This is mostly because I’m lazy and hate purling, but also because I apparently like to complicate my life as much as possible. IT WILL BE FUN, IDK. (And actually, the steek on my last sweater was an incredibly fun experience, and has yet to unravel on me. So that’s a good sign.)

I also just need to point out this design feature from the original pattern, which honestly has never occurred to me before and I love it – the shaping for the waist is worked as two darts at the back of the sweater, rather than as shaping under the armpits. Ridiculously, ridiculously clever.

Song of the Entry: Men At Work – Down Under (Listen)