Friday, May 11, 2012

The joy was clouded

I wore the jacket to work and the sleeves were too short! They may have gotten shorter during the day. The rest of the jacket was fine and I got compliments on it, but I didn't want bracelet length sleeves. I decided to try sleeve surgery and grafting, in seed stitch! If that didn't work, I had to remove the sleeves and reknit the sleeve cap. I decided on an extra 2" of length. Luckily that worked. It was a challenge to separate the parts because of the three colors involved, but it worked. I have worn the jacket a couple of times since and everything is good. If the sleeves shrink up a  bit in washing, that will be all right. I think they'll stretch out in wearing. Although the jacket is cotton, dishcloth cotton doesn't seem to shrink and all the yarn I used has already been washed in its previous incarnation.

My  DIL requested a hat for a 20 yr old man with cancer. That went fairly quickly and used up more stash. It's all garter stitch. I used Caron Simply soft for the start of the hat and filled in with the black when it became obvious that I would run out of yarn. That head is a little small, but my pottery head is among the displaced and I don't know where it is. It belongs in my living room, the last room to be painted.

The kitchen is finished and I've been moved back in. I have been doing more cooking for time intensive recipes and also baked a couple of batches of cookies.

The dining room is finished for now and the living room is primed. There are small jobs in many rooms, but for the most part they are finished and put together.

I have started another sweater for myself. This is a summer sweater that I designed a couple of years ago for TKGA. I didn't get to keep the original. It looked like this. They put it on a wider model and I didn't plan the neckline to be that wide.

I'm using yarn from two different cones, one cotton and one a rayon/cotton mix. One sleeve is finished and I've started the back. I was appalled at the numbers in the pattern. I should have been tech edited. I failed to take into account the six stitch pattern and multiples thereof. I'm reworking the numbers for myself and put a notice on Ravelry in the notes that I would refigure for anyone else that wanted to knit it. The swatch looks like this, of course the sleeve was a swatch too,

Much of my time this year is taken up with yard work, which I enjoy. I didn't have to do so much of it before DH died.. Next post, I'll have to show pictures of the yellow yarn and the socks I'm knitting, and perhaps some remodeling photos too.