Peace Cardi

The one good thing about not being able to finish Damson last week is that it forced me to pick up the Peace Cardi and finish it off. I'm not sure why I kept procrastinating with this one -- it was simple enough and I knew it would end up lovely when it was done. Still, I kept getting distracted by other little bits and bobs instead of just sitting down and doing it.

A couple of days after setting Damson aside, I finished knitting the last two pieces (left and right fronts) and yesterday I finished the seaming and finished the... er... finishing. Once again, I found some cute buttons in my old sewing stash and popped them on, and I'm glad to report that it fits just right.


The only modification I made to the pattern was to make the sleeves for a size one larger than the sweater size I was making. I didn't want the sleeves to be too tight and distort the lace/ribbing pattern. I needn't have worried: they probably would have been fine a size down, but this way I won't have to worry about t-shirt sleeves bunching up in there or anything. Oh, and I made them a full inch longer than the pattern called for.

I like it a lot -- the pattern is polished and beautiful, and the Pima Cotton I used to knit it has a lovely cool shine and drape to it. Another fantastic pattern by Norah Gaughan.

What I'm Up To

I'm getting into the habit of only posting finished objects on this blog... or is it that I am finishing things so fast that I don't have time to post anything else?

I thought today I would take a minute to show you what I'm knitting on, these days.


I haven't posted much for photos of my Peace cardigan, since there isn't much of interest to see. I knit the back first, which is a simple plain stockingette back piece in grey cotton. Then I knit the sleeves, which at least have a bit of a stitch pattern to them, but still are ultimately just a plain grey square-looking sleeve. In the next couple of days, I will cast on for the left and right fronts, where things finally pay off. I will post some more photos once things finally start to get interesting.


One day, a week or two ago, as I was knitting on a sock (or trying on a sock to admire it or cooing over sock patterns or something like that) my HLM suggested that I should knit him some socks. I was understandably excited, since he so rarely asks me to knit him anything at all. His idea was to make some socks based on Freddie Krueger's sweater from the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Simple enough: I just poked around the internet until I found a good combo of rich olive green and a good true red. I also chose to make them in sport weight yarn, so that (even though they are much bigger than the socks I am used to -- and my own feet are large enough already, thanks) they will still knit up fast. As you can see, I turned the first heel this morning. We're both pretty happy with them.

Today's Tips

Tip 1: if you accidentally knit about 8 1/2 inches further on the back piece of your cardigan than you should have (because you read the line that said "knit until piece is 15 inches" but not the line before that, which talked about all the increases to do along the way) and you have to frog it back Eight and One Half Inches, then you should take a separate circular needle and slide it through one side of each stitch in the row you want to rip back to. Then you can pull out your working needle and just rip the knitting back without having to worry about picking up live stitches on that final row, when you're done. You can just pull the yarn until it stops, and the whole row will be sitting nicely on that second needle. For the second needle, I usually use one of a gauge slightly smaller than the working needle, just so it is easier to slide it through all those knitted stitches.

Tip 2: if you turn your tragedy into a helpful tip on your blog, you will feel slightly better about it.

p.s. I have spent all day knitting my way back to where I ended off at the pub last night. A few more inches and my cardigan back will be finished.