My Oblique cardigan remains untouched. I still can't bring myself to take apart that flawed sleeve, and I haven't seen fit to keep working on the thus far unflawed sleeve. (I suppose I could have called it a flawless sleeve, but that seems too close to calling it perfect, and I'm apparently not comfortable with that. I'm pretty sure I won't think it's perfect until the whole thing is done and blocked. Blocking goes a long way in contributing to perfect.)
I suspect that part of the problem is that Oblique is a lacy cardigan, and lacy cardigans are great, but Winter Is Coming, and even though we're enjoying a pretty pleasant fall here - days typically have plenty of sunshine, no snow yet (pleaseletthatnotjinxit), and high temperatures have been ranging from 12 C all the way up to 23 C (though that was a little while ago, now). Tomorrow it's supposed to go up to 20 C.
The thing is, though - those are high temperatures. It's quite a bit cooler in the mornings, and evenings. Temperatures can vary quite a bit in this city, thanks to the fact that some spots are a fair bit higher up than others - one morning the radio was reporting a temperature difference of 8 C from one end of the city to the other, because the winds were different in the two areas due to differences in elevation. This morning, not crazily early, the radio was reporting temperatures of 2 C and 4 C from the two weather stations they get their readings from. We haven't had a killing frost yet (or so the radio tells me), but I've been able to see my breath in the morning as I walk from my car to my office. I'm starting to notice feeling cold a lot more of the time, even though the heat is on in our house.
And even though I know that a sweater worked up in worsted weight yarn that is 100% superwash merino wool will lend warmth, some part of my brain still looks at all the deliberate holes in all that lace and says, Well that won't help.
This is also likely the reason why I have again picked up and then put down my Geodesic Cardigan. This thing has been in the works off and on since July 2012. How embarrassing.
I picked it up again a little while ago after discovering the problem with the Oblique sleeve, back when I was feeling like I needed to just knit some plain stockinette. I had finished the body - um, ages ago - and blocked it, and sewn in the first sleeve cap, and I think I started working on the sleeve last year, and I, um, stopped. Because I was having a really hard time with laddering. I tried being super careful at the joins, I tried wrapping the first stitch after the join backwards, but nothing helped, and the fabric I was producing looked really shoddy, so I pulled it out, put the stitches on stitch holders, and set the whole thing aside. With the Oblique setback, this sweater was the closest thing I had to a complete sweater, so I tried again, with shorter, lighter DPNs, and a better understanding of where ladders come from in my knitting (which may not be the same place as in your knitting), and things were better than they had been before, but I was still getting ladders. So I started worrying that maybe this sweater has been in the works for so long that my gauge has changed, and now it's going to take some real futzing to match what I was getting before, and what a huge pain that's going to be...
And then I decided to take a shot at knitting the sleeve flat and just seaming it at the end, and everything is just fine. (For the curious, I think it was the weight of the DPNs - they're not super heavy, but laceweight worked at 24 sts to 4" makes for a very light, drapey fabric, one that doesn't tolerate being asked to support stuff very well - and working with DPNs means that you're asking your fabric to support some of your needle weight, because there's going to be at least one needle that isn't in your hands at any given point.)
Except for the fact that now I'm cold a lot of the time, and it's hard to see the utility of a laceweight sweater when you're cold. Even though, cognitively, I know that this is 100% merino wool, and it will therefore lend some warmth, and boy will I be happy to have it once it's done.
Right now I want something heavier. Cozier.
I started a sweater for my sister.
I know. How is making a sweater for my sister going to help me if I'm cold? Who knows. All I know is right now, that sleeve is completely charming, so I'm going to pick it up and make it become a bit longer.
I suspect that part of the problem is that Oblique is a lacy cardigan, and lacy cardigans are great, but Winter Is Coming, and even though we're enjoying a pretty pleasant fall here - days typically have plenty of sunshine, no snow yet (pleaseletthatnotjinxit), and high temperatures have been ranging from 12 C all the way up to 23 C (though that was a little while ago, now). Tomorrow it's supposed to go up to 20 C.
The thing is, though - those are high temperatures. It's quite a bit cooler in the mornings, and evenings. Temperatures can vary quite a bit in this city, thanks to the fact that some spots are a fair bit higher up than others - one morning the radio was reporting a temperature difference of 8 C from one end of the city to the other, because the winds were different in the two areas due to differences in elevation. This morning, not crazily early, the radio was reporting temperatures of 2 C and 4 C from the two weather stations they get their readings from. We haven't had a killing frost yet (or so the radio tells me), but I've been able to see my breath in the morning as I walk from my car to my office. I'm starting to notice feeling cold a lot more of the time, even though the heat is on in our house.
And even though I know that a sweater worked up in worsted weight yarn that is 100% superwash merino wool will lend warmth, some part of my brain still looks at all the deliberate holes in all that lace and says, Well that won't help.
This is also likely the reason why I have again picked up and then put down my Geodesic Cardigan. This thing has been in the works off and on since July 2012. How embarrassing.
I picked it up again a little while ago after discovering the problem with the Oblique sleeve, back when I was feeling like I needed to just knit some plain stockinette. I had finished the body - um, ages ago - and blocked it, and sewn in the first sleeve cap, and I think I started working on the sleeve last year, and I, um, stopped. Because I was having a really hard time with laddering. I tried being super careful at the joins, I tried wrapping the first stitch after the join backwards, but nothing helped, and the fabric I was producing looked really shoddy, so I pulled it out, put the stitches on stitch holders, and set the whole thing aside. With the Oblique setback, this sweater was the closest thing I had to a complete sweater, so I tried again, with shorter, lighter DPNs, and a better understanding of where ladders come from in my knitting (which may not be the same place as in your knitting), and things were better than they had been before, but I was still getting ladders. So I started worrying that maybe this sweater has been in the works for so long that my gauge has changed, and now it's going to take some real futzing to match what I was getting before, and what a huge pain that's going to be...
And then I decided to take a shot at knitting the sleeve flat and just seaming it at the end, and everything is just fine. (For the curious, I think it was the weight of the DPNs - they're not super heavy, but laceweight worked at 24 sts to 4" makes for a very light, drapey fabric, one that doesn't tolerate being asked to support stuff very well - and working with DPNs means that you're asking your fabric to support some of your needle weight, because there's going to be at least one needle that isn't in your hands at any given point.)
Except for the fact that now I'm cold a lot of the time, and it's hard to see the utility of a laceweight sweater when you're cold. Even though, cognitively, I know that this is 100% merino wool, and it will therefore lend some warmth, and boy will I be happy to have it once it's done.
Right now I want something heavier. Cozier.
I started a sweater for my sister.
I know. How is making a sweater for my sister going to help me if I'm cold? Who knows. All I know is right now, that sleeve is completely charming, so I'm going to pick it up and make it become a bit longer.
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