We will have so much fun knitting this cardigan/ sweater.
Everybody is welcome to join us! Just send us a mail and we'll send you an invitation.

http://www.astridsdutchobsessions.com/

Click on this to find the pattern and a BIGGER picture:
http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=27&d_id=2&lang=en

Administrator: Jeanie Townsend
Moderator: Astrid

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Update and question

First Happy Birthday Astrid, hope you get to enjoy it with your family.

I have been happily knitting but slowly. I only get ot knit a few minutes and not all days, but enjoying it. I have like 9 inches from the bottom, so tow more and I will be doing the increases for the arm steeks.

I have a question about how to handle the 5 middle steeks stitches. At first I was doing all of them in gray, than I did 3 in white and two in gray, intercalated. Then I read that it was better to do the two outside stitches of the steek (the ones that will be close to the knitting), in the color that was in the sweater, which means to have the two outside stitches in gray, I kept using the white in the middle but they look funny, because the last white stitch for the steek was kind of 2 stitches away when I pick that yarn to make the first white steek, it kind of came from the left, so those 5 stiches are looking kind of funny to me.

I may go back adn do all of them in white. How have you done it?

Also, I ended up using I think Cindy's suggestion about having the white yarn in the left and that has almost completely solved my problem of having very small lice. And to think that at the beginning, I knew the effect of having yarn in one hand vs the other and have decided to have the gray always in the left hand, because somebody else also said that you are better off being consistent through out. Well, that proves that every situation is different and you have to judge it and see what gives you the best result.
The only thing that I am not happy is with the 5 middle steeks.

Also, I decided to try the russina join I think is called, so every time that I start a new ball, I use that technique and will not have any ends to tuck in at the end, but the first ones.

Aurita

2 comments:

Annie said...

Hi Aurita,
It sounds like you're enjoying the knitting and learning things along the way, as I have. I've never heard of the join you mentioned (russina?). I alternated grey-white-grey-white-grey (sometimes a color other than white, depending on what was in the row)in the steeks. And I, too, sometimes had to reach over and stretch a yarn from one side of the steek to the other. There's probably a rationale for doing it this way, but I've been doing this for years and don't remember why! Don't worry at all about your knitting pace....I also have little time during the week....plus, if others are ahead, you'll get to learn from their experiences (as I did from Astrid and Cindy about the dreaded rose border). Annie

Cindy Madden said...

Aurita,
My thoughts about the center steek are to make it easier to see the center line when it comes to stitching in preparation for the cutting. (I am not an expert on this however, only having done a couple of other steeked sweaters.) I can see that you might want to have the background color on the outside rows, but in my opinion, it makes it easier to see if you have vertical strips, rather than the checkerboard some authors show. Since I will be machine-stitching the cutting lines, I say: Do what makes sense to you! Each knitted object is a learning experience.