Slow Going

I wish I had some of those progress marker things to put in my knitting. Knitting lots of stockinette stitch can seem like you knit and knit and knit and never make any progress at all. I have 2 projects that are all stockinette.

I really enjoy exploring different ways of constructing sweaters, especially the no-sew variety. I am not much of a fashionista. Did I use that word correctly? Anyway, I’m not a fashion designer, I am a knitting construction engineer. It does lead to lots of plain knitting since I don’t always consider decorating my latest construction with something interesting. I think the construction itself is interesting enough. Does that make sense?

I have been working on a combination of stash busting and making my designs a little more appealing to the eye.

I added stripes to my latest Twelve-Point Circular Yoke to jazz things up and to use up the last of my Hempton hemp/cotton blend yarn. I wrote it for helical knitting, as a stash buster, but now I am knitting 6 round stripes and, wow, I love this one.

I have part of the last Hempton ball left. I have a Hiya Hiya interchangeable set of needles with double the tips and cables, since I inherited my mom’s set to add to mine. So after the sleeve split, I was able to knit a teal stripe on the body and then a teal stripe on both sleeves, look at what I had left, and do it again. Alas, that’s it for the teal. Good stash busting though!

I’m also at the same point, the point of no more stripes, on the V-Neck Pullover. Again, using up the left-over balls of Waxwing wool. This pattern is written but there is no finished pullover yet.

I have made it to the hip shaping. For this pullover, I knit the Body straight to the narrowest part of my torso (which is now above my natural waist, sigh), and can work some increases for a little extra wiggle room.

Now I’m counting rounds between the sets of side increases. That’s OK. It gives me something to track how much progress I’m making. I work 4 increases in one round, one on either side of the imaginary side seam at both sides, knit 1″ worth of rounds (9 rounds), work one more round with 4 increases, and then 2″ worth of rounds (18 rounds). I repeat the increases and 2″ worth of rounds for the desired length of the pullover. I can usually get around 12 to 16 extra stitches for my hips on top of the generous amount of ease for the body. All good.

The break in the stockinette stitch knitting is working on my V-Neck Pullover with the twisted stitches. See, I can add in some visual interest if I work at it.

Once I split for the sleeves, I also added this stitch pattern as a panel under the arms. The twisted stitch panels make knitting this very much more interesting and I love twisted stitches.

I’m not very far along so nothing to look at under the arms yet but it’s going to be great.

I’ve finished the charts. I did them by hand and photographed them so I hope they show up well enough. I’m putting this pattern out for free so I haven’t bought a chart program. Sorry.

It is suddenly summer here after many days of rain. We are enjoying the sun and getting out on the water. I hope you are having a lovely summer. I know Ontario is having a heat wave so maybe not too much knitting is getting done.

Cheers, Deb

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