Things come together; the center can hold

An exciting weekend for Hild!

Yesterday I split the front piece for the neck, and obsessively stayed up late finishing the front; between the cable pattern, shaping on the neck edges, shaping on the outer edges, and dealing with two balls of yarn, I was afraid that if I stopped I'd never get back into the right head-space.

I used Grumperina's stretchy bind-off on the front of the neck, fearing that a regular one would leave the neck too tight to fit over my head. I don't know if that really would have been a problem, but this neck-hole fits over my head easily, so I'm going to call it a success.

And to seam the shoulders I used a crochet slip stitch... I had already not left all my stitches live for the 3-needle bindoff, and as the Yarn Harlot taught me, crochet creates a nice stable line. Yay for hooking!

Of course I had to immediately pick up stitches for the neck (I did that mostly with a crochet hook too). And then I had to knit just one row to get the stitches back OFF the stupid DPNs, which didn't work well with the yarn at all, and onto circs. I may have to do one more row yet tonight... some challenges still remain, as I'm carrying some cablework into the neck stitches just enough to get gracefully from the stitches as they were to an even 2x2 pattern. Need to get to the mindless part by Tuesday so that I can work on the neck in lecture! What is it on? Oh yes, NP completeness... I won't want to be cabling through that.

Happy Hild says:



"I'm starting to feel like a real sweater!"

In the meantime these Francie socks make me grudgingly admit I might make socks again someday.

More Hild progress

I think it's more than half done, yo!



And this doesn't even count the tiny line of progress on the sweater back, which I started so that I'd have something mindless to knit during 1.5 hr lectures. (In the class I'm taking, I'm much better off trying to listen and understand than I would be trying to take notes). I've quickly gotten past the ugly-worm stage that so depressed me on the sweater front; six rows is just enough for the ribbing to start looking like ribbing. At home I plan to finish up that second sleeve cap and then get back to the front (no pun intended), which is not mindless at all anymore because it's all cables, all the time.

Knitting is really my first experience with natural fibers, with the exception of a black wool coat that, as a yuppie Cambridge citizen, I am required to own. I have to admit, what I'm not loving about natural fibers so far is the little bits of nature you get for free with the fibers. The little bits of straw (or whatever it is) in the Silky Wool I'm knitting with are annoying, and they're not nearly as bad as the things I got in a merino-blend sweater I ordered from L.L Bean lately. I can only call them micro-tumbleweeds, and their diameter is so close to the yarn ply diameter that I've near-destroyed the yarn in a few places trying to get them out. Out they must come, though, if the garment is going to be wearable.