Knit All The Socks And Sweaters

My Pomme De Pin is finished! Actually, it was finished July 13th, but it took awhile to get some pictures.

I used Cephalopod's Bugga! in the Nebraska Conehead color way. Just days after I finished the sweater, Cephalopod announced that they were closing their doors. I'm just happy that I have a nice sweater out of their yarn.

I made many modifications, the most visual one being the way I changed the collar. All the details can be found on my Pomme De Pin project page via ravelry.

Of course I can't leave out a picture of the sleeve after explaining how it was sewn in.

Just after finishing the Pomme De Pin, I cast on these socks. It is a future pattern design. The fancy patterning is on the other side of the socks. I have one last diagram to draw before they are ready for testing.

I also completed my Something's Rotten In The State Of Denmark socks from Canon Hand Dyes. It had felt like I'd been knitting these forever. I started these on May 30th and finished them on July 20th. Let it be known that the knitter's definition of forever is a month and three quarters.

Of course I always have to have a Canon Hand Dyes sock on the needles. Here is Yoga For Elephants. I wanted to cast on these ever since the yarn arrived, but I'm proud to say that I remained disciplined and finished the Denmark socks.

I've also got Pente on the needles. A group of us decided to do a knit along with each other, which quickly became a knit against. I'm knitting the second sleeve, then I just have the back and some finishing to do. Once you start knitting the sleeves, this sweater quickly becomes a tangled mess. I considered trying to lay it out, but honestly, the way it sits in my knitting basket is the most accurate illustration as to how it feels to be knitting this sweater. It will be worth it in the end though.

What has everyone else got on the needles these days? Any crazy, tangled knitting going on?

Set In Sleeve Sewing Tips

So much knitting has gotten done in the last few weeks. I'm knitting as if I'll never have time to knit ever again. So it looks like I'll have an epic FO post in the near future, which includes my Pomme de Pin. But first I wanted to share how I line up sleeves when sewing in a set in sleeve.
I think the most difficult thing about putting in a set in sleeve is having to undo all your sewing if you find that you've skewed things a bit. So what I did this time around was put my sweater on my Mum and used two different locking markers to help me line up everything up. I used the orange markers to mark 5 key points. I started by marking both the top center of the arm hole and sleeve cap. Two orange markers marked the beginning and the end of the cast off points at both the bottom center of the arm hole and sleeve. Then I choose two other "middle points" in the front and back of the arm and marked them in orange markers as well.

Here is what a sleeve looks like once it's sewn in

The green markers were put in between the orange markers to help give a visual to see if I was starting to skew the sleeve. Green markers could be off by a stitch when I was sewing everything in, but the goal was to have the orange markers match up. As you can see, the orange marker is marking the seam at the top of the arm hole. The green markers are at arbitrary points.

When I had finished marking the first armhole and sleeve, I put one sleeve inside the other so that I could have both sleeve caps alongside each other. I then made sure both sleeves had markers that matched each other. In the same way, I folded the sweater in half and put one arm hole inside the other so that I could match the markers. This way both my sleeves and arm holes had markers that were lined up the same way.

 

I used a mattress stitch to sew most of the sleeve together. The most helpful tip I found was that if you find yourself skewing the sleeve some, sew two stitches together with the mattress stitch on one side. When I had to get 6 stitches on one side to fit into 10 stitches on the other side, I made sure to have single stitches in between my "stitch two together" stitches. This helped hide the higher rate of decreases that would have made the sleeve look lumpy. 

Blending Of The Yarn

Move over stockinette hell, I am in a lacy sweater hell. I have learned once again why you have to blend yarns from indie dyers... even on sleeves. I didn't really want to blend two balls of yarn together, so my brilliant idea was to take the bluer skein and knit that the cuffs and collar of the sweater. The browner skein would become the main portion of the sleeve. So that is what I did for the sleeve on the right. It was late and I didn't see how different it was until the next morning. Then I ignored it, because I'm a rebel. Later on at knit night Tyler said, "Whoa. Different dye lots?" Sigh....

The sleeve on the left is what it looks like when you do a round with one ball and a round with the second. I finally broke down and started blending when I held the right sleeve against the rest of the sweater and realized that it would have never worked.

Speaking of the rest of the sweater, I ended up taking out a repeat of the pattern along the top of the sweater because the armholes ended practically under my bust. Not a hot look.

I started this sweater in the middle of April and it has been nothing but trouble. Part of it is because of my modifications, some of which were necessary in order to get this sweater to fit me. Also, most of my sweaters roll forward on me, so this last knit night, Carol explained to me why. (In the most counterintuitive move, the back neckline needs to be lower so that it doesn't travel up my back. Weird.) I am so sick of knitting and ripping this sweater that we devised a clever, but crazily complicated way of making the collar that should accommodate the neckline issue. I really hope it works. I'm still really excited to wear this sweater. But I am really, really, really ready to be done knitting it.

Pomme de Pin Will Be Mine. That And Socks.

Now that the Skews are all done, I've cast on for All The Things. Let the record stand that "All the things" means 2 new projects. I had wound up this skein of Canon Hand Dyes Charles in the Fall Leaves color way awhile ago. Somehow a bunch of deadlines got in the way, so the cake of yarn stared at me... until now. It is going to be a pair of vanilla socks. 

Fun fact: this was the first skein of Canon Hand Dyes that I ever bought. We won't talk about how many skeins I have now...

Then I cast on for a Pomme de Pin out of Cephalopod Yarns Bugga! in the Nebraska Conehead color way. I've been knitting and knitting on this, and feels like growth is pretty slow. Don't get me wrong, it is an addictive knit. But I've forgotten how long a sport weight all-over lace sweater can take to knit. Also, it is one of those patterns where it looks much smaller before blocking.

It is really tough to trust a swatch, but in the case of this cardi, I'm going to have to. Once it blocks, it is going to be gorgeous!

I've decided not to cast on anything else until this sweater is done because I want to wear it now!