approximately equal progress on 3 projects

My current knitting projects have been in a weird state for the last few weeks.  They all ended up in time-out or on hold for various reasons at about the same time, and they're all now back into an active state.  I think I've spent an equal amount of time on all 3 of them over the last week, which is odd for me.  I usually like to have one main project to focus on and a few fallback projects.

I finished purple sock 1 of 2 on Saturday night, and I cast on the second sock on Sunday.

I decided I do like the cast-on for my colorful striped socks, so they've been living in my purse and getting worked on while I wait for various things, like dinner.

I came up with what I think is a brilliant time-saver for my sweater.  On the final purl row before separating the sleeves, I used the hole in my interchangeable needles to thread in a "life-line".  I then cut it in half (mid-back), removed it from the front/back sections, and left it just in the sleeve sections.  Ta-da!  The sleeves were all set on waste yarn with very little effort on my part.

Now that I've got a few rows of the body, I need to knit my sweater onto a longer cable tonight and try it on.

the sweater - fixing a mistake

I was super happy with my sweater progress.  I managed to finish an entire ball of Cascade 220 Superwash in 5 days while on vacation.  When we got home, I joined the second ball of yarn and knitted it onto a longer cable to try it on ... and noticed I had completely messed up one of my raglan increases 8 rows back (it veers off to the left at the marker).  This is not a mistake I can live with.

First things first, the sweater went into time-out.  I was upset, and that is no time to be trying to fix a mistake that involves increases.  The brain is a wonderful thing, and within a few days I had a plan of attack for how to fix my mistake.

Some of the tactics I used:
1.  I specifically picked Sunday, early afternoon, when the sun is at its best in my living room.  I have a nice light carpet to use as a background for the dark yarn.  I put on the Oakland Raiders game so there was something in the background, but nothing I actually needed to watch (they lost, again).
2.  I used a size 1 circular (recently freed from a sock, so it was easy to grab) instead of a lifeline to mark a good row.
3.  I used some size 4 dpn's (again, recently used and easy to grab) instead of size 7's (which is the needle size I'm using for the sweater).  I put one in place for exactly the stitches I intended to rip down to, which was one row above the "lifeline".  I selected 4 good stitches and got a second opinion.

4.  I followed those edge stitches up and placed markers on my cable so I knew which stitches I would be dropping.  That was 12 stitches.  I used a fresh size 7 circular to knit up to the first marker and then dropped the 12 stitches.

5.  This is my favorite idea that I came up with - I used a hair clip to get all of those squigly bits of yarn out of the way.  I just left the one strand of yarn I was using free for each row.

6.  I carefully knit across using the size 4 dpn's, making absolutely sure I got my increases right this time.  At the end of each "row", I had enough yarn left over that it was still easy to work, and then I carefully redistributed the yarn back across the row so the stitches were even.  Since I was using dpn's, I could knit every row instead of turning and purling.  (increase row, knit plain row, repeat).  There's still a but of unevenness at the edges of the drop section, but I'm pretty sure it will block out.

7.  We celebrated with chocolate (for me only) and by watching the San Francisco 49'ers game (which was going really well until the second half).

sweater the second

Something went click in my brain when I actually completed my first sweater and realized it actually fits.  I wanted to try knitting another one :)  I did a bunch of brainstorming while I was on-call on Saturday and came up with what I wanted to do.  A quick trip to Purlescence later, and I had my yarn and was casting on.  This one will be a cardigan, because that is something I wear all the time.  I did just enough rows to set myself up for airplane/travel knitting.  My project page on Ravelry.

Oh, and my knitting model is back.  I missed her.