it fits

We did Christmas today with my family and I tried mom's sweater on her, complete with dangling needles and yarn ends and balls of yarn here and there.

And it fits! Well, what there is of it. It needs a few more rows on the front bands than I thought. And there is less of the sleeves left to knit than I thought. I'll need to do some figuring about the sleeve decreases but if I start now, they'll be pretty drastic. I may have to frog a few rows and start the decreases sooner... We'll see. I'm not up for the figuring this evening. Eight hours of driving (well, riding) takes it out of me.

On the way up there, I decided I needed to do some sock knitting. I was feeling uncertain about the sweater fit and there is sooo much of it now. There will not be seaming later, but the other side of that coin is that there is a lot of sweater and it's complicated to turn and knit back on a row.

Back to the sock, I decided I wanted to start knitting my latest handspun, the spunky eclectic grand opening color. I have spun enough, I think, for two sock feet and have the fiber batched up in queue to spin for the legs. It feels a little like cheating to start knitting before I'm done spinning. But, knit I did, and one foot is over half done. It's toe-up with a simple 3x1 rib on the upper foot area. It's doing a trekking style stripe. Pictures tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

A note about Christmas knitting... I decided to line the sari silk bag and take it as one of my gifts. We've been doing the dirty santa style exchange and last year there was a problem with clogs I intended for one nephew, who turned out to not be so interested in picking that gift... We this year, my niece brought her new bf (well, he's not new to her but it was his first time to meet the extended family.) Well, he opened the silk bag when some other gift was stolen from him... And no one stole it from him. He probably thinks we're weird. Or at least a gift exchange where a guy gets a knitted silk bag is weird. I'm hoping my niece likes the bag. Or she re-gifts it to someone who likes it... In any case, there will be no knitting for unknown recipients next year. Remind me next year, if my memory fades.

mom's sweater

So now that Irish Moss is done, I'm concentrating on mom's sweater. Here she is as of earlier today:



And it's going pretty well but there is a problem on the front, I was going to say front right or front left but it occurred to me that I dont know whether it's left or right, because it's garter and I don't even know which side is the right side...

Anyway, on the pic above, it's on the side where the front panel is wider. The last three inches have some odd loose gauge.



They're almost ruffle-y. I have no explanation. I had no idea that I could knit with the same yarn and the same needles and get such a difference. When I noticed the looser rows, I let them rest and started working on the other side. I was kidding myself when I thought maybe the stitches would ease in? I'll be frogging a few inches.