I do not advocate cheating on anything really important, like taxes or school exams or things like that. But when one is involved in a structured knitalong and one is supposedly in an “off week” in which one could use this time to catch up on other on-the-needles projects, well, maybe then cheating is okay.
After all, this sweater is on the needles, right?
I refrained from knitting Sunday, Monday, and yesterday, so as to rest my wrist and not get too far ahead (while still remaining on track to finish this by my self-imposed deadline) and managed to finish that sleeve in a few hours of knitting each of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Super fast!
The sleeve construction starts by picking up stitches around the armhole, and Alexis’s instructions are incredibly detailed and super helpful. But (and this is based on only ever doing one sleeve in this way, I may change my mind after the second) I think I hate this sleeve construction. For whatever reason, I’m not keen on picking up stitches. I don’t hate it like I hate purling by the end of a long project. But I’d rather seam a sleeve, truly. Plus, by the time you get halfway finished with the sleeve, you have to stay very aware of how much the fabric is twisting—you don’t want to pull the stitches or stretch out the fabric by over twisting. So this eliminates any mindlessness afforded by knitting stockinette in the round. For me, anyway.
Despite that, I must reiterate, Alexis’s instructions for picking up these stitches are fantastic and made it pretty easy to do something I’d never done before.
So excited to be so close to finishing! I’m sure I can finish the second sleeve in a few days, and then hopefully bang out the edging by the end of the weekend after next.
the more I see you knit this sweater the more I like it (which I didn’t at all the first hundred times I’ve seen it). Pretty sweater so far!
It’s so much fun to knit! Hence my cheating and working ahead. 😀
CHEATER! hehe – looking awesome!
I AIN’T SORRY.
Love the sweater.
I don’t pick up stitches if there’s any way of avoiding it, and I’ve been knitting since I was 5!
But once in a while it’s worth it – look at your results!
Don’t look too closely at my results, I’m kind of unhappy with the picked up stitches on that first shoulder and am going to try to sew them to look better. 😉
Have lots of stitches to pick up around the edges, but I think that will be a little more straightforward.