Sweater Update

I cast on for my Twigs and Willows sweater at the end of October, but I put it aside for holiday knitting. I finished knitting the second sleeve on our drive to Atlanta for the holidays. Then I eagerly awaited the shipment of my NEW BLOCKING BOARD that my mom got me for Christmas! It was backordered but I got it just after the new year. The lighting isn’t great here, but you get the idea – I seamed the shoulders and blocked the back and fronts. It looks like the back is SO much bigger than the front, but I swear they are pinned to the same measurements. Then I picked up stitches around the neckline and knit a tidy little garter edge, which looks a little pucker-y in this picture because the neckband isn’t blocked but the rest of the sweater is. I think it will relax after getting a little shower (and this is the real color): I draped the sweater over myself and I think it will fit. I’m less sure that the sleeves will fit. I really need to block one of them and try to fit it into the armhole. I might need to rip them back a little and make them longer. Not sure. I’ve been avoiding this issue by simply refusing to block the sleeves. (Someone give me a push, please.)

I also need to pick up the button bands on the fronts, but I didn’t want to tackle that until I had buttons. My class with Margaret Fisher taught me that I should obtain buttons before knitting buttonholes, so that they can be customized and perfect. We don’t really have a lot of places to look for buttons around here. The Manning’s doesn’t carry many, and most are either big giant novelty buttons (for those projects where you only need one button) or little tiny cutesy buttons (for baby and toddler clothes). I tried the Jo-Ann in a nearby town and found these, which are washable (most of the ones that looked right weren’t) and the right size (1”). The only problem is that they only had 4 buttons, and I need 8. They can’t order them for some reason – that’s not how their button suppliers work. But their computer indicated there were more  at other stores within an hour’s drive of here. So guess what I’m doing next Sunday? Driving around trying to buy buttons! (Yes, I checked online, and it appears to be impossible to order these.)I’m going to try a new-to-me technique on the button band – I will sew grosgrain ribbon and backing buttons on the inside of the band(the little pack of shirt buttons will be the backing buttons). I bought two different widths of ribbon because I wasn’t sure what was needed.

While I was waiting for my new blocking board to arrive, I started another sweater. Remember the grey French yarn that I didn’t have enough of to knit a sweater? My awesome friend Nathalie got her parents to buy two more skeins and mail them here – so now I have enough! I went back into the CustomFit software and designed a sweater. It was really fast and easy since I already had my measurements and my swatch data in the system. I chose a simple, stockinette pullover with a boat neck and hemmed edging. I know these pictures aren’t very exciting, but they are proof that I have knit the back of the sweater. I’m currently working on the front. I’m a little concerned that the back looks REALLY long, so I’m going to go back and check my swatch measurements. Maybe the swatch changed in length a lot after washing.This piece of knitting isn’t blocked yet, so it’s curling up all over the place. I’m looking forward to wearing this in the spring. It has 3/4 sleeves.

That’s my sweater update. Next time we’ll have a hat update. I'm starting to fall into a pattern here!