Fall Down, Get Up

I did promise a picture.

Autumn colors for my friends in other places.

Yeah, about that colorwork sweater. It is steeked. I painstakingly measured the sleeves against the body four or five times, then marked the depth. Checked the second sleeve a couple of times for good measure. So. Why, I ask you, when I started sewing the sleeves on, did I come up with the steeks an inch too deep? It is a profound mystery. One of the few un-fixable errors in knitting, and I went and did it. I put the sweater back in the knitting basket and we stared at one another for most of last week. At the end of the week, I pulled the sweater back out and wonder of wonders-- the steeks were still too deep. Drat. I'd hoped it would see reason. As in, "I measured you four times, you can't be wrong!".

Fortunately while the error cannot be *fixed* it can be worked around. I ripped back the last pattern band on the sleeves and reknit them with extra increases so the sleeve width at the end now matches the steeks. Then I sewed it all together and had my husband try it on. I'm now really glad that I made the sleeves wider, because it's still just a tad tight. Nothing that can't be resolved in blocking, I think. Still, I'm puzzled. I know the EZ percentages are a guideline, but after the first sweater I made using these I increased the sleeve width--and the sleeves are still tighter than I'd have liked. This is something I'll clearly have to do some additional work on the next time I knit a sweater using percentages. Then further progress was temporarily stymied by feline assistance. Isn't that too cute to move?


However, onward. I extracted the sweater from under the cat, and started the neck. Stopped and wove in all the ends (because I hate finishing the neck, getting all excited about being done, and then realizing I have two hours of weaving ends still ahead of me).

I got a third of the way around the neck with a vague sense that there was something not right. And then I remembered that the last crew neck sweater I made, I had to make sure I had a stretchy seam to ensure that the neckline wasn't too tight. And I was being very careful of that, because I'd cast off edges and picked up instead of leaving live stitches. This was to try and combat the tendency of my husband's sweaters to stretch out at the neck. (It may have worked a bit too well.) So...I unsewed the start of the neck, contemplated schemes for introducing a bit more stretch, but not too much, firmly returned the colorwork sweater to the basket for the evening (it was almost 11, I wasn't going to accomplish anything more on it that day), and picked up a green Aran sweater sleeve.

The green Aran sweater still loves me.