Friday, May 6, 2016

Bang the Sweater Slowly


The neck, the lace, the shoulders, the body, contrast bands, button and buttonhole bands, all banged out quickly.


All that's left is the sleeves, and the banging has slowed to a lazy thud. Why? Not for lack of effort, let me quickly say. Sleeves are the worm in the apple of top-down sweaters. When you do them one at a time, you constantly are throwing a big ball of sweater around and around in your lap as you knit these smaller tubes attached to the main bulk. This time, I essayed two-at-a-time on two circular needles. They're more likely to match, another knitter said. (True. I often knit flat sleeves simultaneously on straight needles and they do match better.) It's easy, she said. So much faster, she said. Well..... not so much, in my experience.


There's the skootching of the stitches down to the needle end ready to go. Then finding the other end of the correct circ. Finding the right yarn. Untangling said yarn from the other sleeve's yarn. Tugging the first couple of stitches tight so as not to have a gappy column between needles. Four times on every round. A method for even sleeves it might be; an aid to rapid banging it is not. So while I skootch and untangle, here's a video to watch. Kinda dirty, pretty weird, pretty misogynistic, outstanding male beauty, great tune:




Thursday, May 5, 2016

Banging On

It's been a bit more than a week since I started #bangingout the Blaer sweater. Got the hardest part (the lace and shoulder increases) done at the knitting retreat, and since then it has been simple smooth sailing with plain old stocking stitch back and forth, back and forth.

Right now with its curliness, unblockedness, and gathering on the needles, it looks a bit like a baby's romper, but I assure you it is on its way to becoming a full size adult cardigan. Couple more inches of this and it will be ready for the bottom contrast bands, then on to the sleeves!

Warning: Possibly NSFW Section Ahead! 

It may depend on where you work. A bar, no problem. A kindergarten, close the window now! It's also not knitting related, but it gave me such a case of the giggles, I had to share it.

The origin is a random browser ad I caught in the corner of my eye. Did I really see that? For once, I had to click on the ad to see what the heck this actually was:
It had to be yellow, didn't it? Turns out, when divers need to take a whiz underwater, they just have to let 'er rip in the wetsuit. That plus sweat and any other body secretions tend to make the neoprene stinky and deteriorated after a few uses. Piss Off (and other wetsuit shampoos) to the rescue! It neutralizes the nastiness and makes it much more pleasant to don the garment for your next underwater adventure. And I discovered all this on the very day I was making this in my British swear word coloring book:


You're welcome.