Four years ago, Handknits and Hygge put out a call for test knitters and I answered that call. The project in question was the Stormy Open Back Sweater. I’d been meaning to try and knit something for myself for a long time but I think it always got put to one side or pushed down as I said “When I’m skinnier, I’ll knit…. etc”. Well, having done most of my jumper it was the end of the test knit and I always intended to come back to it but other projects and things (and one then two tiny humans) got in the way.
There’s been a lot of de-stashing/sorting/chucking away been going on in our house back in the UK and so during my trip in May, I needed to call in the “big guns” so to speak. Chris had done a great job of getting all my yarn into one place in the kitchen. I was reluctant to take it all to a charity shop as there were odd balls of like 20-30g that would probably binned rather than adopted. I invited ladies from two of my knitting groups to pop by when they had chance.
One of my knitting ladies, came to say hi and to raid the stash, then sat on the floor with the boxes around her and packed all the little odd balls into one bag so that I could make a scrap blanket rather than chuck them. On another visit, my friend J went through my WIPs pile/stash and told me off lol (especially for one cardigan that literally needs sewing together and then it’s finished). When I shared on social media, she said she wasn’t telling me off, she was being encouraging lol.
Having spent a little while this afternoon trying to figure out where I was upto. I decided it would be easier for me to frog the sleeve and start from where you join the working yarn to the held stitches from the body and go from there. It’s definitely going to be a kind of project that I work on while the boys are at school or out or something like that, as there will be counting going on.
I guess the question is will my measurements from 4 years ago still fit now… (also I can’t remember if it was top down or bottom up so might need to get creative to add some inches to the body as it seems too short…).
I think when I was doing the sleeves before I had shorter needles that I had been using but currently I can’t find them. I remember seeing this video from Knitty Natty on YouTube. So after some creative shuffled with my stitches, I’m working with the lace pattern on one needle and then the rest of the sleeve on the other rather than half way being in the middle of the lace bit. Whether this works is another thing but we’ll see how it goes and if not I’ll be off to one of the knitting shops for different needles.
