Today's Progress(?)

I worked up to the last bit of the body for my ringwood sweater. I like 'em long, so it's a total of 21". Then, while Vyvyan was napping, I cast on for the first sleeve.

I wanted to make a nice, fitted sleeve, because I didn't want it to poof out at the wrist after the ribbing so I did five inches or so of that before realizing -horror of horrors- the increases were screwing with my stitch pattern. Rather than figuring a way to make it work out, I ripped and re-cast on this time for a full sleeve.

I got as far as switching needles. I hate knitting sleeves on DPNs, by the way. I'm the kind of person who gets ladders sometimes in her knitting and rather than pulling tightly I just pay no mind until the sweater or sock is done and then I lament. So I switched from size 5 dpns to size 7's. I increased a total of 24 stitches in a single row. I worked the ringwood pattern for several inches.

It occured to me that I was getting to the point where I could probably switch to circulars now.

Where were my 16" circulars anyhow?

Oh yeah.

Remember the really big hat I cut up?

After realizing that I had cut a bit too far up, and that the cable couldn't be knit upside down, I kind of left this project on my dresser for a while.

So I finished that up.

And yes, it fits, and yes, I learned Jeni's surprisingly stretchy bind off from Cat Bhordi's video, which can be found here on Youtube.

I didn't take a picture of the completed hat because of what ended up happening to the sleeve.

I worked on the sleeve for quite a while. I tried it on repeatedly and tried to ignore the extent to which it pooched out away from my wrist. 24 stitches is a lot to increase in one row. And my stitch gauge? It's 5 stitches to the inch. I increased 5 inches RIGHT at my wrist- the skinniest part of my damn body, excluding fingers and toes.

Needless to say, it looked horrible. I'm going to have to find a way to do that fitted sleeve without it looking like hell. If I can't make it look pretty no matter what, I'm just going to have to tuck the seam on the underside of the sleeve and pretend I don't know it's there.

I did not take a picture of the full sleeve, as it disgusted me to look at.

After seven inches or so - long enough that I could no longer kid myself about the kind of thing I was creating- I ripped.

Oh, and guess what else I found out today?
Remember how I ripped the body out because it was 30" around? Then how I ripped it out again because I forgot to switch needles and it was still 30" around? I think that was the knitting Gods, trying desperately to tell me "CECILIA! YOU HAVE USED AN INCREDIBLY STRETCHY STITCH PATTERN! 30 INCHES CAN GO AROUND YOUR CHEST JUST FINE AND WILL HUG YOUR FIGURE BEAUTIFULLY!"

Yeah. The sweater is big.

I don't really have anything else to say. Today was an abject failure and I have no knitting with which to console myself. I already watched Dr. Horrible's singalong blog, and that didn't even help.

ahhh sir, times is hard.