Tuesday, March 17, 2015

It's Not over until its Over.

Funny thing about this race.  Dallas Seavey will probably be getting to Nome in the wee hours tomorrow morning, for his third Iditarod Win.  The race doesn't end there.  Until the last musher allowed comes into Nome, winning the Red Lantern, this race goes on.  There's a bit of money even for those at the back of the pack.

So maybe another 5 days until the Red Lantern, meaning I have that amount of time to complete the sweater that never ends.  Usually enjoy fair isle but didn’t take into consideration that this sweater is way more than 60 inches around what with the body and two sleeves in an XL. So about every 20 stitches I have to drop the two strands I’m holding to shove stitches along the cable. Was really really glad to get back to only using one color. 


I think next time this might be approached differently. I like working up 2 sleeves at once, although leap frogging on 2 separate sleeves would work too. It’s the attaching and then the huge mass to keep moving and the stitches on the cable too. Perhaps a larger gauge with a larger needle would feel better. 
Am using Rowan felted tweed which is classed as DK so I thought I’d be using US 6 or 7 needles but it's more like a heavy fingering or sportweight yarn so I’m using US 5’s. Sorry to whine. 5 more rounds and I can bind off a bunch of stitches for the deep collar area and go into row knitting. By then I should be noticing fewer stitches, I hope. I also hope I can get this done by the Red Lantern. This race is moving so fast. Thought I could keep up with Ellen Halverson but she scratched, sigh. And now the one's in last place are moving right along.

And here's one of Jessie Royer's pups.
  
Isn't she the sweetest.




2 comments:

Linda said...

Beautiful sweater; can't wait to see it finished. I love knitting Fair Isle, though it is a daunting task.

Susan (and SmokeyBlue in spirit) said...

Thank you. I think trying to do fair isle along with a zillion stitches is the mistake I made. I see on another sweater that they have you doing the fair isle before attaching the sleeves to the body so each set is separate and must be easier to handle.