Right Front (among other things)

The Right Front of my cardigan is looking pretty awesome. Didn't get a chance to snap any pictures but I'm really digging the construction. It's very different from anything else I've knitted. But, who knows, maybe all cardigans are built similarly?

The "cool" parts are the button band and the pocket. When I first read through the pattern I was bit surprised at how tedious all of it sounded, but, now I'm glad I'll be able to learn new techniques.
So, with the button band... I knit about an inch at the bottom of the Right Front (and even made a button hole!) and then they had me put 12 stitches onto a holder and continue knitting the body. Once it's finished you'll pick up the live stitches and knit the button band while sewing it to the body. CrAzY! ... but awesome. The button band becomes the collar so I'll be knitting it up and attaching it around the neckline. Is that insane or what? ... I guess the "or what" would be that most cardigans are constructed the same way.

The pocket is another nifty little trick. Basically they had me knit a flat stockinette square. Once I got to the pocket hole on the Right Front I put 32 stitches from the RF onto a holder and knit the 32 stitches of the St st square in their place. Once I finish the RF I'll pick up those stitches and do a few rows of color, bind off, flip it over, and sew down the 3 remaining sides of the pocket. Tedious but AWESOME! =)

Enough of this cardigan construction excitement... how about a nice, simple, cotton dishcloth:



I keep feeling like I blogged about this already. Hmm.
Well, during the whole Log Cabin Blanket there was a point when it became to heavy and ungainly to carry around to my knitting groups so one day I showed up to Monday night with nothing. I had been wanting to do a wash cloth for a while so I picked up some cotton (forgot what it was called, but it's really nice) and a pair of needles and cranked out a wash cloth.



It's just some seed stitch and stockinette. I love seed stitch.

Knit hard. =)

Pictures for the last post

I took pictures this morning (at the cost of being quite late for work).
I'm actually still at work so for now I'll just share my sweater.



Mmm, RYC Cashsoft. It was one of the first 'nice' yarns I ever purchased. I loooooved it back then and I still love it today. It's really soft and it has an almost silky feel... plus it's machine washable. Go figure.



I finished the back last night. I had hoped to finish it earlier but I encountered a few setbacks.

1) I got engrossed in Stargate SG-1. I think for each sweater I'll watch a new TV series. I've never seen Stargate so I started from the beginning and I've been using it as a knitting aid.
After shaping the armholes I needed about 9.5 inches of ribbing. After watching a good third of the first season I realized that I had 12 inches of ribbing. Oops. I considered ripping back but instead chose to meticulously tink.



2) During the 9.5 inches of ribbing a ball had run out and so I joined a new one. On my return row I knit one of the tails that crossed my needle and resultingly increased one of the 7 stitch rib columns to 8 stitches. I didn't realize it until I had reached the top and was doing shoulder shaping and couldn't figure out why my 2 shoulders weren't decreasing symmetrically. o_O So, I ended up ripping back about 5 inches.



3) I shaped the first shoulder completely wrong. For some reason I was decreasing at the beginning and end of each row... I was actually only supposed to be decreasing at the neck side. I bound off the shoulder and realized my count was all off so I ripped back and realized where I had gone wrong.


So, that's the back. =) I was going to Cast On for the Right Front last night but decided to knock out early. I will be casting on tonight though. Hopefully all the mistakes I've made in the back have fulfilled the karmic error quota and the rest of my pieces will flow a bit more smoothly.