Two

Finished!


The Man's blue self-striping socks. This was a Regia wool/cotton/polyamid blend, 64 stitch cast-on, size 2 needles at the top and size 1s a few inches down. They are saggy at the top. The Man says he doesn't care, bless him. These took about six weeks to make.







The Man's grey raglan sleeve sweater, handsomely modeled by The Man himself, and posted with permission. This took about three months. Worked in the round on size 7s with a double strand of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed (bought on clearance) in two different shades of grey. I don't much like finishing, so I thought I'd try raglan sleeves, which involve minimal finishing. I liked working in the round in plain stockinette stitch. It was good movie knitting (although I dropped some yarn on the sticky movie-theater floor. Don't tell The Man.) because it was mindless and easy. That is not to say that it didn't kick my ass. For example, sleeve number 1 was worked without increases because I didn't turn the page in the pattern book. This looks a little narrow for The Man's manly biceps, I thought. So I got to rip it back for a do-over. Also, I was about to bind off at the neckhole when I realized that I had managed not to work the shoulder decreases symmetrically. The Man volunteered to walk around like Quasimodo when he wore it so no one would notice, but I decided I could do better. I ripped it back and reworked the shoulders. The first time, I did a k2tog, SSK at the seam every other row. I wanted a more obvious join, so the second time around, I did a K2tog, K2, SSK to make the decrease more distinct. Much better.


Bonus: Since I bought this yarn on clearance with no project in mind, I had no idea whether I even had enough for a sweater. It turns out that there is plenty left over, so I'll probably make socks and mittens.


Still in progress:

1. Beagle blanket. Big, ugly, chewable, and machine washable, plus I get to use up the brown acrylic that's been in the basement for about 10 years.
2. Firebird socks. Sock 1 is done. I am trying to turn the heel on sock 2, but I was KWH and ended up with non-symmetrical short rows despite my copious use of stitch markers, so I ripped back the heel.
3. Monsoon socks. Sock 1 is done. I am working the foot on sock 2, which is good Metro knitting until I get to the heel.

Next in line: dog sweater, grey mittens, grey socks, monkey socks, Bunny cardigan. I need something small and mindless for the Metro, The Man needs mittens (he's hard on mittens--he likes to wear them while shoveling snow so they get all felted and curly), I promised I'd learn Fair Isle by doing a Fair Isle doggy sweater, and I want a new cardigan for the office.