5/8/10--first bottom-up cardigan. Bottom-up sweaters make me feel like I’m feeling my way around in the dark. You just really don’t know how it’s going to fit or turn out until it’s completely done. I’m not entirely sure about my gauge. I did a swatch in the lace pattern, but I’m not sure how to measure gauge very precisely in a lace pattern. Maybe it’s just me. We’ll see how it turns out. The yarn is beautiful. I love the color and it’s really soft. I started the gauge swatch on metal needles, but the yarn slipped off really easily. When I switched to my wood tips, it wasn’t a problem anymore.

I did 4 rows of seed stitch at the hem instead of 2.

5/13/10--I’m about 7 inches into this thing and I put it on two needles and sort of wrapped it around myself. And it seems kind of big. So, in order to get some sort of waist shaping, I’m switching to smaller needles, size 6, for a few inches, probably about 2. I’m planning to knit 13 inches before attaching the sleeves. That’s the length my Liesl is and I like that length.

I’m not sure exactly what my gauge is, but the body of the sweater is about 36” unblocked.

5/16/10--joined sleeves to body and started raglan decreases. This seems to be going quickly. I guess that’s what happens when you only work on one thing!

5/17/10--finished all the knitting and…the sleeves are too small! Not just the sleeves, the armscye is too small and tight, which I think means the yoke is too small. I’m not sure what to do to fix it.

5/18/10--so, first I put in a lifeline right under the sleeve join. Of course, I should have had one in there already, but, yeah, I didn’t. First, I tried to do it with a small circular needle, but I couldn’t see what stitches to pick up. Then I switched to a tapestry needle and some sport weight yarn and it was much easier. Since this pattern has you purl on the wrong side, it was relatively easy to put the lifeline in on the wrong side. Then I frogged to the lifeline.

From there, the plan is to CO for the size M sleeves (53 stitches). Then when I join them to the body, I’ll do 3 decrease rows where I only decrease the sleeve stitches. I’m going to do them every other RS row, beginning at the join so they are hidden in the underarm/pit area. These extra decrease rows will also make my armscye about an inch longer, so hopefully that will solve the too tight armscye problem. Then I’ll finish the regular decrease rows until I have the right stitch count to start the neck shaping. Stay tuned.

5/20/10--finished knitting for the second time and…it fits! Woohoo!! It could stand to be a bit looser in the armscye, but it’s fine with a tank top. I also seamed one of the sleeves and it doesn’t look like total crap! I’m so, so proud! Thank you, Maggie Righetti! I have read so many descriptions of mattress stitch, but it just never really clicked. I knew I wasn’t doing it right, because it always looked like a two year old did it. I recently got Maggie Righetti’s book Knitting in Plain English. This time I read her mattress stitch instructions and it finally made sense. Now I just need to seam the other sleeve (not so scary now!) and weave in the rest of the ends. That’s my one complaint about this yarn, the itty bitty skeins. 75 yards is so small! But I guess that’s better than a bunch of knots.