The Four Year Sweater

Yes, it took me four years to knit this sweater!  But I finally finished last night.  Right now it is drying outside.  I gave it a little bath in some SOAK, rolled in a towel to remove excess water, and then put it onto another towel to pat into shape.

I guess I did ok for my first sweater!  My tension got screwy in the yoke/neck area, it is looser than the rest of the sweater.  Not sure what happened there.  I can clearly see the decrease rounds, and that bothers me.  I also don't like the bunching, and don't know why that happened.  I was hoping it would be nice and flat like the body.  Blocking has helped a lot though.

I made the body longer than sweaters typically are, since the recipient requested it be done that way so when he bends over, .... well, you know!

I am happy this project is done, I learned a lot.  Especially that I don't care for knitting sweaters, and most likely will not make another one any time soon.

I made this with Cascade 220 using EZ's percentage method in the round.  It was really easy, and I am glad I decided to make the sweater this way, instead of having a bunch of parts to seam up.  The underarm seaming was enough for me, even though I love the magic of kitchener stitch.

Sapphires-N-Purls Podcast: Episode 9: Now and Then

Finally, I've had time to get all of my notes together, and get this done!  Below are links and a brief of everything I talk about in this episode.  And, for some reason I thought this was Episode 10.... that may be because this was done at 2:30 in the morning.  Episode 9!!! I apologize for the less than stellar performance; like I said, it was 2:30 am....

A review of Vogue Knitting Fall 2003 issue, by me and a review of the Fall 2010 issue by my sister  (She has her own crafty blog called Stitches N Purls).  A link to Vogue Knitting can be found at the top of the blog - you can subscribe as well as purchase back issues.  Be sure to sign up for the news letter too!

There is a super neat new app for the iPod Touch and iPhone called Knit-n-Count.  I decided to splurge and pay the $1.99 to download this app.  It counts rows as well as pattern repeats, and you can even set an alarm to go off to remind you to do a certain stitch at a particular point in the pattern.  If you need to frog a few rows, no problem; the app will help you keep track of that also.  You can enter up to 10 different projects at a time, along with the name of the project and any notes you might want to jot down.  Great for designing your own patterns, IMHO.  Here is an article about the app.