Portable Knitting

Web Slinger Sweater Progress

I have been working on that Spidey cardigan for the last 18 months. I am quite close to completion but I needed to add length so I'm reknitting the front piece. Ugh! But at least I will be happy then. After that I will finish the sleeves, install the zipper (which I still have to order) and knit some side panels to help form it better. I'm probably about 65% done but the rest should go pretty quickly if I focus. I'm hoping to get it done this month. Fingers crossed.

Intarsia progress on Spidey

For all my exceedingly limited knitting time I still find myself compelled to rip back and start over when my knitting isnt close to perfect. My case in point: the Spidey cardigan that I have been working on for a year.

My son insisted that I do the intarsia on the sleeves and not do them plain (oh, it would have been so much faster-sigh). First I printed out graph paper, then I brought the pattern to knit night at a bar down the street and spent the evening charting. This way it was big, readable and I was more familiar with the design structure. I also had to measure the sleeve length and compare it to the sleeves on one of his sweatshirts so I knew the right length. Then I had to figure out how many rows the pattern went and measure that length and then subtract that measurement from the total length to determine where to start the intarsia section. The pattern was written to knit the sleeves from the shoulder down but I prefer the sleeve join better from the wrist up. It just meant a lot of measuring and math.

Then finally I started knitting the intarsia and I totally blanked -- I stranded the body color across the back. Whoops! No good at all. It raised the design element up, cinched the stitches together and was wreaking havoc with the width. After finding a few brain cells left from before children, I realized that the body color should be done with two separate balls, but that meant ripping back some 20-30 rows. I hemmed and hawed but ultimately desided that it had to be done.

I started over on the intarsia with the separate balls of the body color and it is moving along at a good pace. I hope to have both sleeves done in a week. Then I will have the fun job of lengthening the sweater body as it just isn't long enough for as much effort as I have put in. Cursed Kitchener at times though isn't it.

Wrist Warmers for Sarah

New Hat for J

I started out trying to make a hat for my toddler, figuring it would work up pretty quickly. I used this as a chance to do some stash busting. Combing through my yarn remnants I found some Rowan 4-ply Soft and I decided to try using it doubled. I tried to calculate my gauge, but with limited knitting time I just got started.

A great marled knit emerged from the dark blue and dusty purple-gray colors. I continued, mixing pale leaf green with icy blue. I realized as I got halfway that the hat was too large, then that I didn't have enough of those colors to complete the entire crown. I decided to add in generous amounts of white that I had, which I added as a stripe and then the crown.

I thought I might make it for myself, but my almost 5-year-old, with his big head, asked if it coukd be for him, so I finished the crown for a child's head. I completed the gay this week and already it has been worn to school and out and about -- yeah!

Front Panel Progress

Web Spinning on the Bus

I'm back to bus riding to work and so I can work on my knitting during my commute. I love not having to drive and park.

I started the fronts to the Web Spinner pattern over the weekend and I'm not quite halfway done. Thankfully the fronts don't require any intarsia, though both sleeves do. I tried to get out of the extra intarsia but my 4-year-old was very firm about wanting Spiderman signs all over and a zipper in the front. This mom won't back down from a challenge and so I carry on, hopefully in time for Fall.

Toddler Bulky Easiness

With my Web Spinner tiring me out to the point that I've lost my motivation, to the Basketweave Pullover with the dozen pattern row repeats and a chart to follow, I was getting disheartened by my WIPs. Don't get me wrong, I have made progress. I mustered through the back of Web Spinner and finished it but haven't yet cast on for the fronts. I also am finally past the armhole decreases on the back piece of the Basketweave, if only we went on more road trips (with two kids, maybe not).

At any rate, for a while I have been thinking of ways to use up some extra skeins of Cascade 128 left over from a cardigan I knit myself several years ago. I decided that an easy toddler-sized sweater knit it bulky yarn would be a treat and so it has been so far.

I envision it as a raglan, shawl-collared pullover, though in researching patterns on Ravelry it looks like there is a neat asymmetrical neck opening off of the raglan that might be a reasonable design alternative. I basically making it up as I go along and it has been truly satisfying to be whipping this garment out. The kids have been keeping me so busy that I hardly have time to think let alone knit. You should see me trying to steal snatches of in-between times to knit even part of a row.

Recharting the Chart

After struggling endlessly with the intarsia chart for the back of the Web Slinger cardigan I finally gave up and decided it was time for drastic measures. I printed knitters graph paper from my computer and I am creating a new chart to work from.

The old chart was wobbly, faint, tiny and impossible to count or track against. I'm sure the new chart will be perfect for getting this intarsia section under control and behind me. I will be able to do my trick if paperclipping a card on top of the chart and then slowly slide it row by row until I'm done -- this really does help so much.

In the meantime I brought out the Basketweave cardigan and was working on that the other night as the baby had a fitful night with a stomach bug and I just had to ride out the worst of it until he was able to rest for a decent stretch. Poor little guy has now had RSV (and was hospitalized), a flu-like illness and a stomach bug all since mid-January. The luck of being the second child? Heck if I know but I swear I try to get my older son to wash his hands and not touch his face.

Enough with the illnesses!

Spider-man cardi for J

I've been working on this for a couple months, I bought the yarn at the end of last year, and have slowly been making progress on it.

So far it has been a bit frustrating with knitting this odd edging from the pattern (12 rows) that wasn't in the pattern photos and not liking it so ripping back and starting over. Then the stitch counts were inaccurate for the body which required some math; not difficult, just a pain. Then the chart for the intarsia is really small and not clear and so I've had to start over that part on the back twice. I'm about half done with the back bowels can't wait to clear the intarsia section. Knitting while caring for young kids is challenging enough without having to redo work because of the pattern.

Oh well, I know he is going to love it in the end.

Toddler Mittens

Toddler Mittens

Cascade 220

CO 28, #7 dps

Ribbing: K1p1 l1r
K2r
Increase for palm/thumb: K12 m1 k4 m1 k12
K1r
Repeat last two rows until there are 10 stitches between the set of 12 sts Kthumb
K12 leave on st
NGO K10, dividing btw 2 needles and join into 10sts loop, leave remaining 12 sts on holder
K6r K2tog, k1 to end of next row
K2tog to end of row, leave long tail and sew through remaining 4 st loops

Rejoin yarn to just before the thumb and continue to knit for 12r