knitalongs

Five On Friday

Since last Friday, I . . . .

. . . . went to a baseball game with DH:

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. . . . took my son to his favorite barbecue joint.
He got the burnt ends:

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I got the red beans and rice.:

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. . . . finished my blue sweater (linky to Ravelry project page):

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. . . . started a new sweater (NaKniSweMoDo #12!):

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. . . . and met with some friends for our annual back-to-school breakfast up Millcreek Canyon:

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I can’t believe school’s starting in a little more than a week! DD makes her 2009/2010 cheerleading debut tonight at the Blue/Gold scrimmage.

Five On Friday

This week’s “Five On Friday” is brought to you by my cell phone camera.

Since last Friday, I . . . .

. . . started a new sweater:

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. . . went to a baseball game and put the cup holder on the back of the seat to good use:

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. . . got a haircut (probably should have had the stylist take care of the grey, too):

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. . . surreptitiously took a photo of the FLDS protest in front of the state courthouse while stopped at a red light:

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. . . chose a yarn to use for Margene’s Feather Duster KAL:

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And you??

Inflexible

Slinky Ribs is done! Well, it just needs to be blocked.

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And I had 4 grams of yarn left. *Phew*

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After continuing to fiddle with the neckband, I decided to just keep it simple. I picked up stitches around the neckline and then immediately cast them off in purl. That’s it. Clearly, I was overthinking it.

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I vowed that I wouldn’t become equally obsessed with the bind off for the sleeves. But one of the main reasons I dislike top-down sweaters like Slinky Ribs is that the bottom edge of the sleeves and the body is bound off, instead of cast on. And bound-off edges tend to be inflexible and less attractive than cast-on edges. This is especially true for ribbing. It’s difficult to get a flexible edge and no flare.

My first attempt at binding off the sleeve was a miserable failure. It flared and basically looked like crap. I needed a bind off that was flexible, but firm.

I settled on a tubular bind off for 2×2 rib. I first tried following the instructions in Principles of Knitting but, between you and me, I got completely lost. So I turned to the instructions in the Fall 2008 issue of Interweave Knits. Excellent instructions! It worked like a dream.

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I went back over the stitches and pulled them fairly tight after the bind off was completed and the sleeves don’t flare at all.

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Now I’m just hoping this Felted Tweed yarn softens up in the wash.

And, look. I celebrated by casting on a new sweater.

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*Apparently, I have a reputation for being somewhat inflexible. Who knew.

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