Happy Halloween

I don't have any interesting pictures to post, but I did finish the reknitting of the back of the sweater last night. Then I cast on for both sleeves and started the ribbing. The GGH Bel Air is a great yarn to work with so far. It feels a little felted and is very soft.

Do Over

I had the front just about finished several days ago when I noticed that I was twisting the main stitch in the drop stitch. So, I frogged back to the ribbing and started over. I don't know that there is too much of a difference, but I'm anal about such things and wanted to start over. Now this means that I will have to frog the back and start that again too.

Lacy Back

I finished the back a couple of nights ago. It didn't take that long since the yoke still needs to be added. My version of this sweater looks a little bit different than the one in the magazine. My dropstitch is fairly loose, so it has a more lacy, open stitch look to it, which I don't mind. I've started on the front ribbing and hope to get that finished this weekend.

What the @#$!%&*?

I stayed up WAY TOO LATE last night figuring out the stitch pattern on the chart of this sweater. After the ribbing, the chart pattern begins innocently enough with a K3 P1 ribbing for five rows. On the sixth row, the chart says to K1, inserting the needle into the the next stitch five rows below. For the life of me I couldn't figure this stitch out. I tried what I thought it meant, but then had to rip out a couple of rows when I realized it wasn't correct. I did a bit of research and thought I was supposed to make a bowknot, but that wasn't right either. I searched through the Rebecca forums and found a thread where a couple of knitters were having the same problem, but didn't get it resolved. Then I finally found this pattern on Elann that had virtually the same directions, but gave me a bit more guidance. The stitch is a drop stitch adaptation from Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I'm on a roll now!

Bridie is Done!

I finished sewing the buttons on Bridie tonight. I didn't know if I liked the contrasting black button band, but after wearing the cardi for a while, I think it's grown on me. I like the pearly white buttons against the black too. I thought the sweater might turn out a bit small, but it seems to fit me just right. There were errors on the left front piece, so check here for the corrections.

Button Band

I started working on the button band and the Rebecca sweater at the same time, but as some of you may know, I don't like to work on more than one project at a time. I feel unfocused, like I'll never finish either project. So, I stopped working on the Rebecca sweater in order to focus on getting Bridie finished. I decided to go ahead and use some black Merino Style for the button band instead of ordering another skein of the moss green. I like the contrast of the two colors. I bought some small pearl shank buttons last weekend, so I'm ready to sew those on too.

Start Up

I stopped at one of my LYS on Saturday and bought the GGH Bel Air to make the Rebecca sweater with the round yoke. There was a sample of the sweater in the store and it looked fabulous. I'm excited for this project. I swatched tonight and started in on the ribbing. I also seamed together Bridie and now have to knit the button bands. I've got just about a third of a skein of yarn left though, so, I'm contemplating ordering one more skein or just using another color. I have a skein of the KnitPicks Merino Style in coal, so I could use that. Moss and coal would go together, I think.

Almost Finished

The sleeves are currently blocking and seaming of the sweater shall commence this weekend! I need to get some buttons though.

Green Sleeves

I was away on Whidbey Island this weekend for a friend's wedding, but I managed to get a lot of knitting done on the cardigan sleeves. I hope that I can get them finished this week, so I can start assembling the sweater.

In other crafty news, last week I started some fashion design classes at Portland Community College, which are part of a fashion design certificate program. The two classes that I am taking this term are Survey of Fashion and Apparel Construction. The first class looks at the history of fashion, as well as marketing and trends. Homework for the second class was to create some handstitching samples of different stitches, like basting and hemming stitches. I'm hoping the classes will improve my sewing skills!