Sleeves!

It's going to be a sweater.

It has been a while since my last post mostly because school has been eating my soul.  After a long day of writing presentations and reports the last thing I want to do is sit down and write some more.  I knit instead.

Knitting has actually provided me some much needed stress relief.  During the school months I have issues keeping my stress in check, and being able to sit down and relax while still keeping my brain busy has proven to be incredibly helpful.  Also, something productive comes out of my relaxation time.

I had moved onto knitting the sleeves after finishing up the lower body.  They start with 6 rows of tighter stitches knitted with a smaller set of needles.  Then a turning ridge is created by purling a row on the right side of the work (this all makes sense in my head).  This was also the first time I worked with increases.

The sleeves are knitted in a way so that the circumference of the sleeve is smaller at the wrist than it is at the armpit.  I was worried about increases at first but it turned out to be very easy and straightforward.  I just had to knit a stitch near the beginning and end of a row in such a way that it created 2 stitches instead of one.  I started with 49 stitches on the needles and ended with 77.  Overall, I think they look pretty good.  My tension turned out to be pretty consistent; something I worried about when starting this project.

Next up I have to attach the sleeves to the lower body and work on the yoke.  I'm in the homestretch now.  How do those words taste, Andrew?

I'm Disappointed

These new blog posts were supposed to be a humorous recount of my struggles with knitting.  However, I'm disappointed that I've had very few struggles to recount.  Maybe it's because I'm knitting a very simple part of the sweater right now which just requires knit stitch on the right side of the work, and purl stitch on the wrong side of the work.  Or maybe I'm just a naturally talented knitter (yeah right).

Regardless how well I'm doing right now things are about to get more interesting.  I have about 12cm to go before I start decreasing stitches and finish the lower body of the sweater.  I'll then have to move on to the sleeves, which upon reading the pattern are confusing me.  I fully expected to be knitting in the round for the sleeves, but it doesn't mention any knitting in the round in the pattern. 

I guess a good rule of thumb is to read through the entire pattern before confusing yourself.  The sleeves are not knitted in the round, but rather knitted normally and then seamed to form tubes after blocking the sweater.

I expect to be starting on the sleeves sometime this week. Onwards and upwards!