Needles & Hooks

…Because that’s the opposite of “seam”. Although it’s not as catchy as “tink”.

Yesterday I sat down with Zig Zag and started sewing in the sleeves.

This is what all the pieces looked like:

As I was pining one sleeve in, I noticed that the armhole and sleeve caps were not equally sized and a closer look revealed that my tension got a bit tighter in my sleeves. Once again, I suffer the problem of setting a project aside for a long time.

Anyway, I decided to sew the sleeve in and see if it looked okay.

And I tried it on, and it did! The sleeve fits me really closely on the upper arm, but it doesn’t bunch or gap anywhere, and the swatch I did grew when I blocked it, so I have confidence that this will relax some.

This morning, I got up intending to sew in the second sleeve while the blizzard swirled around outside. While my husband tackled the driveway with the snowblower, I settled into the couch with my needle.

I finished a little while ago. And I ripped off my sweater and turtleneck and pulled it on. I carefully inspected it in the mirror, looking at the seam, pleased that it didn’t gape or bunch funny. As I was walking back to the couch preparing to remove it to block it, I noticed a small yarn tail sticking out on the sleeve. I looked closer, to figure out how to pull it back to the wrong side, when I realized that I was staring at the wrong side!. Yes, I had sewed the sleeve on inside out.

I’ve since un-seamed it. It’s sitting on the coffee table while I calm down and gather up the courage to start it again. In the meantime, I decided to make a quick Odessa with a ball of Lana Gatto Feeling that I’d bought to see how I liked it for Zig Zag. The silk and cashmere will soothe me. Hoping to have some sort of finished object today…

Last night I finished the principal knitting on Zig Zag, delving into old episodes of The Twilight Zone on the Tivo to finish the last sleeve not long before midnight. I was all set to fix the errors in that sleeve with the pins and crochet hook, but after I ripped the column of stitches back and started working on it, and looked at the other one that also needed to be done, I gave in and ripped it out. And then knit like a mad-woman.

So all that’s left is sewing in the sleeves. Tomorrow I fly out to LA for work for a couple of days, so the finishing has to wait until I get back.

But Mermaid is coming with me. Having tested out the techniques and decided on my i-cord treatment, I was able to do a little gauge swatching yesterday. I’m using my size 3 Addis (3.25 mm). I would a few balls of yarn and I’m all ready to cast on. Maybe if I pack quickly tonight, I’ll get it started.

Remember when I showed you this?

And I said I found an error in it?

Well, on Monday night, it became this:

I pulled out about 30 rows in the middle zig-zag column, back down to the misplaced eyelet, and attempted to fix it. I used a long piece of styrofoam and a handful of T pins to keep track of the individual stitches. I turned the sleeve inside out because it is much easier to use a crochet hook to fix knit stitches than purl stitches. And one by one, I started “re-knitting” the row.

This is not for the impatient or the faint of heart.

As it turns out, it made me sick to my stomach. Literally. After repairing about 15 rows, I was huddled in a ball on the couch, moaning. And feeling chills. And my husband watched me nervously. After a sleepless night, an offer of a visit to the hospital, and a very unproductive day at work, we decided that it probably wasn’t the knitting, but rather an unfortunately timed bout of food poisoning. Something similar happened to me many years ago after my first Yoga class. I’ve never returned to Yoga.

Tonight, I decided to cling to my Addis and tempt fate with another run at Zig Zag. I’m glad I did. I finished up the one sleeve. It now looks like this:

And I feel confident in attempting to fix the two errors in the other sleeve. I got into quite a groove near the end of this one, so it should be rather efficient. And not at all worse than simply re-knitting it from scratch. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you haven’t contributed an entry for the scarf-naming contest, you have 24 more hours left. The pattern is all ready to post, as soon as the prototype is finished. And it gets a name…

When you’re actively knitting a project, you’re often just focused on the stitches right in front of you. Do you have to knit? Do you have to purl? Are you making a cable? What does the chart say? How many stitches did you do in this section?

So, sometimes, it’s quite a surprise to take a step back and look at the fabric you’re creating.

Tonight I got to the point where I’m working the sleeve caps for Zig Zag. I moved them to separate needles to work indepedently because magic loop doesn’t work so well for knitting two items flat. And I finished one off. And that’s when I took a really good look at it.

Look at the pretty zig zag eyelets. Look at those nice even cables. Wow, this is going to be a neat sweater.

Unfortunately, that observation was quickly followed by “Hey, wait, that cable’s twisted wrong a few rows back”. 10 minutes to unravel those stitches and fix it. Then “Oh no, a zig zag eyelet is misplaced 30 rows back” (if you look really closely at the bottom of the center zig zag, you can see it). *sigh* I’ll have to fix that tomorrow. Then, “Oh crap! Two eyelets are misplaced in separate columns about 2/3s down the sleeve!”. A few moments of wondering whether I should really bother to fix it were quickly follwed by knowing that every time I wore it, I would stare at my sleeves and feel annoyed. I guess some quality time with the crochet hook is in my future.

Until then, I’m going to pet my purple Art Yarns Merino a little more. *whimper*

My hats and scarf were well-received by my niece. I received many baby kisses all weekend. And apparently, little-kid-length scarves are hard to find. Manufacturers are afraid of strangling liability or something. So I will in fact write up the scarf pattern, I just have to figure out what to call it. I think I will ask all of you for help with that and offer an incentive. I have to dig through my stash to figure out what, so just start thinking. As food for thought, here’s some pictures of Gracie in her new winter fashions:

I also started thinking about the logistics of Mermaid. I bought some double points and I have reclaimed my size 2 40″ Addis. Swatching will start soon. While in the car this weekend, I started reading through the pattern to see what was ahead of me and to figure out what size I want to make. And I discovered that it’s very densely written, referring back to previous sections and including lots of “AT THE SAME TIME”s and very few stitch counts as sanity checks. So I’m working on writing out line-by-line directions in an Excel spreadsheet. I’m somewhere on page 3 right now, in the middle of the armhole gusset and just about to reach my first stitch count, and it looks like it’s going to match! Someone on the knitalong did something similar by hand, and I’m amazed. I don’t know how I’d be able to manage this without copy/paste. Here’s my kit (play spot the photographer!):

Finally, I’ve been making good progress on Zig Zag. I’ve got more than a foot of the sleeves done now. About 40 more rows and I can divide for the sleeve caps. Maybe just about the time I finish that Mermaid spreadsheet. Here’s what the sleeves looked like tonight: