you're the only one that keeps me singing – la la la

IMG_8038, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

First things first: I am knitting my Garter Yoke Cardi like it’s my job and oh man it’s going so well. I am trying really really hard to get through this while it’s still hovering below 20 degrees outside and I can stand to have a giant sweater sitting in my lap, so we’ll see how I do. (I’m also sort of rushing because I hate purling, and once I finish the body I don’t have to purl again for the rest of the sweater, can’t wait.)

This is going way better than my original attempt with this yarn. I’ve tried it on a few times, and it looks like it’ll fit once I block it a little, and the waist shaping works for someone with my short torso, and like. I’m just very pleased with myself, basically. (Even if this is a pretty awful picture of the sweater-in-progress. Apologies.)

Next on the agenda: I did the TTC Knitalong this weekend. There are much better pictures at Glenna’s blog, here, but basically we took the TTC to a bunch of yarn shops and knit on the streetcar and it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I met amazing people, saw some stores I wouldn’t normally have made the trek to visit, and I also bought some yarn! (Not a lot, just a little bit.) Most importantly, I bought this yarn:

Three skeins of Cascade Eco Wool, plus a copy of The Opinionated Knitter, because garter stitch is calming and mindless and I want nothing more than to spend September to December of this year knitting myself a grown-up sized Tomten sweater coat.

Song of the Entry: Ashley Tisdale – Hair (shh – don’t tell)

. . .but it's going to be my year.

IMG_8022, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

Now that I’m on summer vacation (!!!), and have a bit more free time on my hands, I’ve been able to start coming out to knit night at Lettuce Knit again. Which is awesome, because I totally needed it this week – it gave me a chance to sit down for a solid few hours and focus on making a little bit more progress on my Garter Yoke Cardi, rising from the ashes of the total disaster that was my stab at Owls. It definitely fits a lot better so far.

Because I couldn’t resist, I did modify it a bit based on what I’d read on Ravelry – I added an extra short row repeat to the back neck to raise it a little bit more, and I knit the first half of the raglan increases in garter stitch because I wanted to make sure I didn’t run out of my grey yarn.

I’m also excited about taking this sweater out on the TTC Knitalong this weekend. I think now that I’m on the endless stockinette of the body, I might be able to pull it off.

Song of the Entry: All Time Low – Weightless (Listen)

famous last words

IMG_7990, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

So, about ten minutes after I wrote my last entry, I put my sweater onto some scrap yarn and tried it on.

Yeah.

The yoke was terrible. Too low in the back, too big all around, weird-looking, and I could tell from looking at the pattern directions that it wasn’t going to get fixed by extrapolating the proportions I’d worked out – my worsted-weight row gauge was just too small for the yoke directions to make any sense. I’m not going to lie, the sweater and I almost had to go on a break.

The pie helped.

Also, I had the bright idea of looking at other sweater patterns knit in worsted weight with garter stitch round yokes (although I did toy with just throwing my hands up and doing a raglan yoke, a la February Lady), which led me to Cobblestone.

It also led me to frogging back down to the end of the owl cable panel and starting the yoke all over, but whatever. Nobody ever died from that.