summer sweater knit along - picking up the stitches
Very Shannon
we're almost at the finish line for the
summer sweater knit along ladies. i'm not happy about it though. i'm sad for the kal to end. i've been having so much fun that i think we need to do another one :) i'm also sad because my sweater has gone from something i enjoyed working on to a pain in the ass! man, oh man. who would have thought. i'm at the point now that i just want to "get it done".
i worked for hours and i mean hours on one small section of picking up stitches for my border only to realize after the 5th time ripping it out that maybe i needed some help..haha. i took that bad boy to knit night and my fairy knitting godmother helped me out. there is no stitch count to pick up for my pattern which is fine. i had tried to do the old rule of thumb - 2 sts for every 3 rows but it wasn't enough. the sweater was massively curling and pulling inwards. so instead we took to measuring and separating the border in half, marking it, and then halving the half and marking it again. so 4 quadrants were left. each quadrant requires i pick up a certain amount of stitches. but seriously, it took me the about 2 hours of my knit night time to only get 3/4 of the 66sts i needed picked up. wtf!!!!!!!!!!!! i then went home and stayed up way too late trying to get the other ones done only to realize the next day that i had to rip them out too. i tell ya, i almost chucked that sweater in a ball in my closet to leave in the dark carnivorous corner of wip's that will never see the light of day again but then i thought of all of you, and how much i want this sweater to turn out and instead persevered.
i got a bit more help to finish the picking up of that side and got to work on my ribbing. that part is fast for me thankfully. i was thinking about it last night and realized i was supposed to go from one sleeve to the other but i was bored of the sleeve so i started on the border and now i think fate is testing me from straying from the pattern...lol. maybe i should just do the other sleeve..haha, cause you know what, i started picking up the other bottom border last night and am already on #3 rip out. i'm getting pretty irritated now. my numbers are always off and i think i separated my quadrants badly due to my lack of sleep and working on it in the middle of the night. so today i will be ripping back again and crossing my fingers it will be the last time especially because i still have the whole upper and neck part to still pick up. oh my. at least i can take comfort in the fact that i'm picking them up right...or so i hope...lol....
the only thing keeping me sane while knitting is that my knitpick interchangeable needles came last week!!!!!!!! can we say LOVE! i'll post more on those later. in the meantime i thought i would round up some great posts on picking up those pesky stitches just in case i'm not the only one suffering from the "picking up blues".
so hopefully between these posts, knitting buddies, our ravelry group, the blog & fb we can all work out any issues we have with finishing. it was also brought to my attention that a lot of you would like me to extend the deadline. i'm open to that, and no, not just because i'm not done :P the point of the kal was to get you all knitting so if enough of you all want the deadline moved then we can for sure do that. if you would like to see that happen leave me a comment and let me know. in the meantime, pick up your sticks and let's get clicking. i can't wait to wear this bad boy.
are you stuck on a part of your summer sweater knit along project? are you picking up stitches now? have any tips or questions? let's chat yarnies!
*all conversations about the KAL can be found in ourluvinthemommyhood ravelry group thread here. you can find all the previousKAL posts here. it's never too late to join in! you can also friend me on ravlery.com under luvinthemommyhood. don't forget to email me if you blog about your KAL project, i love seeing how yours is going.
