March progress

So, from the knitting impaired - so far, I have ONE hat out of the hopefull three I was shooting for:



This was done with a simple e loop - which was the only stitch (besides e loop ribbing done on a long loom BUT knit flat). So, it's a twisted stitch stockinette hat.

I'm also working on the baby blanket that is more than half done... also picked up a book for more 'loom' stitches... which taught me a lot. I'm looking forward to trying something a little more involved.

I'm hoping some dedicated time will get the baby blanket finished by Saturday - it's ribbing, but still done with e loops - so still twisted. I did a panel half pink and tried-to-be-half variegated, but the length of the skein was shorter on the variagated. I'm starting the second panel with variagated; and will add from a third skein to try to get it as long as the pink square on the first panel. If when I'm done, my goal is to have two blocks of pink catty-corner to two blocks of variagated. If need be, I can undo the cast off on the first panel and add more length to it. We'll see... definitely an iffy project.

BUT - good news is that the doctor declares that I should be good as new in two to four weeks. So, I'll spend the time working on a project for me using some of the new stitches I've learned - to be determined yet. And can't wait to start truly knitting again!

And it's just in time too, I have a new knitting class starting up middle of April!

Still quite upset with myself

Stooooopid arm.

I did manage to pick up the needles enough last week to prove to myself that my hybrid cottage industry style/continental style could work even with a broken right arm... exceptionally slow. But enough for the demonstrations I needed to do to teach Thursday night.

Not fast enough to even bother trying to make something. However! The knitting loom? I can totally do that left-handed. And my right arm just acts like a dumb weight on the loom.

New March plans are to make 3 hats and a baby blanket on the loom. Wish me luck, because most of my free time right now is more focused on sleeping than anything else.

March plans (or lack thereof)

Finish my heavily cabled sweater.

Make a new sweater from scratch - from some sort of pattern, from some sort of yarn. Originally had planned an Alpaca long-sleeved sweater 'Ramona'. But a) I'm not sure the yarn is right for it and b) I don't think I want to finish a long sleeved sweater in Alpaca by the end of March (too hot to wear). So, then I was looking at a short sleeved cardigan in a different Alpaca yarn. But my allergies are kicking up, and I'm not sure I want to expose myself too much to Alpaca right now when I have experienced some 'slight' itching to it in the past. My wool allergy used to be slight itching, to major itching has now turned into Hives. So, I'm thinking non-animal fiber right now.

So, still looking at my stash and my queue of patterns I want to make. Haven't made a decision yet.

For non-sweater projects:

I would like to make 10 charity hats (since I didn't finish that many last month).
I want to crochet a 2 hour baby blanket.
A 12"x12" block for another baby blanket.
Finish my Kingdom Gloves I started last month.

Non-sweater knitting progress report - February

Day one - one cat blanket about 18" x 18" done


Get to 50% done on Cabled Gloves - about 30% - so a little behind, but am hoping to have finished by third week of March, so we're still in the game


12 jellyfish hats (< 2 hours each) - 3 done of the 12, no new progress to report, if I can get my project bag finished by tomorrow night, I'll come back and work on these again.

Felted Knitted project bag - about 75% done - have one more panel to go, then seaming, then picking up and knitting the top border and handles.


1 Scarf - changed this to a COWL - done


1 12" Blanket Square - not started yet Decided to do a second cowl instead - love, love, love how quick these work up. done


little Gnome House for my son's stuffie done

Sweater #3 of 12

Finished

Please ignore dirty floor...sigh.

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Lia - Sweater Surgery (photo heavy)

There's a little bit of scarring, but honestly? The surgery went pretty darn well!

I promised some photos...

First - here's the bottom of the sleeve (not a great shot, but eh - camera phone on lap while performing surgery - good enough):



The little bit of twist you see at the left edge? That's the cable where it is now. It's supposed to be on the two sections of ribbing on the right edge.

I've inserted a cable needle into the stitches I want to save ABOVE the increase/decrease/cabling section I'm going to redo.



Here I've snipped a thread in the middle and started to unravel a single row going both left & right - the snipped ends won't get reknit - instead I'll leave them at the edges of the surgery and weave them in after I finish.



Here I've picked up the stitches above the currently cabled section and placed them on a double point needle to deal with later.



Next, I dropped down several rows (one for each 'ladder' of yarn you see here) for the not cabled section that I wanted to repair first.



Then I took each ladder - bottom rung first - and knit with that yarn the section that needed to be cabled.



Here it is with the right side cabled. I repeated that process for the left side to remove the cabling.



The last row to work is the row that I snipped & unraveled. At this point, I picked up new yarn from the yarn left over from working the sweater and I used a yarn needle to start grafting.



It's K3P2 ribbing - so I needed a little guidance - found my old link to a tutorial that works out pretty well.



It's not 'prefect as there's an occasional loop going the wrong way on a knit stitch. AND I focused so much on not making my grafting too small (which is my norm) that some of the stitches came out a little larger than I had hoped. But with a little blocking and creative weaving in of ends there will only be the slightest of scarring.

I have already picked out and redone the shoulder seams and seamed the left sleeve onto the correct side of the sweater. So, all that's left now is to seam the right sleeve and block it. It was getting late last night or I might have thought about pushing through to finish it then. But hopefully by the end of tonight - I will have sweater three of twelve finished.

Lia Update

I was so sure that I would be posting a Finished Sweater this week.... not so, I have some repairs to make.

I might even have to do a little surgery to fix it. Expect a photo-heavy post(s) next week and I'll try to show the issues and the fixes.