Tackling Seam-a-phobia

Surgery this week has pretty much kept me confined to the house, which hasn’t been so bad considering that it’s so disgustingly hot and humid outside. The downtime gave me a chance to finish up two knitting projects … the Medallion Tunic and the Chiton Pullover.

Medallion Tunic

The Medallion Tunic was a breeze to knit. Even the lace work at the top front and back wasn’t too arduous. Knowing ahead of time that it was meant to be a roomy, long tunic, I suppose I should have gone down a size, but having a little extra room is never a bad thing. I was dreading the seaming, but all in all it took me only about an hour to seam up the sides and shoulders. In the past, I used to just try to follow along with the pictures in the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Knitting Book, but I could never quite get the seams just right—something would always look a little off. This time around, I followed along with some free videos on www.knittinghelp.com and it was MUCH easier.

Chiton Pullover

As for the Chiton Pullover … it had been about 99% complete for the last six months. I started this project as soon as the Spring 2011 Knitscene issue came out and it knit up pretty fast, but it required seaming. Once I was done seaming the shoulders and underarms, I wondered to myself why I had put it off for so long. After blocking, I’m super happy with the end result.

Today, I’m finally starting on the Radian Yoke sweater from the Summer 2011 Knitscene. I’m the kind of knitter who likes to work the pattern out in an Excel spreadsheet and cross off the rows as I go. It also helps me to understand the pattern better before I get started. This pattern in particular has six increase rows in the yoke. Rather than being specific about how to spread out the increases evenly across the row (e.g., how often, every other stitch, every two stitches, etc.), it just tells you to “space the increases evenly.” This is where the Excel spreadsheet came in handy, and of course my basic math skills (I was an English major after all, not a mathematician). It took some time and lots of tiny little spreadsheet squares, but I finally got it all figured out and am looking forward to tackling the new project today.

Another plus for the day … lots of Lucille Ball shows and movies on t.v. in honor of what would have been her 100^th birthday. It makes for very entertaining knitting.