Tofu Baby Sweater from Flying Fingers - Day 5

Lots of assembly required…

While this pattern is adorable, and provides all the direction you need to create the four needed pieces, it assumes you know what you’re doing in the seaming process.

Which I don’t.

I avoid sweaters and other large seamed projects like the plague, so I found myself stumped when I finally had my four flat pieces.  Honestly, I looked at the process with the same trepidation I felt turning my first sock heel.  I knew it could be done, but I wasn’t sure I had the skills to make it happen.

Fortunately, the first two steps were well within my skill set: the button bands.  I can pick up stitches, I can make ribbing, I can wield a cast-off-cast-on buttonhole. I managed the left and right button bands with relative success.

Once I got to the collar, however, things began to look murky.  I was glad I tackled it at my Saturday morning knitting group, where another knitter far more skilled in sweater assembly coached me to join the shoulder seams before starting the collar band.  Nancy showed me the basics of a stitch ideal for baby items because it doesn’t leave a lumpy wrong-side seam.

Once fronts and backs were attached, I picked up around the neck hole according to the pattern instructions.  Three rows of ribbing, and I was good to go.

Then I had to tackle setting in the sleeves.  I was glad to have the shoulder success under my belt, because this one required two YouTube videos for skill acquisition and a hot bath for composure.  They didn’t turn out too bad, but I fear for the tangle that may show up when I join the side seams and try to create an un-bunchy underarm.  

I can hear the cranky baby cries already…..

Knit Along: Leg Warmers from The Yarn Company - Day 4

Triumph over limitations...

I have come up with a handy coping mechanism for my wicked case of “second sock syndrome”--or in this case, “second leg-warmer syndrome.” 
 
When I bound off the top of the first leg-warmer, I was NOT ALLOWED TO GET UP OUT OF THE CHAIR until I had cast on and accomplished an inch of the second leg-warmer.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t allow myself to seam up the first piece until I’d done an inch of the second.  Sort of the knitting version of Mary Poppins’ adage “well begun is half done.”  Now that I’m started, it doesn’t seem like such a monumental challenge to keep going.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  This did make for a rather miserable 90 minutes as I cast off, cast on, drug myself through the first inch, and then did my least favorite task of all:  seaming.  I hate seaming.  And this twisty yarn kept tangling on every stitch, so that even a couple of decent TV shows and half of a good movie didn’t redeem the time.  This was sheer I’m gonna get it done willpower--something I don’t often possess in great quantities.

Will they end up on legs?  Or adapted to be sleeves?  I don’t know yet.  I do know, however, that there’s now a halfway decent chance that there will be TWO of them. 

And that’s a victory.