Day 18

NaNo count
Have: 29,611
Need: 30,003

I ended up not buying myself the sneakers as my midpoint reward (decided they were too practical to be a treat) and bought myself this print from Oh My Cavalier instead:

I love the image as well as the story behind it:
"This drawing was inspired by the story of Eugene Schieffelin, the man who tried to introduce all the birds mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare into the Americas. On March 6th 1890 he released a few cages of starlings into Central Park, and now starlings are among the most common birds in the US."

I did a fair bit of knitting this weekend.

Here's what the Hex Coat looks like now:

I sewed the sleeve caps in, but am holding off on sewing the side and sleeve seams. I think the row gauge is going to relax a bit when it's washed and I don't want to deal with the seams pulling.

I made a shocking lot of progress on the black cardigan, which will henceforth be known as Geraldine, in honor of the blogger who inspired it. My goal for the weekend — which I wasn't even expecting to reach, I might add — was to knit up to the armholes and do the calculations for the upper body shaping. But look! (I still have to add several inches of ribbing around the whole opening, so the fronts are super-narrow to account for that.)

I love the seamless short-row sleeve cap. It's so perfect and tidy. I used the directions in Knitting From the Top, which were clear and easy to follow. If you aren't familiar with short rows, it might take a little extra concentration, but it's certainly well within the reach of anyone who can knit, purl and count. Since my yarn is kind of bulky, I didn't like the look of skipping stitches when I was picking up the initial row. It was puckery, lumpy, generally crappy and unacceptable. So I picked up all of the stitches and knit one round before I started the short rows where I decreased down to the number of stitches I needed. It gives a much smoother line.

My project notes for this sweater, in case anyone in interested in information about my process. When I'm designing stuff for myself, my notes typically look like this: a (really) rough line drawing or two with dimensions, some math, some diagrams that illustrate how I'm dividing up the stitches, a few legible pieces of information, random circled numbers...

Comments

[Gina]

Everything is coming along so nicely! Great progress. Thanks for the peek inside your design notebook. Geraldine/Punky B. is such an enjoyable blog -- even though I don't speak/read French. It's wonderful to see that French style in action.

[Carishma Welch]

Love the print!

[Ingrid]

I've been wondering about your mission - and just came across this pattern (sorry if it is too late!) http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=102&d_id=21&lang=en