WIP Insanity

Well, turns out that I can still use Hello from home. Phew! I'm not sure why I can't use it from work - maybe because I'm still logged in at home? Who knows. However, at least I was able to add a few photographs to this blog last night. They're all of completed projects, so you'll have to check out my list of past projects to see them. Shots of in-progress projects will probably not happen until I have my own digital camera.

Secret Garden cardigan for niece

Posting yesterday that there were only 16 days until I had to have my Christmas knitting done really brought it home that I am in a knitting crunch. It is extremely doubtful that this will even get started before Christmas, let alone finished. But perhaps I can make it in time for her birthday a few weeks later? We shall see.

Catherine Parr sweater for MIL

Sleeves are getting even bigger. I'm guesstimating about 7" long at this point.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (cream)

Well, I didn't get any responses to my post on Knitters Review, so I went ahead and implemented one of my solutions. See, the shoulder straps are worked perpendicular to the shoulder seams (parallel to the sleeves) - and the shoulder strap pattern (a 6-row repeat) extends into the sleeve. The shoulder strap instructions clearly state to end with a 5th row on the shoulder straps. Then, on the pick-up-stitches row of the sleeve, the instructions say to work the shoulder strap stitches (as part of the sleeve), keeping continuity of the pattern, which to me means to do the 6th pattern row. But then the instructions say for the next sleeve row to do the shoulder straps using the 6th pattern row - i.e., do row 6 on the shoulder straps twice. This can't be right. And I can't do row 1 of the pattern instead, because then the shoulder strap pattern would be completely out of sync with all the other motifs on the sleeves, which would super-dumb. So, for lack of anyone pointing out that I'm an idiot and the pattern is totally right and here's what you're really supposed to do, :) I instead just skipped working the shoulder strap stitches on the pick-up-stitches row of the sleeve - I slipped them onto the working needle but otherwise did nothing with them. I had to break the yarn and rejoin it after the shoulder strap stitches, but that was a minor concern. Result: my fix allowed the pattern to continue seamlessly, and the shoulder strap doesn't look at all stretched because of the "missing" row. I'm now about five rows into the sleeve and I think the whole thing is going to look extremely cool. The only problem is that the circular needle I'm using could stand to be a little shorter. It's okay now, but the number of stitches around the sleeve is only going to decrease as I finish off the underarm gusset and taper the sleeve towards the cuff. I may need to get a longer 3mm circular so I can do the magic loop with this sucker. We shall see.