Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Slow Progress



The thing about knitting a sweater is it takes a fair amount of time and while progress is definitely made it seems slow due to the size of the project.  My mom's Blaithin sweater is coming along nicely, but it's the slow stockinette "things don't look too different" phase and I'm a bit discouraged.  To help alleviate this feeling, I decided to take a break from the sweater body and start a sleeve as that is the next step in this sweater's construction.  And since I still have troubles knitting with double pointed needles (I discovered my pulling the yarn too tight is what is causing the ladder effect), I purchased a 12 inch circular needle from Chiaogoo so I could seamlessly knit in the round.  Well, let me tell you it's awesome!  I knit the above 10 inches of sleeve yesterday with ease and their are no ladders to be seen.  Yay!  I've tried 9 inch circulars for sock knitting in the past and my fingers cramped up quickly, but the 12 inch seem to be fine in that regard.  So, I think I am a convert and will be knitting my in the round sweater sleeves like this in the future.  Ah, more needles to collect :) 

I'm not reading anything presently, but I'm thinking of getting this book to help conquer the mess which is my house.  It has pretty good reviews and being from Japan with their small housing spaces (small by western standards) I think it might be a good match to our own tiny home.  Many western De-cluttering books have solutions for your home office, but not your home office/dining room/computer gaming room which is how our house functions.  It's not our living room.  It's our living room/ craft room/ exercise dance space/ music room.  See where I'm going with this?  Well, I feel it's at least good enough to download to my ipad for a read as the wait at the library is some 600 requests long and I certainly don't want to buy another book to add to the clutter ;)

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

6 comments:

  1. Sometimes when I'm bored with never ending stockinette projects I use a safety pin to mark my starting round and then plonk myself in front of a film or reading ravelry or something and just knit knit knit. Then I can refer back to the safety pin to see how much progress I've made.

    Hope your sweater speeds up for you soon :)

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  2. I completely agree on the 9" and 12" circular needles. I can't even really hold on to the teeny-weeny 9" needles. But 12" Chiaogoo's are just the ticket. I use them for baby hats, too.

    I used to think having multiple projects going was a bad idea but I find I have to have a plain stockinette project for knitting with friends or in the car with hubby. That way I can visit and not get messed up. And I work on the more complicated projects in the evening when no one expects civility. ;^)

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    1. Your line "evening when no one expects civility" cracked me up and yet it's so true! Thanks for the tip!

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  3. I love knitting with dpns but tended to get ladders, never knew it could be pulling too tight! I like having lots of projects so that I never get bored - all my projects take a long time though!

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    1. Yes, if you pull too tight you get a ladder in the last stitch on the needle since it's getting pulled and not at the join between the two needles. So, oddly the advice I got is to loosen up at the join and it works, but it takes a lot of my concentration as I naturally knit really tight.

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    2. Thank you, I will try that next time.

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