A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

July 20, 2004

Send in the Small Norwegians



I finished my camp project. It's a teeny Norwegian sweater. I made it up as I went along using Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system as a guide. I still need to get buttons. I fudged so many things on this sweater. Like the steeks. Eek! It's a train wreck inside that little cardigan. I "tacked" everything down tonight with thread but still... One crochet steek failed and I was left with this huge mess of cut ends. Then the front bands were just a pile of fuzz without enough sweater to fold over to cover it.

Also I don't think I handled the neck properly and would love some feedback on this. I cast on 92(?) stitches, knit the corrugated ribbing then increased up 4 or 6 stitches above the ribbing. I knit straight up until the body was 8 inches. I put 10 stitches on thread for a kangaroo pouch and cast on three stitches above it. I knit straight to 10 inches. I cut the neck steek. I divided the stitches evenly for the front and back (is this the right way to do it?). I grafted a few stitches over the shoulder then I cut my steeks for the arms. Then I panicked and did a three needle bind off for the rest of the shoulders. I picked up stitches around the arm holes and knit the sleeves down to the cuffs. Then it occurred to me that the neck hole looked teeny-weeny. I feel like there was some step in the arm hole placement and shoulder bind off that could have made the cack of the neck bigger. Of course, this sweater is for an imaginary child or stuffed animal so it doesn't matter that the neck is small. But the point of the whole exercise is to understand how this type of sweater is constructed so please any advice would be appreciated.