My boyfriend bought me a lovely basket of yarn for Valentine’s Day 2018 and I finally decided on something to make with it! I did not actually start this project on 10/30/18 but rather sometime in the spring or summer. I recently found it with about 10” done of the shrug portion and started up again and I hope to keep making progress so that I can wear it this winter.
Obviously, I will have to adjust the stripe pattern that was used in the original Tubey to use less of the Main Color because I have 3 skeins each of 5 colors but I am sure that I would have made that my own anyway.
11-01-2018
I finally got to the point where I could start on a sleeve! Hitting milestones does help keep me motivated when it comes to a time-consuming knit like a sweater for a person my size must inevitably be.
I do not know where my DPNs are because after moving a few months ago, I have not yet unpacked my sewing / craft room so instead of using those for the sleeves, I am using the same circular needle I started with and doing a magic loop. I am not great at it and keep pulling the last stitch too tight when transferring it to the cable so I am trying to mitigate that by staggering where the divide is with every round. So far, it seems to be going okay. I am making up my own stripe pattern because of my lack of MC yarn and will probably not do bell sleeves because I do not prefer that look. I am not to the elbow of my first sleeve yet but I am thinking about doing a 3x1 rib for the forearm just like the body will be.
11-06-2018
I finished the first sleeve yesterday! I think it looks pretty good although I am a little afraid that the cross-back will not be wide enough, I have decided to go ahead with the next sleeve anyway even though a part of me wants to knit a few extra rows first. I measured a few times and I think I have to have faith in the numbers.
I do not care for bell sleeves nor those that hang down over my hands, so I switched to the 3x1 rib around the elbow after decreasing a few stitches (from 65 to 60). Also, I tried on the sleeve to check the length and decided to err on the side of a little too short since that is what I prefer although I think it will actually turn out to be just right.
When I picked up the live stitches from my provisional crochet cast on, there were only 64 of them. Mathematically, I think this is right although it is frustrating that it does not exactly match the other side so when I joined the sleeve in the round, I cast on one extra stitch to make them even, which is not in the pattern.
11-12-2018
I spent a lot of time knitting this past weekend and I am pretty sure that is the source of my hand cramp! I will probably continue to persist though because I am excited about this sweater. It is very soft and knitting up quickly. I am running really low on my main color yarn (almost black) so the last several stripes of the body will have to not be separated like the top part of the arms. I think that should be okay but I will have to wait until it is done to see how I really feel about it.
When picking up stitches for the body, I picked up eight fewer than I was supposed to across the back (four per half) but since I knew the pattern would still work plus I don’t know how I would have added four more stitches evenly per side.
11-15-2018
I feel like this sweater has gone quickly but now that I am in the home stretch, it just won’t end! I think that is just my impatience at work. Unfortunately, the main color (black) is not going to be enough to put a lot on the final edge, maybe just two rows but that is okay, I have plenty of the other colors so it should not be too short unless I just want to be done!
11-19-2018
Ugh, weaving in the ends took three whole episodes of Riverdale, I hate doing that!
Still, it was worth it, I like how this sweater turned out. I did decide, after trying it on, to close up the neckline a little bit because my bra straps were visible, so I grafted five stitches from each corner to the shrug part and now it works pretty well, especially with an undershirt