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Saturday, January 21, 2006
An Update, Part II have FOs to photograph, but it's dark. So that'll be on the agenda for tomorrow - in between reading for class and watching football. :)So until I have a FO-shoot to share, I'll distract you with an almost-sweater. That's right - Ireland Cardi is close to earning its "completed" badge. Last weekend, I blocked all of the finished-to-the-armholes pieces. Cricket helped by periodically checking to see if they were dry enough to sleep on.  While I waited for the pieces to dry, I assembled the small arsenal of tools and references I felt I would need to successfully tackle the raglan seams and the neck shaping.  After only a few minor false-starts, I succeeded - I started with the back since it had the least complicated non-raglan parts (just the back neck, which I did with no shaping.) Then I moved on to the fronts - and I had another inspiration during the design process. See, I have a HUGE problem with the words "pick up stitches." I don't know why, but I really hate doing it. So much so that for a recent sweater I conned Beth from Lorna's Laces into picking up the neck stitches for me. So I was not looking forward to picking up the stitches for the neckband on the Ireland Cardi. I was smart enough to avoid binding off, and all the back neck stitches were sitting obediently on a holder waiting for their chance to be turned into a collar. But what to do with those pesky shaped front necklines? Two words - short rows. That's right - instead of decreasing 1 at the neck edge, I shortrowed it and put it on a holder.  See? All short-rowed and waiting for the neckband. I may have to pick up a few gap-filling stitches here and there to even everything out, but this makes me extremely happy.  After finishing the back and both fronts, I was ready to tackle the short-row shaping of the sleeves. I've finished one, and think I've nailed it, but before I can finish the other one, we've hit a bit of a snag. If you're sensitive, you may want to look away. But be assured - no cormo was seriously harmed.  Thanks, Cricket. That hour I spent untangling this was really fun bonding time.  Speaking of bonding time, last weekend S and I went over to the online store to help fill the 2 gazillion orders that resulted from the pre-inventory sale. We only had a few hours, so we could only fill about 25 of the 100+ orders. But DAMN do you people order a lot of yarn!  Luckily, since S hasn't been a yarn-packer for very long, he thought it was "really fun." He got to put everything in boxes and print out the UPS labels, while I rummaged through piles of yarn saying things like "all right, color 402 - come down here right now."  but 3 hours later, the boxes were packed. By the end of the day on Monday, after what can only be described as "frenzied packing" by Kristine, Courtney, and myself, we had so many boxes stacked up that we couldn't actually reach the door. Oscar, our UPS man, actually was in shock.  Right. So I still have to take pictures of 2 sweaters and a pair of socks. And the pieces of the Ireland Cardi. And maybe another project (or two) that have somehow found their way onto the needles....  why yes, that IS cashmere. ;) 0 comments || # |
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