Decisions

Well, I decided to go with plain and simple.  I avoided the project for… three days I think, and that’s way too long if I’m going to try and finish it by the end of the Olympics.  I had started some artistic ribbing in the front, but because my first purl insisted on being too loose, it looked wrong and I pulled it out.  So now it is going to be my army sweater.   A plain, simple, everyday, possibly favorite kind of sweater.  Or at least that is the plan.  So now my next goal is to make the body nice and long.  I tend to cut it a little short because I’m antsy about getting to the sleeves, but I will not do that this time!  No, sir, I will get it all the way down to my hips, I swear.  And the sleeves will not discourage me, but that is a post for another time when I finally make it that far.  =)  Until then… I will post a picture of what I have done tonight or tomorrow.

A different kind of problem

I think I’m knitting the most boring sweater in the world.  It’s a solid green raglan sweater and I can’t decide what to do to make it interesting!!  I had some brown I was going to work in, but they are both too dark and I think it would look silly together.  Plus, I’m already a few inches into the body so anything I start now will look weird because I didn’t do it at the top.  I started the neckline with 1×1 ribbing and I’ve considered adding that to the body… either down the sides (which I could also do on the sleeves), or a band of it through the middle to make it more empire waist shaped, or a big section of it in an upside-down V in front to give the appearance of curves.  Or I could just rib the whole lower section, once I get there with 2×2 ribbing or do some of it in reverse stockinette.  sigh. I can’t decide and I don’t know if any of them will look good.  Suggestions??

Yay! Progress!!!

Raglan seam line

OK, finally I’ve moved past the decision making and past a few trouble spots and I can see the top of a sweater beginning to emerge out of the yarn.  I decided to go with green since my favorite shirt is green.  My eyes are hazel and I always think wearing green makes them look, well, greener.  And I don’t know why I didn’t go with nicer yarn except that I’m cheap and there was a time crunch and this really is a neat green.  The Vanna yarn is called Olive, but it’s darker than that with a little bit of gold/yellow in there.  I really hope those yellow tones are supposed to be good for my pale/pink complexion.  I can’t remember the rules on colors.  Anyway, I think it’s going to look a little, or a lot, like a military sweater.  I can’t decide whether I should encourage that or make some adjustments to be more girlish.  Of course the original picture flares out into a dress sort of thing… I haven’t thought that far for my design yet.

Oh, and I’m at the big crucial point where I put the sleeve stitches on spare yarn and just work the body for the next day or two so body decisions come first, then sleeve decisions.

Third time is the charm, right?

I certainly hope it’s true that I won’t have to start over again.  I’m on my third go at beginning this sweater and it’s starting to annoy me just a little.  I’ve made changes every time to my increase choice, I tried YO – they were ok but too holey, Elizabeth Zimmerman M1 – which is just a backwards loop or two and those were fine except my stitch marker wasn’t in the right place and I didn’t get them lined up right.  It didn’t look terrible… it didn’t look good either.  This third time I’ve added 1×1 ribbing at the edge and then I’m using increases that I don’t know the names for… work the stitch below the right one, then work the back of the stitch below the left one.  It makes a really, really nice increase line, I’ll post a picture in a little bit when I’m farther on the yoke.  I also adjusted my spacing for the increase points, I had too few stitches for the shoulders I think. 

Sometimes it’s so nice to just have a pattern and to follow it, but it’s pretty fun to make it up too.  =)

How did I do this?

I did some math and after a miniature swatch (I tried) I started the yoke of the new sweater.  And since I had to use the magic loop method to start the neckline and I TWISTED the first round.  It was so hard to tell so it took a few rows to figure it out.  So I’ll start again.  See pic for my attempt at a swatch.

I joined the Olympics. The Ravelympics, that is.

Within 24 hours of finally joining Ravelry, I’ve also signed up for the Ravelympics and made a new crafting blog.  Since I try to make crazy projects in short time periods, it seems perfect.  Now I just need to figure out which yarn I’m going to use and get started.  And try not to get distracted by those other ideas in my head at the moment.