I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

I seem to be having issues with sleeves.

First, I had the brilliant idea to knit the sleeves of my Sweet Pea Coat using short rows instead of binding off stitches at the beginning of rows.

The yarn I’m using, Rowan Spray, is very heavy and I’d like to minimize the bulk around the arm as much as I can.  So I’m loathe to have all those bound-off stitches on the wrong side when I seam.

I don’t really hate the way it looks—in fact, I like the cup-like shape.  But the cap is way too small to fit into the armhole opening.  I might fool with it a bit more and if all else fails I’ll just follow the instructions in the pattern.

Francis was meant to be my diversion from the Sweet Pea armhole failure and I was churning her out at a record pace.  The body was finished by the end of the second day.

Then I hit a snag.  A quick check using my needle gauge, revealed that the #10 dpns I intended to use for the sleeves are a completely different size than the #10 Denise needles I was using for the body.  It appears that the Denise needles are not exactly 6mm.  Anyone else notice that the Denise needles don’t correspond exactly to their common metric equivalents??

Anyway, after contemplating my opinions, I decided to knit the sleeves flat.

One down!

NaKniSweMoDo is in full swing.  The Ravelry group has nearly 400 members, several of whom have already finished their first sweaters.

My first sweater isn’t a sweater at all–it’s a coat–the Sweet Pea coat from the Winter issue of Twist Collective.  My strategy was to choose a project that I was pretty much assured of finishing in the first month.  Bulky yarn helps with a goal like that.

I finished the back and the two fronts fairly quickly, nothwithstanding the fact that I had to completely reknit the left front 3 times because I have no attention span.

The sleeves are knit in the round on ginormous dpns and my wrists quickly began to ache.  So, I set the project aside after the first sleeve and started my super secret one-skein project for our Stitch ‘n Bitch anniversary swap.  I finished it Monday night but I can’t show it to you since it’s . . . well . . . super secret.

I should have then turned my attention back to the coat, but I wasn’t feeling the love.  And nothing’s worse than knitting on a project that feels like a chore.  So I shopped the stash and set about unearthing a pattern that could be knit from 6 measley skeins of a discontinued yarn I got at a funky yarn shop in Ogden.  Yeah, that funky yarn shop.

The yarn is Sirdar Balmoral and it’s a blend of wool, alpaca, and silk.  My 6 skeins only contain 762 yards and I intended to use them for a vest of some sort.  But, lo and behold, I found a pullover pattern that calls for less than 800 yards of alpaca blend yarn.  So, I cast on for my second NaKniSweMoDo sweater Monday night, tossing the first aside for the time being.

Here’s where the hypocrite part comes in:

Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo

Done.  Almost.

I still need to complete my least favorite part . . . sewing on the buttons.  But first I have to procure them.