Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It's that time of year again

Allegedly, it's Springtime here in the Pacific Northwest*, a time when a young man's thoughts turn to flights of fancy and a knitter casts aside recalcitrant sweaters in progress in order to muck around in the mud and rain, planting seeds and carefully tending the dream of fresh organic summer vegetables.

In a rather impressive triumph of hope over experience, I'm planning to keep up both blogs this summer. (What? Yes, I typed that with a straight face, why do you ask?)
However if things seem really quiet here at Yin and Yarn then click over to Suburban Sodbusters and look for me there. Who knows, maybe I can finally persuade Mr. CPA to actually write a blog post over there for a change...


*Mind you, that's strictly according to the calendar. Our contrary weather sure isn't going to let some know-it-all calendar boss it around so it's doing a pretty good impression of Winter right now. Because, you know, it can. So there.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Sommelier

Inspired by the most recent period of Mercury retrograde*, I organized my hoarder's corner spinning area and the gathered up the various 'knitting in progress' projects scattered throughout the house to assess the situation and possibly actually finish up some projects. In the process, Sommelier managed to float to the top of the heap and make a bid for my attention.

The more detailed project narrative will have to wait for another post (i.e., when it's not 10:18 on a work night), but here's where I am so far:


The remaining original front band is on the right and as you can see, there are too many stitches in the band and it's curved up and out beyond the sweater body. The band has fewer stitches than specified in the pattern but it's still too many.

I ripped out the other side and re-worked it with fewer stitches. I re-calculated the number of stitches for the band using the gauge from the first band and the length of the sweater front. The new band has 64 stitches instead of 76 and fits much better.

Just need to rip out the remaining band and reknit, sew in the sleeves (also re-worked from the original pattern) and finish the back neck.


*I'm seriously not into astrology all that much, but Mercury Retrograde always seems to result in a flurry of organizational activity for me. In fact that unexpected and irresistible urge to organize yarn and clean the basement typically has me consulting the Google to see what that darn Mercury is up to.