Gathering Intentions

Gathering Intentions

Yep, I finally finished an object and took pictures to show you.  Actually I finished it last Saturday, it has just taken me nearly a week to get pictures and be able to find 5 minutes to post them.  I think I’m going to take a break from sweaters.  Let me recap what happened last Thursday.  I took a day off work, I needed a haircut desperately, needed to see about getting an additional pair of glasses since my current glasses are killing my face, and wanted to spend some time knitting.  I did just that.  I decided I was going to finish Ringbloomst come hell or high water.  So I returned home from my haircut and glasses picking out, and pulled out Ringbloomst.  I decided I was going to use a crocheted steek.  I’ve heard raves aboutg them, and considering getting my sewing machine out is a nominal feat of strength on its own, I decided it was my most efficient way to finish my sweater.  I read all the instructions on both Euny’s blog and where she took her inspiration from Meg Swanson’s Sweaters From Camp.  A little voice inside me said, stop, don’t do this, Euny says if your floats aren’t woven in well and your yarn isn’t particularly sticky such as shetland wool this method may not be the best choice.  But I said, oh I’m just being paranoid, it’ll be fine, tons of people use this and love it.  I’m just being stubborn and not wanting to learn something new.  So I found my crochet hook and jumped in.  I loved the process, it went fast, and had a great look, I thought this was going to work great.  I finished my first steek and said, well lets just finish this arm, so I got out my scissors.  I cut my steek.  Immediately I saw unraveling.  Now I freaked.  Okay I can handle this, quickly I sewed in the sleeve and decided if I quickly sewed down the facing I had knit on the sleeve it’d stop the unraveling, it semi-worked but the damage had been done.  In addition, because the crocheted steek is thicker and add the additional bulk of the interfacing the sleeve looked absolutely horrible, it looked like I was smuggling a rubber tube around the seam of the sweater.  So I threw the sweater in a bag and decided I’d deal with this next year.  Maybe I’ll resteek further from the original steek and stop the fraying, maybe I’ll felt the whole thing and make it into a purse.  But for now its in hibernation. 

So after wasting most of the day on Ringbloomst I grabbed Gathering Intentions, sewed in the sleeves and finished the neck, and wallah, at least I have a wearable sweater.  But wait, there are problems, and thus the reason I am now knitting an afghan. 

Apparently I think my arms are a foot longer then they are

So I finished Gathering Intentions and was pleased with my sewing, usually I don’t do such a great job at finishing.  But my sewing was decent, of course since I knit the body and sleeves up to the cap in the round there was minimal seaming.  But the body is a bit too large, making the shoulders about 3 inches off the edge of my shoulder, and since the sleeves I knit purposefully a little longer, since I love long sleeves, well, you can see the results, extremely long sleeves.  But I just roll them up and the sweater looks okay.  I wore it to work on Tuesday and did receive a lot of compliments.  But I’m taking a break from sweaters or anything that has to be worn except hats and mittens/gloves.   Oh one other side note on the sweater I decided to forego the i-cord tie, its cute, but not really practical for the workplace, I may add it later, I’m not sure, still haven’t completely decided. 

I need to be working on some hats for my friends daughter, but I wanted to knit something else for Nick and I so I started an afghan called Diamond Lace from Nicky Epstein’s book Cover Up.  Its a great book of afghans, most I’ll never knit, but its eye candy.

My brother, My couch

So today we are at home having a Dr. Who marathon day and resting with the kids.  As you can see Abner and Django have become best of buds.  Of course Django is not happy unless he’s sitting on someone, often it is me, but if I’m not available for sitting his brother is.  I have a suspicious feeling its a dominance thing, but its also quite funny and neither Abner or I really care, so he’s not hurting anything.  Of course in this case he just wanted the added hieght for looking out the window.

Have a lovely day.  I must go back to my afghan now.