Let's hear it for the boys!

Absolutely IN LOVE with the Gathering stripes for my little man.  Such an adorable little sweater and it works up so fast!  That's probably my favorite thing about knitting for them.  It's almost instant gratification, even when you're working with fingering weight.  I made the neck a little shorter and a little snugger than the pattern calls for.  I think it'll fit him better. 

I'm maybe 15 rows away from finishing the sleeves on the Brownstone YAY!  Like I said before, I'm modifying this to have set in sleeves rather than the raglan.  I added notes on how I'm working the sleeves to my project page on Ravelry.  In a nutshell, the sleeves are knit in the round, and at the point where I'd join to the body, I'm just knitting it flat and working the shaping.  So far, so good.  It looks like it's going to work out fine.  When I get to the armhole, I'll add those notes too.

Like so many others, knitting sleeves is no fun for me.  I think that's why I try to get them done as early as possible.  If it's bottom up, I'll knit the sleeves before starting the body.  If it's top down, I'll knit until I divide for the sleeves.  Once I've divided, I'll continue knitting the body with whatever ball of yarn I'm working with.  As soon as that ball is done, I'll pick up and knit both of the sleeves, two at a time on magic loop.  After the sleeves are done, I start back on the body...the fun part. 

I knit everything that is in pairs on magic loop two at a time.  I have this fear that I'm going to knit a pair of socks or sleeves that will turn out drastically different from one another because I was stressed or more relaxed when I was knitting one.  My gauge can change according to what's going on in my life that day.  I figure if I'm going to have tighter/looser socks, I might as well have a matching pair of tight/loose socks.  Maybe it doesn't bother some other people, but it drives me insane to wear something with a noticeable difference in the fit from one side to the other.

I tried one of the sleeves on my hubby last night.  I wanted to see how the shaping in the sleeve cap was working out on his body.  This man knows me well.  As he's standing there wearing a sleeve that is almost done, we have the following conversation.

Hubby: Wow, the sleeves are pretty much done!  That means I'll probably have a finished sweater in a couple weeks!
Me: Really?  How do you figure that?
Hubby:  Well, you always knit the body really fast, but the sleeves take a long time to finish.  You've already finished the sleeves, so the body will be done in no time!


yup.... And while I'm talking about the things my hubby says about my knitting, he said something the other night that I found kinda funny.

The sleeves were only a couple inches past the elbow, and I had him try one on.  I had previously made a mistake and not changed the needle after the cuff.  That's right, I knit a lovely 15 inches of sleeve on the wrong needle. So this was a fresh new 14 or so inches. So I get the sleeve on him, and he says "This is going to be so nice.  I'm really glad you took up knitting."  HAHAHA!!  Maybe it was a had-to-be-there moment, but I thought it was funny. 

xoxo,
Liz