22.04.2016

I hate sock needles, and have been knitting sleeves flat since Snowbird (game-changing technique that I somehow never thought of before)! With bottom-up, it means knitting them independently, sewing them up while leaving the top stitches live, and then joining in the round. It’s a bit elaborate, but it worked out okay. The sleeves are currently 3/4 length, but I may knit on new edgings for the sleeves and bottom after I’ve finished and blocked it.

25.04.2016

I looked at Zimmerman’s seamless raglan directions for the raglan decreases. It states that “Contrary to superstition, the rate of decrease… is the same for any type of wool and any gauge”. (The rate she gives is dec 8 every other row.)

I started decreases an inch after joining the sleeves; and I had 192 body stitches, which is quite similar to the 200 she gives as her base recipe! So why, when I had decreased enough to start magic looping the needle - the highest point was more or less at my shoulders - were the sleeve holes already far too small? The sweater hadn’t even curved around/over the shoulders fully yet, and the armhole openings were way too tight, even though the body of the sweater is not skintight (fitted, but with ease)? Granted, the sleeves are slim, but…???

I had to rip back to the beginning of decreases and am trying again. I’ve currently decreased 3x every 2 rows, followed by 4x every 3 rows. Perhaps it was not wise to opt for trial and error like this instead of reading up on the problem but I wasn’t quite sure where to read, or what search terms to use… although I guess I’ll either be googling or trying to do geometry and algebra if it doesn’t work this time.

15.09.2016

The sleeve holes didn’t fit right, so I ripped back again and separated front and back at the sleeveholes instead for peasant sleeves. I made the V neck following the pattern of the lace and joined at the shoulders with 3-needle bind off.

Picked up and knit 70 stitches per sleeve and knitted past the elbow straight, then decreased 2 stitches at a time every 8 rows 3 times, then every 5 rows 9 times, then continued straight for 30 rows and bound off purlwise.

25.09.2016

I picked up and knit around the neck by eye using a 2.25 mm needle for slightly tighter gauge, then knit one round through back loops to tighten it up and another 3 rounds, with a centered double decrease at center front every other row. I bound off purlwise using stretchy slip-slip-knit bindoff and a 4mm needle (because the first neck attempt was too tight).

This took about 4 tries to get it how I liked it, not too tight or too loose and lying pretty flat across the back of the neck.

27.09.2016

Okay, so the washing was worrying me, but it went fine and after 2 days of blocking, the yarn has fluffed up appealingly.

Unfortunately (1) I didn’t stretch it enough while blocking and (2) it still smells vinegary from the final rinse, where I followed the recommendation to even out the ph after all its dishsoap baths with a splash of white vinegar. I guess the splash was too big. I’ll run it through the washer on the handwash cycle with some conditioner and try again on the blocking front tomorrow.