So, like, I have this knitting project... I bought the yarn in June of 2005 (mind you, I had only learned how to knit in August of 2004...) because I found a pattern I liked. The pattern had the presence of mind to (a) be easy, made of nothing but knits and purls; (b) give left and right instructions completely, none of this "make it just like the other one but reverse shaping"; (c) give stitch counts every time you increased or decreased; and (d) did I mention it was easy?
It was a pattern from a little Paton's booklet and it, of course, looked lovely on the model. So I bought the pattern and bought the yarn... and there it sat, in my stash in the condo... got moved to my 'active' pile when we shuffled from the condo to the apartment... and got moved again when we left the condo for the new house. And there it still sat, 2 years after purchase, in our lovely craft room, in my lovely yarn cubby-holes... mocking me, because now... now, after a couple of years of knitting, I Know Better. Use novelty yarn sparingly, pick patterns with a little challenge, and for god's sake, pick something you think you might actually wear!
A few weeks ago, in a fit of start-aholicism, I cast on. Oh dear. The yarn, while a perfectly lovely yarn for some other project (Paton's Divine, 82% acrylic/polyester, 18% mohair), knits like a cross between kitchen string and a scruffy poodle. Scratch that... a cross between kitchen string and what a scruffy poodle would have coughed up if it ate Great Aunt Lydia's antimacassars. The pattern, while perfectly lovely, is perfectly boring. The wasteland that is stockinette. In its favor, the front is like a ballet wrap, with a criss-cross tie, so you don't have to knit a full front of stockinette, row after row after row after row after... oh, sorry.
Anyway, I put up with the yarn and I put up with the pattern, and since it knits as a bulky, it worked up rather quickly. When I got to the sleeves, I stopped knitting and thunk for a bit. I *hate* knitting sleeves from the cuff up. If I make them to pattern, they drag on the floor. If I try to measure them against my arm, I'm invariably off - one will be too long, one will be too short and both will be too tight. So, I've been knitting sleeves from the shoulder down, by picking up stitches around the armhole.
With KW's cabled sweater, let's just say I didn't pay very close attention, so one sleeve has somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 stitches at the shoulder while the other has... about 80. To answer your questions, I did one sleeve, then the other, and had already knit the 120-stitch sleeve down to the cuff when I picked up what became the 80-stitch sleeve. I wasn't about to rip out a full sleeve's length of alpaca... and I didn't try to find 40 more stitches on the 80-stitch sleeve either. Both numbers seemed right, it fits KW fine (don't think about what that might mean for how he's built....), and he's happy.
But I did learn that if I'm going to pick up and knit down, I should try to get the numbers right before getting to the cuff... especially with a mohair blend that doesn't knit well going forward, never mind going backwards. So this time, I picked up 70 stitches on one arm, then got another needle and picked up...68 stitches on the other! I thought I figured out where I missed the 2 stitches, so I pulled the second sleeve out and re-picked up, this time getting to 69. Close enough! I added a stitch and started knitting down, first one arm, then the other, doing both using the Magic Loop technique.
It was a pattern from a little Paton's booklet and it, of course, looked lovely on the model. So I bought the pattern and bought the yarn... and there it sat, in my stash in the condo... got moved to my 'active' pile when we shuffled from the condo to the apartment... and got moved again when we left the condo for the new house. And there it still sat, 2 years after purchase, in our lovely craft room, in my lovely yarn cubby-holes... mocking me, because now... now, after a couple of years of knitting, I Know Better. Use novelty yarn sparingly, pick patterns with a little challenge, and for god's sake, pick something you think you might actually wear!
A few weeks ago, in a fit of start-aholicism, I cast on. Oh dear. The yarn, while a perfectly lovely yarn for some other project (Paton's Divine, 82% acrylic/polyester, 18% mohair), knits like a cross between kitchen string and a scruffy poodle. Scratch that... a cross between kitchen string and what a scruffy poodle would have coughed up if it ate Great Aunt Lydia's antimacassars. The pattern, while perfectly lovely, is perfectly boring. The wasteland that is stockinette. In its favor, the front is like a ballet wrap, with a criss-cross tie, so you don't have to knit a full front of stockinette, row after row after row after row after... oh, sorry.
Anyway, I put up with the yarn and I put up with the pattern, and since it knits as a bulky, it worked up rather quickly. When I got to the sleeves, I stopped knitting and thunk for a bit. I *hate* knitting sleeves from the cuff up. If I make them to pattern, they drag on the floor. If I try to measure them against my arm, I'm invariably off - one will be too long, one will be too short and both will be too tight. So, I've been knitting sleeves from the shoulder down, by picking up stitches around the armhole.
With KW's cabled sweater, let's just say I didn't pay very close attention, so one sleeve has somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 stitches at the shoulder while the other has... about 80. To answer your questions, I did one sleeve, then the other, and had already knit the 120-stitch sleeve down to the cuff when I picked up what became the 80-stitch sleeve. I wasn't about to rip out a full sleeve's length of alpaca... and I didn't try to find 40 more stitches on the 80-stitch sleeve either. Both numbers seemed right, it fits KW fine (don't think about what that might mean for how he's built....), and he's happy.
But I did learn that if I'm going to pick up and knit down, I should try to get the numbers right before getting to the cuff... especially with a mohair blend that doesn't knit well going forward, never mind going backwards. So this time, I picked up 70 stitches on one arm, then got another needle and picked up...
Light bulb time! Hey... two cylinders, heading the same direction... can't I Magic Loop *both* of them at the same time? Why, yes I can! I now have 2 sleeves on 1 long needle, knitting right-sleeve-back-left-sleeve-back-left-sleeve-front-right-sleeve-front! I came upstairs to get the camera to show off, but got sidetracked with the words; will add photo when done. I unvented 2 sleeves at once! Go, me! (yeah, like it hasn't been done before... well, I was happy that *I* had come up with it, so :-P )
(It happens to make the furball a little easier to knit because I'm so impressed with myself, so there might actually be a finished object soon... Now the only problem I have is... who gets it? It's definitely "what was I thinking?" yarn...)
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