Linda has been knitting for less than two months now and she can’t believe how relaxing it is to sit in the evening and knit. She has been very busy, completing a baby sweater for new grandchild Pria, a baby sweater, and is also working on a wonderful alpaca afgan for the family room. I am impressed. The problem is that knitting the pieces of the sweater is fun, putting them together is another thing all together.
I actually don’t mind sewing sweaters together, although you might not believe that considering all the projects I have piled up in the corner here waiting for me to block them and put them together. I don’t mind the activity, it just takes time and care and I have not had the time, or have not been willing to devote the time, to that activity of late.
I showed Linda how to block the sweater and why. We started to steam block it because she wanted to put it together the same day and that did not leave ample time for cold-water blocking. Then we started sewing it together. She picked up the technique right away, and understand why. She just disliked the slow tedious nature of sewing up. Well, of course, if she continues to hone her skills she will get faster. But she needs the sweater in a few days to fly out to little Pria’s christening.
We had a great afternoon and a lot of fun but did not get a lot of sweater sewing done. Linda thought she would rather pay someone else to assemble the sweater but our telephone calls went unanswered. In the end I said I could put it together this weekend, which I can. This won’t become a habit but I am really impressed by how much she is enjoying this and how quickly she is picking up the technique. She has much more native knitting ability than I did when I was learning. 
I really want to encourage her to keep on, not get all bogged up trying to put a sweater together in a rush.
I decided to reblock the sweater just because her iron did not have much steam and we really did not do that great of a job with it. I pinned it up yesterday before we went in to NYC. I can sew it up tonight or tomorrow and she will pick it up on Monday. Notice how even her stitches appear; it took me a long time to get that comfortable with knitting.
