Skully Progress

 I really cranked out a lot of knitting yesterday!

This was about how much I was expecting to get done:

A little more than halfway down the back. (Yes my photo is upside down. Apologies.)

But, though my hands began to ache, I kept knitting! Of course, I stretched my wrists and fingers and shook out my hands every so often because ergonomics. But I'm really impressed with how much knitting I got done from the point I got off work until about midnight. I managed to complete the front on my lunch break and so I knitted the entire back AND got the shoulders together by the time I went to bed.

It's not much to look at yet, and I am a little worried that it is going to be a little smaller than I had intended. I cast on for the Medium 42" size, but I'm thinking since I wanted oversize I maybe should have gone for the 44." Thanks to the pandemic and my own laziness I am perhaps no longer a medium.

One possible fix I have considered is, after finishing the sleeves, going ahead and crocheting a side panel in. I just haven't decided how exactly I would do it since obviously I would want both sides to match, and I'm considering adding in a gusset to give my armpits a little more wiggle room. Either that, or deal with it being a tighter fitting sweater than I had really intended or worse ripping the whole thing out and starting over. The yarn, however, doesn't seem to rip out too nicely. A little bit sticky.

The way this sweater is constructed is kind of irritating: you pick up and knit the sleeves right onto the garment. I picked up the first sleeve last night and knit about an inch of stockinette before starting the chart. This is how the sleeve looks currently:

So far I haven't made any changes to the pattern. I was planning on binding off the sweater's shoulders and then seaming the tops together, but my seaming wasn't looking so pretty thanks to the weird needle I was using combined with the bulky yarn. So I ended up ripping out my bind off and doing as the pattern says: doing a 3-needle bind off to knit the shoulders together. 

The sleeves are much smaller to knit than the front and back and so I definitely plan on finishing the first sleeve today. I haven't decided yet if I plan on tapering the sleeves or just decreasing sharply right before the ribbing. Because it is going to be ribbing although the pattern calls for a garter stitch edge.

In other crafty news, I discovered a new-to-me channel on YouTuber who I have absolutely fallen in love with. Her name is Kayla and she is a goth crocheter. Absolutely adorable. Her website is here and her channel is here. After I finish my Skully sweater, my You Are Enough Shawl, my Fairy Maiden socks, and actually finish moving and get to unpacking all my yarn I absolutely want to try my hand at one of her spooky designs.

OH SHOOT I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION!!!!! I shared my progress pic on Facebook and the guy I gave my 2nd Skully sweater to commented. He said "Built to last! I still wear mine!" You have to keep in mind- I made and gifted this sweater to him well over 12 years ago, so that really warmed my heart. <3

Happy Knitting!