Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

Finished! Early, actually. It was washed, blocked, and being worn to a party on Saturday. But I didn't get a picture until today, because... well, I have no excuse, I just didn't. I should try to get a better one, but probably won't.



Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

1. The Joggless Jog. Although I'd call it the less-jog jog, I think, my sleeves look better than the picture on Knitty, and I should have taken a closeup but I didn't. Definitely worth doing, anyway.
   
2. Color matters. I may actually rip out the entire body and reorder the stripes, because right now it does a fantastic job of minimizing my breasts and enlarging and drawing attention to my waist. I mean, yeah, I'm shaped like that, but there's no reason to emphasize it.
   
3. Horizontal stripes do not flatter. Even if they look good on the model.
   
4. I have boobs. Twenty-eight years of being small chested has led me to disregard any instructions for the busty. The sweater is four inches shorter in the front than the back, leading to weird bunching and just... oddness. Next time, short rows.
   
5. I don't have to slavishly follow a pattern. I'm short-waisted, and I made the sweater what, two inches shorter than the pattern called for? Something like that. And it's a good length. Yay! (Now, be confident enough to add those short rows).
   
6. The norwegian purl is hell on the wrists. Not worth bothering with.
   
7. 3x1 Ribbing isn't really that bad, and it keeps you from dropping stitches 'cause it's like tiny pattern repeat markers every four stitches.
   
8. Weaving in ends, however, really is that bad. And I'm terrible at it. I didn't trim the ends in case I do rip out and reorder the stripes, but even if I don't, I think pulling them out and redoing them isn't a bad idea.
   
9. AC Moore Luxury Aran is a very soft, pilly yarn. I've heard the same thing about the Cashmerino that the pattern calls for, so I'm not too fussed about it. We'll see how it looks after a few washing/shavings.
   
10. I can finish a sweater. Quickly, too. Now I have no excuse.
    

I had a bunch of yarn left over (including an entire ball of teal) so I started on a bonus: some Custom-Fit Fingerless Mitts. Super fast - I finished most of the first on the metro - and seriously easy. I should have the second done tomorrow, then I can weave in ends, wash, block, and have a custom accessory for my sweater. Nifty!

(Picture including my extraneous third leg:)

Progress Pics

Well, I meant to be posting these as I went along, but I was too busy knitting! So this is like the stop-motion version of my Tubey progress?

Valentine's Day (with help from sweetie):



Feb. 20 (getting close!):



Feb. 22 (done enough to try on):

Closer!

I know I haven’t updated – too busy knitting! I have some pictures, but since the husband took the camera one night, I totally got out of the “picture every day” thing. Which is totally a bummer, because a daily record of this project would have been neat. I’m up to the last colored stripe on the body – except I’m going to add one final, tiny stripe, so sort of not. I didn’t follow the pattern too closely. For one, I have three CCs instead of 5, and for two, I didn’t feel like fiddling with tiny scraps of yarn. I was impressed with the last teal stripe I did – I looked at the yarn left in thte ball and said, oh yeah, that’ll do me one more row. And it did. With 5” left. Just enough to weave in!

Ugh. Weaving in. I did a few ends while watching Murderball over the weekend, but yeah, that was one sleeve worth. Not looking forward to that. I should look up end-weaving, see if there’s a better way to do it than I do. Hates it.

But, there’s a party on Saturday, and maybe I’ll have this sweater done for it! Wouldn’t that be fun? (Hope it doesn’t look horrible. There’s still a chance of unravelling and reknitting the sleeves...)

Tubey Lurve

Well, I'm bummed I didn't take a progress pic last night. I finished the stripes on the first sleeve. Today's goal is to finish the rest of that sleeve (only 1 more inch!) and get up to the stripes on the second sleeve. Probably no pictures until tomorrow, though, what with Valentine's stuff going on and my mother-in-law leaving town and all.

In the community spirit, I went through and checked out all the Knitting Olympians who had signed up with Tubey. Here's the final list of participants I got who mentioned they were actually knitting it. I know it's not about the competition... but I am! I need motivation, so there you go.

Of course, towards the end of that list, I finally found the Team Tubey I'd been looking for. And I joined. Neat!



I wish I'd looked at it earlier. My sleeves are definitely too big - next time I think I'd just make the size S sleeve with the size M body. Or something. Must check to see how other people are handling this.

And in other bad news, my office becomes Monkey Central starting tomorrow. Could be worse - it was supposed to start today. But it means I can't knit. And the other part of my job, where I have to sit in a little overheated room and do nothing for an hour three times a week? Printer's out for service, so that's cancelled too. Baaaaah.

Tubetastic!

Boy I'm glad I'm past the flat part. Hooray for knitting in the round! I'm using the short Denise cable, which seems to be fine. Much easier than digging out the dpns, certainly. Did I mention I had to go down to a US6 for this pattern? I think the biggest DPNs I have are 5's anyway. Well, and 15's. Either way, not very useful.

It's actually longer than this now, and I'll do a few more rounds tonight, but I had to stop to take a picture ANYway, so went ahead and captured the sleevelet in all its tubey glory.

The picture I had to take? Esme finding herself a pile of handknits left to dry after playing in the snow today (note both scarf AND hat):

Blog? Oh, yeah.

Well, I hadn't posted because all I had to say was "finished five more rows on the pi shawl" over and over, which seemed kind of dull. I'm up to the last row of the second lace bit (using the pattern from Best of Knitters). It will never, ever be done. It's a good thing this baby isn't due until... um... later. (Keep forgetting to check! Bad friend.)

I'm about to double the stitches again. Woe!

(The giant mutant strawberry... er, pi shawl:)



At any rate, it's a good thing this Knitting Olympics thing is going on. Gives me a good excuse for a break! I just hope we have a cold March, so I get to actually wear this sweater.

But not yet, I'm thinking:



It's kind of neat. I'm using Lion microspun for the shawl/blanket, which is very smooth and slippy and thin. (And fuzzing, in the center. Should it do that? I've heard good things about how it wears, which is why I used it. I'm hoping washing improves it - if not, it will be an enormous lace dishrag, and if so, oh well.) So switching to the knockoff Cashmerino is like knitting with squooshy soft rope.

By the way, so far, so good - I've been using my 40% off coupons to buy balls of the AC Moore Luxury - $3.75 (including tax) a ball instead of what, $9 for the Cashmerino? Mom's been helping, but HER AC Moore never has black in stock, so there has been quite a bit of color-swapping shenanigans going on. And then there's the predicted snowstorm (which so far seems to be rain), which meant that I swapped some of the black I had for some colors that mom has, and will do the reverse next week.

But think of the savings!