Called my sister up last night (we shall deem her "Sock Queen" or "Sock Sis" because her first wearable knitting project she tackled as a novice was socks, brave woman) to help me find someone with advice on knitting sweaters in one piece. Where I live I know there are other knitters around but I haven't exactly ventured out to find them, tackle them with my project, and inquire about their past knitting experience. Basically what I am knitting is a sweater for my father-in-law. It's knitted bottom-up with 2 tubes for sleeves and one big one for the body. I've almost reached the point of where you join the sleeves to the body and are supposed to knit the rest of the way up, raglan style. The pattern I have was free off the internet and a pretty good pattern but when I read the instructions on joining everything together there are no pictures (bummer, I LOVE pictures) and very simple instructions on how you knit so many #ed sitches here, there, there, and there, marking the joining points in 4 places. My inner perfectionist freaks out and screams "it can't be that easy!!!!" and the more rational side simply repositions the post-it notes so that I can't even see that step and takes the nutty half in the other room for some tea and sympathy.
So anyway, I call up the SQueen and she does know someone who could help and would love to talk about it. Love you, sis.
It's been really great knitting this sweater. It's mainly stockinette stitch with ribbing up the outside of the sleeves and up the sides. It's in a really soft almost navy blue acrylic (my father-in-law said no wool, nothing heavy, and tight cuffs) that would wear great here. We are in Louisiana, USA and wool is only an option maybe 3 days in January and that's if the sun doesn't come out in the afternoon. He's also very warm natured so he doesn't wear sweaters much anyway.
I work for my father-in-law (great set-up for a former stay-at-home mom who still has a 15 month-old to take care of) so it's been fun letting him see the sweater-in-progress while we meet up to discuss work-to-be-done. I had always brought my knitting up to the office (along with my to-be-copied folder and my son in the baby sling) so the secretary and office manager were already well-aquainted with me, my kids, my life, and my previous projects. In fact, the previous projects are how this particular project started. I had been bringing my 1st sweater in pieces that whole month to show the secretary and had finally brought the finished sweater. While they were looking at it, my father-in-law made a comment that he had always wanted a sweater but they were always too heavy and warm. I instantly said I could knit one he could wear easy and jumped on the challenge to find a pattern that would look good and be one he would actually wear.
Fast forward to where we are now, through extensive searches at the local big-chain book store Sock Sis lovingly calls Buckets of Noodles (which she has every right to call, huh?) and knittingpatterncentral.com. (By the way, good luck to anyone looking for men's patterns to knit; there either aren't many or I was looking in the wrong places). For the body, 18" long in 5 stitches per inch stockinette stitch gauge 220 stitches around did get old after a while but I'm glad I stuck with it. (Can you tell I'm working on learning life lessons here?) The sleeves weren't as hard to complete because they had the occasional increase when things got a little boring, plus they were only ~83 stitches around. And now I'm ready for the jump to making them all into one lovely garment. And ladies, the ribbing on the form of a man's arm is gorgeous. I know because I've been trying the sleeves on my husband to make sure I was knitting it right.
Hubby doesn't wear sweaters at all, poor thing. He's even more warm-natured than his dad. He has agreed to socks, though, as long as they are LSU colors. :)
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