Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Needlework Tuesday - Sweater Collar and Cold Weather

The last couple of weeks have been less than fruitful with regards to needlework. I had hoped to get my dark rose sweater finished. However, I ran into all kinds of trouble.   When I first started the collar, the ribs didn't quite match up with the body of the sweater.  The pattern didn't state that they had to, but I knew it would look at lot better if they did.   I was quite frustrated with the whole thing, so rather than rip it out, I put it down for a couple of weeks.  When I picked it up again, I really didn't want to pull out the needles and rip back, so I basically worked backwards ripping out individual stitches until I could correct the ribs at the base of the collar.  It's still not perfect, but it's better. 

A few of my other problems stem from being a self-taught left-handed knitter. I'm able to pickup some stuff from the internet/YouTube, however, the left-handed thing is proving to be harder to overcome. Most of the good videos I've found are for right-handers and while sometimes I can figure out how I can to do it, it's not always that easy.

Anyway, the shoulder seams are done and the collar has been added. Here's the latest photo:

 
I should add that the sleeves are done, just not attached yet. Next, I'll be working on the button band, which shouldn't be too bad, as long as I can figure out how to properly pickup and knit stitches. I fumbled my way through that with the collar, but I'm hoping to do it better on the button band, which is much more visible.   I'm also struggling with putting the pieces together, which I never really learned how to do properly.   

I also worked on my temperature scarf. It was brutally cold in December and the colours in the scarf reflect that. I even managed to use the coldest colour (about the 8th ridge down from the top in the photo), which represents daytime high temperatures colder that -30C. Just recently, we've had a warming spell, so I'm back to using some dark and light greens. Yay! Here's the latest segment:
 
 
That's it for this week. I hope to start a new project at some point. I love sitting in front of the TV with a knitting project.   However, neither of these projects are compatible with that.

As you can tell, I'm feeling a bit whiny today.   I'm so done with winter, bad roads and shovelling.  Did I mention that we were rear-ended last week because of the slippery roads?  *sigh*    We're fine, but the vehicle has a major boo-boo.  It's totally driveable, though, so that's something to be thankful for.      
 
Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts.

1 comment:

  1. Your sweater looks amazing. the extra work on the collar was well worth it. I am left handed, but when my uncle taught me to knit (he is also left handed) he taught me right handed. Works well except when I try to graft things like right handers. Can't do it.

    ouch, -30C way to cold for a high. I had to purchase a new 'cold' colour as I had only planned on cold down to -25C and my mystery location reached that in November. Fortunately, I like the new colour a whole lot, so I moved that to second coldest and used it right away.

    ReplyDelete

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