This summer, I did a lot of things: spent time with friends, made my first cheesecake, bought used books, came home way too late, cursed the heat, kept the house clean, and slept in excess.
I don't have a photo of my cheesecake, so instead, here are macaroons.An unfortunate side-effect of having so much free time and so many ways of filling it was that I didn't knit much. Still, in retrospect, I wish I had taken the time to blog a little. You know, for posterity. There's something about blogging about what you do that feels deliciously introspective and validating. But that's not a novel realization, is it, now. Hopefully now that I've got responsibilities again, I can get off my ass and blog every week (that's my goal amount, anyhow!)
So what became of my Citrus Yoke sweater? Katie Himmelberg sent me a reply right away but I didn't actually get what I was doing wrong until I actually posted a cry for help on Ravelry. The solution was simple: I didn't know how to do a yo correctly! Instead of passing the yarn over and then making a knit stitch, I had been knitting a stitch and then making a real yo stitch! Hey, the good thing is, I'm never going to forget how to do it now!
So after that little epiphany, things progressed pretty smoothly, save for a narrow miss or two. In my frustrated attempts to start the sweater, I'd tortured the first few feet of yarn so badly that I had to cut it off... but I was so, so happy to finally be getting somewhere!
The yoke was really fun to knit and, best of all, easy to memorize. As always, I mostly knit at work but I'd sometimes bring it to the cafe my friends and I got obsessed with going to for a while. I'll never get tired of how people react to my knitting; I love it, seriously. And as simple knit is perfect for KIP; you can afford to be a little distracted.
I also LOVE that the whole sweater is knit in the round. After knitting my first sweater in 4 parts and seaming it, the Citrus Yoke was magic--and so simple!
My coworkers' reaction to this sweater was hilarious; they couldn't understand how a tube with holes was going to grow into a sweater! I think they began to get the idea as I started on the body and made the armholes...
I've gotta admit, plain stockinette can put you in a coma, especially the arms. But it was perfect for knitting on the job, though I did manage to lose my stitch marker when knitting one of the sleeves and wasn't sure where the row began; quite a freak-out ensued.
I also had a little trouble with the length of the sleeves, though it had nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with my stupidity! As I remember, the pattern says to make the sleeves 19" long (for the size I made) but after measuring that out on my own arm, I decided that that was a little short. So I went up to 21.5". But when I was done with the sweater and went to try it on, the sleeves were about an inch too long--the silly long, not the comfy long! I took it to knitting night last Wednesday--my first in months!-- and tinkered back about 5 rows on each sleeve. I haven't tried it on yet to see how the sleeves are...but I will!!
Overall, I'm really pleased with this sweater and even more pleased that I seem to be getting better at knitting things faster--and at starting something new almost as soon as I'm done. Yep, I'm working on something else, but that's for the next post...
