Slice a Steek and Start a Sleeve!

I'm off on my first Winter Sunset Cardigan sleeve! Even though the yarn is "wooly" enough to hold together on its own, I decided to be super safe and machine stitch the steeks before I cut. Nothing calls for confidence like taking the scissors to your knitting. Picked up the stitches around the armhole and got going. There was a small disappointment that the pattern match at the fake seam decrease on the bottom of the sleeve isn't symmetrical for the big motifs. If you notice how the pattern works on the body of the sweater, two of them alternate, an X and a snowflake. I'd like it better if the motifs were the same on both sides of the decrease, but that's not how the stitch count works out. Also an error in how many rows to do before starting the decreases that isn't mentioned in the errata. The biggest size has the fewest rows and the smallest has the most. Lucky I'm making the middle size. Sleeve length in the pattern is the same for all sizes. This may be because the dropped shoulders add length to the arms, but I'm sure I'll be doing some measuring when I'm halfway down this sleeve. Everything's going so well that I want to be sure I'm making sleeves for neither a seal nor an orangutan!

And here's a little item from the Heap. A baby sweater made from sock yarn that was too pinky for socks that I'd actually wear, but a bright fashion statement for a friend's wee girl who should arrive any day now. Bonus booties from leftover yarn--just enough to eke out the newborn size!
All together now--AWWWWWW. So cute.

Smaller Heap, Bigger Wardrobe

More Finished Objects from the Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble! Both lovely comfy sweaters, abandoned (I dimly recall) just because I was seduced by a new project. If this doesn't confirm me as the ultimate process knitter, I'll happily take the silver if you show me who's got the gold.

First up, Guernsey from an old Classic Elite leaflet. It's a sort-of gansey style; the original yarn was CE's Mistral, a Pima cotton/alpaca blend. I used Knit Picks' City Tweed in Porpoise, a merino/alpaca blend that's soft enough to wear next to the skin and knits to the same gauge as the original. I changed the pattern a little because the sleeves were too plain and boring. I ran a cable up the center and then continued it across the shoulder and into the neck.

Photos taken by draping sweater on a pile of snow on a cloudy day--the ultimate blank white background! Good for contrast, but a little lumpy-looking.

Next, a Rowan pattern actually made from Rowan yarn! Sorry, but time has erased the origin of the pattern from my mind, but the yarn is Cashsoft DK, a merino/microfiber blend with 10% cashmere that is as soft as itty bitty kittycats. Curiously, only the fuchsia color sheds little white hairs that look somewhat like itty bitty kittycat hairs. The yarn was made in Romania, so who knows--maybe they're shearing cats there and calling it cashmere. Whatever....cats or goats, it's still very soft.

I need to take some more photos and then I'll have more FOs to show you, plus I've cut my first steek and started the first Winter Sunset sleeve!