Persistent Knitter

Continuing along August’s theme - "Finishing Stuff I’ve Started", I’m back to working on Bjerk. I’ve got a deadline of late November for it, so need to get cracking!  Here’s my progress:

I’m about 1/4 of the way done if you count the body as 2 units of work and the sleeves as 1 unit of work each.  It measures 14" long and 20" across here.  I’m very pleased that the colorwork doesn’t appear to be drawing in much at all, even considering I was using three colors for part of it. It does have a bit of puckering in the fair isle sections, but not much, and given how well Hardangervidda blocked out I have a reasonable expectation that this one will block just as well.  (I’m using the same kind of yarn and the same basic technique).

For the rows that used three colors, it took me about three rows to figure out how to not have a huge tangled mess.  Having each yarn in a particular location and picking up and dropping the right yarns at the right time, and not catching any floats were the key.  I’m sure I learned the same lesson earlier in the first patterned section, but since it’s been so long since I did that - I had forgotten all those hard earned lessons!

I’m now working on the front and back of the body, each worked flat after dividing.  The sweater has set in sleeves, which is a technique I’ve not used before in a knitted garment (and I really wouldn’t count any of the set in sleeves I may or may not have done in home-ec classes in high school).  To divide front from back, the pattern has you cast off a number of stitches at each side, then removes more stitches at each armhole edge by casting off in a stair step fashion.  Knowing I won’t like the way a stair step looks or how hard it will be to sew in a sleeve against it, I decided to use decreases at the sleeve edge instead of casting off. It works out to the same number of stitches, and will only look slightly different if you get up close. Given that it’s in the armpit area, I’m pretty confident nobody is going to look too closely!

I briefly considered leaving all the stitches live, but the sleeve is worked from the cuff up instead of armhole down.  Since it’s my first time doing a set-in sleeve I’ll at least follow the pattern on that part.  I’m currently doing both front and back at the same time, that way I only have to keep track of the decreases once instead of a second time when I get to the other side.  This will work until I have to divide again for the front neckline, and then I’ll finish off the front before finishing the back.

The sweater is knitting up quickly, and I’m really enjoying the colors involved (we made up our own colorway based on the preferences of the intended recipient).  I know I have a lot of work ahead.  I haven’t had to rip it out yet, so I’m already ahead of where I was with Hardangervidda.  I do expect to do some ripping on the sleeve cap, but maybe I’ll get lucky and only have to do it once :)