Tag Archives: knitting sweater

And Done*

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*kinda.

After all that complaining about how long the kid’s sweater was taking, it turns out that all I really needed was about 2 hours and a couple episodes of Drag Race and…. Fanfare, please!

It’s done! I finished up the ribbing, bound off and even wove in the ends!

The sleeves are ridiculously long on the kid, but fit well enough when I roll up the cuffs, and the body is long, but not looong. I think (hope) that they’ll get a year or two’s use out of it (and I have plenty of extra red yarn, so I can always make the body longer as the kid gets taller). Although, at the rate they’re growing, it’s going to be too small for them by the time I finish typing out this post. Kids, am I right?

Now, just to get it blocked out and add the buttons. That certainly can’t take longer than actually knitting up the sweater. Right?… Right?

Have you finished anything big lately?

I’ve Made A Huge Mistake

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OK, not huge. But I’ve definitely underestimated how much yarn I would use for this sweater.

To be fair, I also underestimated how big this sweater was going to be, so it only goes to figure that I’d underestimate the amount of yarn that I’d need. (My kid is 4. I’m pretty sure this will fit them when they’re 12.)

I’ve got maybe a full skein left in total, and I’ve used probably 2-ish skeins already. And, since I’m barely 3 inches into the body and only at elbow-level on the sleeves, I can’t imagine that one skein will be enough to finish up.

To make sure I’m using my yarn as evenly as possible, I had the brilliant idea to work the body from one skein, then work the sleeves from opposite ends of a second skein at the same time. While this might make a lot of sense from a theoretical standpoint, it’s proving to be more trouble than I expected. The amount of time I spend carefully organizing my yarn and untangling it is getting a little out of hand. But, I’ve made my choice, and I don’t feel like going back on my plan.

Anyway, I’m going to have to go get more of this yarn… and I think I’ve got two choices:

  1. Buy the same color, and hope the dye lots are close enough. (I bought the original yarn maybe 10 years ago, so there’s no chance that I will find the same dye lot).
  2. Go for a different color for a two-tone sweater. And, if I go this way, what color should I pick? Play it safe with brown or gray? Go wild with a bright contrasting color? Or monochromatic with a different shade of green?

What would you do?

Finishing As I Go

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I know it’s not a unique or clever thing to say, but weaving in ends and generally “finishing” my knitting is one of my very least parts of knitting, and I’m not alone. (I suppose that’s why it’s a cliché.) There’s nothing worse than thinking you’re all done, then realizing you have another hour (or more!) of painstakingly sewing in ends and trimming and adding buttons… not to mention blocking!

So, this time, I’m doing a bunch of my finishing before I’m… well… finished. I’m still short of the halfway mark, but I’ve already done the finishing on the fiddly bits at the shoulders and collar. I’ve woven in all my ends from casting on/picking up at the shoulders, and I’ve knit on the collar and button bands and woven those ends in as well. I’ll probably go for a dive into the button jar some time this week and get those added on, as well.

It’s not that this actually reduces the finishing work for me, but it makes it feel like there’s less finishing work. And, frankly, that’s all I want.

So, now that I’ve “finished” the tricky bits, I’m off to go knit my sleeves and body… fingers crossed that I have enough yarn!

What’s your favorite finishing trick?