Persistent Knitter

It’s done! It’s beautiful. I’m very pleased I worked so hard to get this done so she can wear it before she outgrows it.

While knitting I was hoping I’d be able to block this out to around 15″ across total; it was measuring around 14″ across when I was knitting it. A quick dunk in the sink; gentle squeezing out in a towel and I laid it out to be 15″ across.

I finished the first sleeve last night too – but won’t block that until it’s mate is done. I did a sample fitting into the body (pre-blocking) and it was fitting nicely. One more sleeve, a collar, some sewing, weaving in of ends and it’ll be done.

Sometimes you just gotta make a chart! I recently took a look at the February Lady sweater pattern available for free – and it has a simple lace pattern in it. No chart provided, so I whipped this up in Knit Visualizer lickety split.

You can download the free pattern here.

I started a sweater last August for my daughter. I realize now that she is going to outgrow it before too long, so I have to finish it asap so she can wear it. Here is what the body looks like after I cut all the steeks. I had steeks for the front; for the armholes, and for the front neckline area. I did the shaping around the steeks using extra k2tog and such when necessary (instructions would say “bind off 3″ and I’d split that over two rows, doing k2tog k2tog on one row and k2tog on the next row) This gives the neckline a nice gentle curve and no stair steps where the bind offs would have happened.

I sewed the steaks on the machine. I realize it was much easier to do the arm steeks because I had used the contrasting color as the center stitch of the steek. That meant I didn’t have to pay attention quite as much and gave me a natural line to follow when sewing it on the machine.

I tried it on my daughter this morning (see picture here ) and it fits! I’m about 2″ into the first sleeve. I’ve started that 3 times trying to get the cuff sizing right. Now I just have to get it to fit into the resized armhole knit a second one, sew it all together.  I want to finish this before Madrona (that’s next week) but I doubt I’ll make it. If I block the body this weekend maybe I can take it with me to Madrona to finish the sewing.