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Category: project – Lazy Days

At Last

The Lazy Days Tunic is finally being blocked. I will assemble it.

This is a necessary statement because over the past few years there have been a couple of projects that have progressed as far as blocking before being packed away and forgotten. I want to wear this sweater, even though it is currently still too hot for that. The weather will turn. It is time not just to knit, but to finish, to unearth the ufos and finish them. Hopefully at least a few of them will be in sizes I can currently wear.

I am somewhat embarrassed that it took me 9 months to knit this sweater. Partially this was due to my own miscalculation, that I did not allow myself a comfortable knitting space. Discomfort also probably fueled my own inability to wrap my head around the instructions. As you saw from the previous post, six months ago, I struggled with the pattern, I can admit this was partly because I didn't spend enough consistent time with it. Only in the last month, knitting and re-knitting the sleeves, did I finally wrap my head around the engineering of the piece. This was not because it was difficult, but merely because I was finally spending time, allowing myself to focus.

There is a shawl pattern to match the sweater, same yarns, called Lazy Days Shawl. I purchased both and am currently knitting the shawl. The exciting news is that I now understand the thing enough that I don't need the pattern to knit the shawl. I can just sit and knit. What a joy.

You will see more as the sweater is assembled and the shawl completed.

September 19, 2018
And onto the Front

This post is way past-due.

The back was finished, or mostly finished. I made a mistake in calculating the decreases, but perhaps it was a combination of that and knitting while tired or knitting while distracted. I have long known that a simple two row repeat is my downfall; for a more complex pattern I know I have to pay attention, but for something so simple, I grow overconfident and stop counting.

When I blocked the bar,, and I intentionally blocked ti before starting the front just to make sure my calculations were correct and my gauge was correct, an error was discovered. Actually, I was rather annoyed with myself. I stayed up late knitting, and I commented to myself more than once that this simple corner seemed to be taking longer than I would have thought. Words of warning indeed. Unfortunately I can be awfully dense.

So the corner was unravelled.

And the thread was steamed straight. The corner was reknit. All is good now. But then I got involved in other things and didn't pick up the front until just the past few days.

The front has finally been started. It looks a lot like the back, well except the color blocking is reversed. But this time I have better muscle memory for the feel of knitting the thing, of the increases and the alternating short-row segments with the two yarns. Alas, I am also distracted by some needlepoint which I have finally decided I need to finish right away as well.

The problem with working on two projects simultaneously is that neither one will be completed "right away".

March 17, 2018
To Knit Again

My knitting mojo is off to a good start in 2018. It is too bad I don't have anything to show for all my time as I just unravelled my current project and am about to start over.

I am knitting Iris Schreier's Lazy Days Tunic and I am really enjoying the process of knitting again. The yarns are ArtYarns' Merino Cloud and Beaded Silk and Sequins and I should have enough to knit both the tunic and the matching shawl. Rather than the lilac shown, I'm knitting mine in Beet Red,

Unfortunately I messed up, and not for the first time. I originally started this in December but my mind wasn't focused enough and I couldn't maintain consistent gauge so I put it aside and started over this January. I still couldn't get gauge, even after trying several sizes of needle and several types of needles — wood, metal, etc. I did manage to get row gauge, which the pattern states is especially important, but my stitch gauge is off but 1/2 stitch per inch, which meant that I had redo the math for the pattern before I started.

I was knitting, pretty consistently and successfully I thought, until yesterday. I took my knitting with me when I went to get a pedicure but I forgot to take the pattern. I thought I could wing it, and I almost did, I knew I was in the part where I was squaring off the shape of the piece, and I thought I had the pattern down (I did), but I didn't realize that I was supposed to decrease stitches on one side (the sequined side), and increase on the other to maintain a consistent edge. In retrospect this makes sense because of the way the pattern is knit on the bias, but I was tired and relaxed and obviously all my mental neurons were not firing adequately, at least in terms of sweater math.

I ended up with a funny little jog, and I knew I'd have to rip back a few rows. I also knew there was an error further down, where I had somehow stopped purling in the middle of the row, and there is a gap in the ridged pattern, kind of in the middle lower left of the top photo above. I was just going to live with it, keep it as a little intentional imperfection.

But then, when I laid the sweater out on the floor I saw that I got my sides reversed on a whole section of the bottom of the sweater, and it looked terrible, purls where there should be knits, no consistent pattern to the spacing between ridges. Obviously the whole thing needed to be ripped out. And so I ripped. It proved to be a little tricky, those sequins catch and snag, so I had to be mindful.

I am excited about starting this project again, and excited about knitting it. I am also happy that I stopped and checked everything before knitting further. Having actually knit part of the sweater, I have a much better understanding of way the pattern works, and I discovered that I had made an error in my initial math. That too has been corrected and the project should be smooth knitting from here. It is not really mindless knitting, but it is fun knitting. And I think this is the first time in a long long while that I am so excited about the whole process, the making, the math, and the anticipation of the finished sweater.

January 20, 2018