Knitting the Time Away

I have been sewing...really...trust me....I just haven't been finishing much. 😬

If you pop over to the Threads Magazine site you will find some of the things that I have been working on over the last few weeks.  I usually have several projects going so I can post some with Threads and some here and have plenty to go around.  But I have been a bit stuck lately.  It happens from time to time and I always seem to get back into my sewing room.  I guess it surprises me this time because I thought having lots of 'isolation' time and lots of stashed fabric would be the proverbial dream come true, but the days seem to fill up with yard work and figuring out what to cook (I don't think I have ever cooked so many days in a row...ever!!!!  Take out pizza, please!) and knowing that I will be needing a different kind of wardrobe going forward have all made for a sewing slow down.  As the ozone days happen and the bug count goes up I might find my way into the sewing room pretty soon.  I know I can't force the issue, just go with the sewing, or no sewing flow.

One project I did finish this past week was a knitting project.  I have been having some kind of knitting going during this time since TV evenings have been much more frequent.  As with a lot of my knitting, this one was a lot of trial and error (frogging) and experimenting to get to the final garment.  But I am pretty pleased with it and glad that it is off the needles.  By the time I finished it it felt like I had knitted at least two sweaters!

The yarn is a very loosely twisted, almost no twist, 6 strands of exceptionally soft cotton.  I kept sticking my needle between the strands...annoying!  My idea was to have little to no sewing to do.  I wanted to create the shape by holding and picking up stitches rather than seaming.  The cotton is fairly heavy and I thought seams would get quite bulky.

I cast on at the hem and worked to the armholes and then split the work into fronts and back.

Next I did a 3 needle bind off to create the shoulder seams and picked up around the armholes.  The sleeves were knit in the round with a series of decreases to get to the smaller wrist measurement.

Finally, I picked up stitches along the neckband.

I have no idea if this is the "real" way to knit a sweater, but it kind of worked out.  I learned to make buttonholes.   Don't look too closely, I'm not sure buttholes in seed stitch is the best first project, but there you go.  I also wet blocked the sweater since it was already 3D when I took it off the needles.  It took two days to dry!

All in all I am happy with the outcome.  I have not done much other than square knitting, so shaping and short rows are all experiments for me.   It is a good thing that I had really expert help....