Monday, January 21, 2008

Starting a sweater



On Saturday, I bought the yarn for my newest knitting project (most recently, I made three hats and finished a scarf that I had started in early 2002): a sweater from Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch which is a lovely stripey thing with raglan sleeves.  

This is the second sweater I've ever attempted.  The first was a disaster (although it was obviously a sweater when I finished, so I suppose it wasn't an unmitigated disaster).  I knit it in France in late 2001 and early 2002.  The biggest problems with it (amongst them a horribly pointy shoulder) were basically caused by the fact that I didn't know what I was doing.  I think I might now (with the help of the aforementioned book).  

With a little help from the ladies at the Village Yarn and Fiber Shop in East Rochester, I picked out the yarns I'll be using for this sweater.  It's a 75% acrylic/25% wool mix.  There were more interesting fibers available in the correct gauge, but not in such pretty colors. I picked out the colors of the sunset: dark red, fuschia, orange and yellow. 

I'm using size 2 (american) needles.  They are the smallest needles with which I have ever knit. I also made my first swatch ever (I told you I didn't know what I was doing as I made the other sweater).  I used the yellow since that's the color that appears least in the sweater.

I even got started knitting and now have a stripe of every color (sorry the close up is dark, but the flash makes it look extremly strange).  I am coming up on my first row where I have to increase pretty soon, so we'll see how well I understand her description of the make one increase (M1) in a little bit. 

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