The Heathen Housewife

I know that my long-time readers and close friends will hardly bat an eyelash when I admit that I’ve been knitting a little obsessively over the last few days. I mean, yes, I knit at least a little bit just about every day of my life. But I have occasional spurts of frenzied knitting that get close to the edge of out of control.

This time, it was most of the weekend, when we had very little else scheduled, when Sunday turned out to be rainy and cold. It was perfect knitting weather, and I’d just gotten this sweater to the point where the sleeves could be joined to the body.

Oh, the exciting! The yoke portion of the sweater is really very little knitting compared to the overall project, and the rows get shorter the closer one gets to the neckline. Not only that, but since I’m designing this knit on the fly, I had lots to think about as I clicked along the first several rows of garter stitch. Just where and how often did I want to decrease? Should I go ahead and use some of the beads I’d bought to go into the project? What about buttons and button holes?

I decided yes on the beads, but not too many – and interspersed fairly randomly – I wanted just a bit of glinting sparkle, without a defined pattern.

As for the button holes, I’d originally planned to do simple YO, K2Tog holes knit into the incorporated button band as I went. But I changed my mind. I want to try the thing on and see how it hangs before I decide on the button placement, and I’ve been very happy with the hook and clasp closure I used on my intarsia diamond sweater this fall, so I will either use some similar clasps on this sweater, or create button holes when I knit the applied i-cord I’m planning to finish the button-band edges with.

As for the decreases, I decided to go with a rounded yoke shape (versus a raglan) and I consulted a few Meg Swansen and EZ books to aid the where and how often decision. More on that later maybe, once I’ve finished the dang thing and know whether or not it’s going to work. I’ve tried it on as best I can on the needles, and it’s going to fit well, but it’s certainly not photo-worthy yet!

Ladona left a comment asking what pattern I’m using. Well, I’m basically designing it on the fly, but I can tell you where the bits and pieces of inspiration came from. First, I spun the yarn myself. It’s something between lace weight and fingering weight yarn, very soft merino wool. I’d been wanting to knit a February Lady sweater, but the gauge was completely wrong for this yarn. So I knew I was going to have to re-do the math in this case, which got me thinking a little longer.

I figured I might as well pick out a different lace pattern to make it more my own. I swatched this leafy thing out of one of the japanese stitch-pattern books that I picked up at the Yarnery last year when we first got them in, and it is both easy to learn and pretty as well. And then, I just sort of cast on and started knitting – after doing a tiny bit of math, of course. I based the size and shape of this sweater on a couple other sweaters I have that I know fit me well.

I knew I wanted the garter-stitch yoke (or at least, I was pretty certain I did, although it gave me plenty to think about as I knit the sleeves and the body). So that’s why I did all the cuffs and edgings in garter stitch. I kind of wish I’d done the underside of the arms in stockinette instead of reverse stockinette, but not enough at this point that I’d be willing to go back and change it. The one teeny little thing that I don’t particularly care for in the February Lady sweater is the raglan shaping, versus the rounded yoke in the original February Baby sweater. So I’m knitting it the way I want it.

The beads, I’d bought on a whim one day when the girls and I were at the Mall of America. At that point, I was maybe halfway through the sleeves, and strongly considering ripping them out and just knitting another shawl with the yarn. So I bought a metric buttload of beads for that scenario. At least I know I’ll way more than I need for the sweater.

And that’s about all I can say for now. Hopefully I’ll be blocking it in the next couple/few days….depending on just how much more my repetitive stress injuries flare up. I had to wear my wrist braces to bed last night, and will again tonight because I’ve been getting that annoying numbness, tingling, and occasional shooting pain up the arm that tells me I’ve probably been overdoing it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.