Playing with the knitting machine

So I had the idea to whip up smaller size blankets on the (very basic) knitting machine I share with some friends and then add, not just a little crochet edge, but nice, decorative (maybe even fancy or lacy) crochet edging that could dress it up and make a neat baby or kids blanket.  I’m working on one for a friend who just had a baby Sunday (yay for Scarlett and her new baby girl Beatrice Kate) and I made the body pretty quick, about an hour, on the machine and then decided I’d better work on my sweater a little more before I started on the edging.  My idea is to complement the (rather boring) pink body of the blanket with red, orange and hot pink to give it a little more character.  Right now it’s just a curled up little ball of knitting, so no pictures until I work on the edge.

The deadline is Sunday

I think I might just get this sweater finished by Sunday… if I have until midnight, that is.  I got a lot done on the body and ended with 1×1 ribbing at the bottom after decreasing about 10% before the ribbing.  I debated that for a while and then just went with it since I have a little of the same on the neck and I figured they should match.  It’s just longer/deeper at the bottom of the sweater.  I bound off looser than I imagined I would need and… yay, it isn’t tight at the bottom at all.  That’s a big danger with ribbing.  And with these hips, I did not want it to fit weird at the bottom.  I almost used Elizabeth Zimmermann’s casting on-casting off stitch, which looks really nice, but I didn’t feel like pulling a yard or two of yarn through each loop since it always takes forever.  But if you are ever looking for a nice edging and want something different, you should check out her books and try it.  So after binding off the body, I tried it on again and it fit very nice, certainly good enough to not rip anything.

I put the sleeve stitches back on my double pointed needles, picked up along the armhole edge where I cast on with the backwards loop when I started the body, picked up an extra stitch on each end to reduce holes and started knitting on the sleeves in the round.  It’s funny.  The sleeve has so much fewer stitches, but they don’t go as fast as I think they should just because I’m always shifting the bulk of the sweater around and around and sometimes those extra points get in the way.  Oh well, I’m thinking it’s going to have 3/4 length sleeves, but we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll try to post another picture to show you how much more sweater-like it is now!  yay!!