What about that March 23, 2010

Two things have happened that are sure signs of spring: I’m sneezing like a maniac and I’m weaving in ends…

Rather pleased with myself, too (not about the sneezing, thank you very much, the finishing!)

For the first time in my entire life, I just kitchnered some stitches together without looking at a cheat sheet! Woo HOO!

For sure, it was only three stitches, but from now on, I’m going to think of these as my Stitches of Destiny.

As in, yes I can, really…

Making lots of progress on my cotton Mondo Cable Cardi —

Here’s the latest in all its steam-pressed glory. I made this one and a half inches shorter than the pattern calls for and am going to make the sleeves 3/4 length. The mod: working until they measure about 10.5″ then cuffing them with some reverse stockinette stitch.

The neckband/collar on this is going to be 2″ wide. I was making buttonholes in it as well but wimped out and reverted to something else ((TBD). This yarn is 50/50 recycled cotton/acrylic from a cone from long ago and has very little tension in its strand. So the buttonholes I wanted looked flabby and that’s just not right ;p

This will probably have one big button in the neckband — I have the perfect specimen…

For those of you knitting along (wave to the Knitmore Girls KAL!!), you can see that the bottom of this sweater is pretty well-behaved. I used my steam iron and pressed the bottom from the wrong side. No rolling! If you are having that issue, try this AND also consider going up a needle size for your ribbing because your gauge might be too small in that area, if it flips. Also — bind off LOOSELY.

Top down sweaters need to have the same give at the bottom as a cast-on for a bottom-up sweater. So in the casting off, knitters need to be mindful of their tension in that area. Go up a needle size or two JUST to work the bind off. In this case, I used a #7 needle for the body, a #6 needle for the ribbing, and because I have that tight bind off problem, I went back up to the #7 when it was time to cast off the hem.