Ribbing

I've been working on the ribbing a little each night for the past week or so and this is all I have to show for myself! With all the slipping of stitches, progress is SLOW. I like how it looks though.

New Start

I cast on for this sweater last night with more Lion Brand Wool-Ease, this time in a color called lemongrass. The pattern calls for fisherman's rib, but I haven't knit that in a while and the written directions were baffling me. Internet to the rescue! I found this great tutorial from someone in Germany who reads the Rebecca forums regularly. That was very helpful and now I'm on my way. After looking through the forum, there was a pattern correction for this jacket: alt K1 P1 instead of alt K2 P1.

Long Ribbed Jacket

I finished seaming the jacket and sewing the pockets on late last night. This morning, I threw the sweater into the washer and dryer and it looks great. I've already worn the jacket out and in this rainy, cold Portland weather, it's surprisingly warm. I really like having the pockets too.

Pick Me Some Pockets

I finished knitting up the sleeves a couple of nights ago and got started on the two pockets. I have a couple more inches to go and then I switch to the smaller needles and plain ribbing. The pockets will actually fold over and then be sewn in place. I may have a new sweater for the weekend! Then, it's back to finishing that darn dress.

Super Long

I finally finished the fronts of this jacket last night. I had actually finished it the other night, but I read the directions wrong and had to rip out 20 or so rows. The small strips will be sewn onto the back neckline and that's the part that had me confused. I kept knitting armhole decreases without taking into consideration the placket ribbing that would need to extend to the back neckline. Luckily, each row had only 17 stitches, so it didn't take too long to get back on track. Onto the sleeves!

Knitting Weekend

The weather this weekend shifted between sunny one day to rainy and cold the next. Whatever the weather , I spent a lot of time knitting with an armload of DVD rentals: Into the Wild, Rendition, Saw IV, Ira & Abby, and Atonement. These are the two fronts of the jacket and I'm just about to start decreasing for the neckline. I kept forgetting the knitting pattern on the wrong side, and instead of knitting in the stitch below for the knit stitches, I was following a regular knit rib pattern. I had to frog several rows here and there.

Jacket Back

I finished the back of the jacket over the weekend and cast on for the fronts last night. I'm knitting a skinny button band in garter stitch on the front edges. The pattern calls for six poppers. Do you suppose poppers are the same as buttons? Or snaps?

Cool Ribbing

Here's the beginning of the back of the long jacket. If I remember correctly, I have to knit for about 60 cm before binding off for the armholes. I'm really digging this rib stitch. I haven't used it before in any other garment. You knit on the right side and then on the wrong side P2, then K1 in the next stitch in the row below. It gives the knitting a textured fabric that has depth, much more so than regular ribbed knitting.

On Deck

I found a couple of sweater projects in Rebecca 36 that I wanted to make, however, both required quite a bit of yarn. This long jacket with rib pattern needed about 14 skeins of yarns while this blue zip up jacket called for 12. If I were to use the recommended GGH Tara yarn, the long jacket would have cost about $130! Yikes! So, I headed to the trusty Fabric Depot where a 30% off everything sale was happening. I picked up some Lion Brand Wool-Ease for both projects, as well as some Lion Brand Micro Spun for the biker vest in the Twinkle's Big City Knits book. Nineteen skeins of yarn cost only about $50. What a bargain! I have only used the Wool-Ease once before and I don't recall any negatives about it other than the fact that it's mostly an acrylic yarn. A plus is that I can throw it in the washer and dryer. I've cast on for the long jacket with the black yarn and, so far, it's knitting up nicely.