pepperknit

Last night I finally got myself to knit again, and I knit up the whole right front. And then, about two rows from the end of the decreasing, I realized that there were too many stitches on the needles, because I’d forgotten about those initial two rows, in which you k2tog at the beginning and end of one of them! Argh! So I pulled it all out, hence the going down. The knitting of this part takes only about 20 minutes, so it wasn’t so much time lost, but still, it was irritating. I’m now back up, and I’m nearly finished with the right front (probably only four more rows before I work 2 inches of strap).

I finished the left front of the X-back, and have simply stalled out. I’m bored! I don’t want to knit! It’s hot, I’ve been going to the gym a lot, and by the time I’m done with dinner I’m not much in the mood to do anything. Once I get myself back on track, however, it should be no problem to finish.

The only forseeable problem is going to be estimating the straps without having my mom try the top on. I want to present her with a finished product, but I also want it to fit right. I think I’ll make my best guess but won’t totally finish it off (I’ll do the bindoff but I’ll leave long tails hanging). That way I can further tweak it if necessary. Maybe I’ll err on the side of too long so that I won’t have to worry about needing more ribbon.

I finally started knitting the x-back for my mom last night, after a complete knitting hiatus. I took out most of what I’d started already, leaving one ball’s worth knitted up to deal with later. So, a few details:

Yarn: Katia Ola #38 (blue and white stripe)
Needles: US 11
Size: S

I’m using 95 stitches instead of the called-for 96, becuase who in the world writes a pattern in seed stitch but keeps the number of stitches even! I knit up one whole ball last night.

Ribbon yarn really takes some getting used to. I am more than a bit obsessive about the tape not folding up or twisting into something small–ideally each stitch is a full width of tape lying on the needle. It’s something of a struggle at first, but eventually I get it. Took about half of the ball last night to get it; it also required a lot of untwisting, which the last x-back never needed.

Mom’s bday is July 25, so I have just a little over a month–should be no problem.

I sent my mom pictures of me in the x-back and her reaction was so enthusiastic that I think I’ll make the current project for her instead of me, which solves the problem of owning identical homemade items myself and also helps with the whole gift giving awkwardness. I mean, c’mon, it’s my mom, she’ll love whatever I make her!

Unfortunately, my mom is smaller than me, so I’ll have to drop the size a bit, which means frogging the ball and a quarter I’ve already knit. But that’ll just add another–what–two hours to the total time spent on this version? I can handle that.