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.

Halloween Knitting Patterns and Stuff

It is that time of year again... my favorite time.  October, autumn... and Halloween!  Here are a few knitting patterns for your perusal.

Halloween Cat Dishcloth - from One Crafty Mama

Halloween Witch Doll - from Purl Soho

Happy Halloween Mitts - from Home Makers Insanity

Hallowig - from Knitty

Lacy Jack-O-Lantern Dishcloth - from Coats and Clark

There are oodles of other patterns out there, just Google or Bing away and you will find them.

Also, I will once again be watching my favorite Halloween movie several times between now and Halloween.

This is a favorite of my sister and I - for some reason we just love it and must watch every October.  It's fun and something you can watch with the kiddies, if you have any.

I think I mentioned last year, I have some black and orange Sugar n Cream floating around in my stash somewhere.  I never was able to track that down, otherwise I would have my own pattern posted here.  I will have to check again and if I find it see if I can come up with something quick.

I've been making an effort to finish up my UFO's that are lying around.  If you follow me on facebook, you may know that I finally joined the sleeves to my sweater a couple weekends ago!  Yay!  It was a lot less scary and much easier than I anticipated.  So, I now only have about 8 inches or so and it will be done!  I am a little apprehensive about doing the collar for some reason, but I am sure that will be like the sleeve fear - easier than expected!


I've also been thinking about breaking out the Kool-Aid and dying some yarn.  I have some Lion Brand Fisherman Wool that I'd like to dye some autumn colors - maybe brown, dark orange and orange-red.  I'd like to do that this coming weekend, if I have time.  I may need to do a Kool-Aid run to make sure I have enough of the flavors I need to get these colors.  I would like to try and get some deeper, richer colors this time than I have in the past.  I've heard coffee or tea will make a nice brown - I may have to do that in conjunction with the Kool-Aid.  Either way, I am excited - I love dying yarn!!

Well, fellow knitters, I am going to go and do some work on that sweater!  Here are a few pictures of where I am.  I will certainly be posting pictures once it's complete.  Hopefully by the end of this month!

This is the quite the order I wanted the pictures posted, but blogger is not cooperating and letting me arrange them how I'd like.  Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Sleeves with the underarm stitches on waste yarn to be seamed with the body later

Close up of the sleeve and body joined,  with the reserved stitches waiting to be seamed up later

Here is the body, with a portion of stitches reserved to be seamed with  the underarm of the sleeves later

This is just a close up of the body with the reserved stitches

This is a few rows after the sleeves have been joined