Month: March 2024

Time consuming but worth it

How long does a sweater of yours  sit unfinished?

This little 4 year sized Family Crew Neck sat for quite a while because I didn’t know how to do the sleeves.

The colour fade yarn was great. I had already bought a second ball to do the sleeves.

I wound off the lime green, yellow and into the orange of the second ball of yarn.

I wound up all the orange into a separate ball. Then, I wound off some of that orange ball to make 2 equal sized balls. I knit one sleeve and then the other until the length of the orange in the sleeve was as close as I could get it to the body.

Then I did the same with the red and then again with the purple.

Yes, it was time-consuming, but I’m really happy with the result.

He likes likes it. He really likes it.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-free patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Done? Well almost

Yarn chicken and I won. Yahoo!!!

This is where knitting the Family Crew Neck or any top down knit comes into its own.

As it became increasingly obvious I would be very close on the amount of yarn I had left, I took some time to sort through  my priorities. I did need the body to be long enough. I could deal with a sleeve modification.

So, I  knit the sleeves to just before the cuffs and broke the yarn. If I ran out of yarn, I could rip them back to make them 3/4 length.

Then, I knit the body to the bottom border. I decided a split hem would serve me best at this point. I worked the front panel of the split hem. Not as long as I would like but the minimum amount. Broke the yarn again.

I’m sure you can see the theme here: knit, look at the ball of yarn I have left, work some more, stare harder at the little ball, make a decision and knit some more.

Done.

There are many, many ends to sew in but I’m happy with this Family Crew Neck knit with Shelridge Yarns W4 worsted.

Can you tell I’m 😮 surprised and so very pleased. Whew.

Hope your knitting is successful too.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Now You See It

My Family Crew Neck was progressing nicely. The body was knit to the waist, and I had knit one sleeve to above the cuff and started the second sleeve.

Then, because that little voice in my head kept bothering me, I decided to count stitches.

Oops, it was huge and my idea of working an a-line body was making it worse. So, now you see it …

… and now you don’t. Rip, rip, rip.

In the end, this was the only solution. Now I have hours of extra knitting to do. That’s not a bad thing, right?

Back on track and much happier.

Here’s hoping your knitting is going a little bit better.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

Finish one, Cast On for another

Here we go. This is the knitting merry-go-round. I just finished a large project: the Family Crew Neck. I hadn’t knit one for myself. Now I have one, yay! I was also knitting one for my grandson at the same time. I did quite a few blog posts about them: use the tag Family Crew Neck.

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Two sweaters going at the same time, I know, craziness but both are finished now so … of course, I cast on another sweater! I can’t help myself. Maybe I need help?!

This is Shelridge Yarns 80/20 fingering in navy and is part of my 2024 knitting goal of adding fingering weight sweaters to my wardrobe. Now that spring is beginning I’m inspired to get going on this.

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If you’re a sock knitter you know how this goes. Cast off a one sock, cast on another. Not to be outdone, I did that too. After a larger project, it’s satisfying to knit a smaller project, not that socks are especially small but they seem to be after a sweater.

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This is Timber Yarns sock yarn. I love those stripes and because of them, I tried an afterthought heel. Not new exactly, but not a heel I usually like to do. I was somewhat surprised but it worked out great. I will do this again now that I tried them again.

Now I need to go to my local yarn store to get some more yarn. I’m going to show you how this Shallow V-neck Cardigan works as I go along, and navy is not going to photograph well enough to do that. Something thicker would be good for knitting a ‘companion’ second cardigan.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram