Elbow Patches

I have had the misfortune of being a bit under the weather for the last few days. Enough to stay at home, but not enough to stop me from finishing up a bazillion things. You know those odds and ends that get put lower on the list because you were too busy knitting. Well, I was able to complete several projects I had promised to people. And one project that I needed to do for me. I've worn my sweater so much that the elbows were already getting thin. (Of course I've been wearing it every day except the occasional wash day since I finished it in October) So my sweater now has elbow patches!

My brother commented that he liked the sweater better without patches. I snickered at him and told him it wasn't for fashion, it was for function. I think it's funny that he thinks I might do something because it is fashionable. When has that ever been true?

The Zipper Is In

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for. My Émilien sweater now has a zipper! And I've been wearing the sweater a whole bunch. It is comfy, it is cozy and it is exactly what I wanted. A sweater to lounge in. 

I don't know if I had mentioned this before, but I chose the colors based on my favorite pair of socks. The socks are a bit more subdued, but I really love the color combination on both.

Thanks again to my brother for taking pictures for me. Rather than begging him, this time I told him I loved his style of picture taking. (Which in his own words is the "not giving a rat ass" style) He actually leapt out of his seat and jogged towards the door in order to take these pictures. He really likes the sock ones. I fell over for some of those. He laughed.

Twisted Stitches And Holey Armpits

I've had a bunch of new opportunities crop up in the last month and on Monday one came to pass. I started my new job! And it's at Green Planet Yarn. Green Planet Yarn is the first thing I blogged about. I wouldn't have ever thought that I might work there one day when I started this blog. Anyways, one of the first things I was asked to do was touch straighten all the yarn. I can already predict what will be happening to all my future pay checks...

I also started a new project. I'm making a Koolhaas so that I can understand twisted stitches better. Although I'm not really sure who will get the finished hat, so if anyone is interested....

The sweater is slowly being finished. It took me a week to decide that I was indeed going to put sleeves on it. The number one reason I decided on sleeves (even though a vest would be neat) is that I bought extra yarn for the sleeves and wound it into balls, so the skeins can't be returned.

The only problem I'm now having is that when I attached the sleeve, a large hole appeared in the armpit. I'm not really worried about closing the hole. I left an extra long yarn tail to help stitch it up. But I sure would like to know why it even occurred and what I can do to prevent it from happening on the other sleeve. The stitches for the sleeves are put on stitch holders and knit after the sweater is done. Does anyone know why the hole showed up?

Yesterday Doesn't Count

Mum and I drove past a yarn shop that I frequent.

Me: "I haven't been to a yarn shop in awhile."

Mum: "Didn't you go to a yarn shop yesterday?"

Me: "Oh yeah. But that didn't count."

After all the modifications I made on this sweater, such as knitting a medium instead of a small, and adding pockets, it became apparent that even though the sleeves are striped, half a ball of green and burgundy was not going to cut it. Luckily I was able to get skeins in the same dye lot.

Although now that I have the yarn, I'm very seriously considering adding a little grey ribbing to each sleeve and leave it as a vest. I'd love to have some input on this idea. I've never had a vest, but I'd love a hoodie too. Or I could make one of each..... So yeah, input would be good. (There will be grey ribbing along the outer edge as a zipper band that is currently being added. So whatever it ends up being, it will have a zipper... or buttons. Not sure at this point.)

I also purchased some yarn for a baby sweater. I touched it and just knew I had to get it. Superwash Merino, people. Enough said.

Counting Conundrum

How many things do you see wrong in this picture? Well, for one, we can see that I have trouble counting when I'm knitting at 2:30AM and I've had a beer. It looks like I gave up counting when I got to the grey stripe. At least the decreases look correct, right?

Wrong. The decreases are going the right direction, but the top of the hood has a kind of short row thing going on. I just put in random decreases. Although that had more to do with misunderstanding what the directions meant than being up late. At least I had enough sense to see that it looked weird. I put the knitting down and went to bed.

Living On The Edge

I ended up ripping out the sweater up to the pockets and reknit it with the correct number of stitches. I also put in the pockets, which had it's own set of issues. But they are in, and it is good.

The question now is, will I have enough yarn for a hood and both sleeves?

Who knows. It seems that I like to live on the edge when it comes to sweaters.

Stop, Sweatertime

The other night I was enjoying a beer and knitting my Émilien sweater. I got to the last row, did the fancy "decrease x number of stitches evenly" bit and somehow ended up with 50 extra stitches. I checked my math, had my Dad check my math, and still had extra stitches. Weird. So I counted my total number of stitches and found out that I am an idiot.

When I worked on the pocket modification, where you increase stitches and put them on some sort of stitch holder, I managed to knit those stitches too... somehow. Note how the fabric is smooth above the orange yarn and puckered underneath. A tell-tale sign that there was a rapid increase. (Also a tell-tale sign that I'm dumb) I was thinking that rows seemed to be taking longer and that there was less room on my circular needles. The good news is that I won't have to buy extra skeins of yarn like I thought.

Has anyone else had any "Why am I dumb" moments lately?