Bridie along (for best friends!)

[embley]

I love you, too, palegirl, and I know it's not a race, and I can't even begin to tell you how awesome your back looks, and how I never would have started this project (let alone any kind of knitting) if it weren't for you.

Remember when you taught me to knit and I made that scarf that was 70-some stitches across? And I couldn't figure out how to begin a new row witout accidentally adding a new stitch? So it came out looking like a big square?

I hope we both finish at the same time exactly (though that would technically be a win for you, due to your greater number of stitches).

[palegirl]

I'd love to post more, maybe later, but the kids are screaming to leave this house & go out to the park.  But here's my finished back, and I've cast on for the right front, hooray!  Love you, love knitting bRidie, love knitting along with you, can't wait to see how yours is coming along.  Can't decide if I want to go out for dinner on Wednesday or say home and knit, unmolested.

[embley]

Oh my goodness, so much to report.

We won the bout on Saturday (woo!) which led to dancing away most of the night in celebration (woo!) which led to being tired on Sunday (boo).

I worked on bridie last night while watching the apprentices try to sell new 7/11 sandwiches that are made with two slices of pizza instead of bread (whut?) and here's my progress:


Today I think I'm dying of strep throat, or the Black Death, or a common springtime cold (I haven't completed my self-diagnostic quite yet). I hope to sleep much of the afternoon away and awake cured of any and all disease (yes, even diseases I don't have).

[palegirl]

congratulations on winning your bout, sorry about your avian flu, I hope you feel too sick to work but well enough to knit!

The kids are napping now, here's the latest pic of the right front.


So, I don't know if you've read the pattern all the way through yet, but this is where it starts getting tricky.  First you do the lower ribbing for 3 1/2 inches, okay, no problem.  Then you set up the pattern and start doing the same bust increases that you did on the back, but this time you'll only do it on one side, the side that will be the underarm seam, in this case it's the last stitch on the right side row that will be increased.  You set up a marker to keep track of these increases because you're going to be doing different increases on the right side, so you'll do 7 of these underarm bust increases all together (for every size.)  You can see the stitch marker I've placed in the photo above, 3 stitches from the end. Now, AT THE SAME TIME you're going to do the right front shaping, so you have to keep track of when you get to 11 inches (for your size.  For mine it's 12.)

Under the right front neck instructions I think there's a typo.  It says "RS facing, inc 1 st at beg of row and at same edge of next 2 rows."  Okay, that's simple enough, you'll have done a right side, a wrong side, and a right side.  Then it says "Next row (RS), place marker: Pattern to last 3 sts, place marker, work in pattern to end of row including inc st.  Stitch marker will show you how many stitches you have increased at front neck (4 so far)."   The (RS) that I've emboldened there?  I'm positive that should be a (WS).  You've done a right side, a wrong side, a right side, so the fourth row should be a wrong side, and the rest of the instruction makes sense for it to be a wrong side.

Anyone have any input on this?  I'm almost up to this instruction.  As a (RS) it makes no sense to me.

And Embley, when you get to this point, there's another AT THE SAME TIME instruction for when you get to 13.5 inches for your size (I think) so make sure you read through the whole business and know what you're doing.  If you haven't already gone through the whole pattern circling the instructions for your size in every direction, do so for the entire Right Front section before you begin it.

What a challenge for a first-ever sweater!  You are so awesome!  (keep in mind, my first sweater was Rogue.  Anything's possible.  You can do it.)

[subliminalpolka]

Ooh...lovely pattern; that's one more for my queue of things-to-knit. 

embley:  Be a dear and send my cat home when he's finished modeling your sweater?



Did a bit of a double-take when I saw your picture.  Same facial markings and striped tail.  Separated at birth?

[palegirl]

Embley dear, whenever will you be well enough to return to work?  Here's my right front so far.



oh, and PS, Anna wrote back to me, I was right about the correction I suggested above.

[embley]

Hooray, I'm not dead!

I'm feeling much better today, and though there has been an outbreak of mumps here in Wisconsin, I am not an outbreakee. (Rats. It's fun to say mumps.)

And, (dududuDUUUUUH) I finished my back! Here it is, in all its posterior glory:


And I started my right front:
I'm glad you're ahead of me, palegirl, so that you can explain all the complicated-ness I'm about to encounter. I'm so freaking excited to keep working on this sweater!

subliminalpolka: That's crazy! My kitty is a she ... perhaps they're long lost siblings? Baby Girl came from a no-kill shelter in Wisconsin, after being rescued from the 'put to sleep' list in a Chicago area Humane Society.

[embley]

Oh, the drama!

So it turns out I've been reading the pattern incorrectly, and my increases on the back are misplaced. Or, differently placed than intended.

I have come to terms with this knitting disaster, and though my knit esteem has been damaged, I am commited to forging ahead.

(I was so excited to have this be my first sweater ever, in all its complicated glory, and have it be perfect, and have me crowned as some sort of knitting savant, but oh well. I'll still have a neat sweater when I'm done, and it will be unique to me and my particular way of misinterpreting patterns.)

palegirl, I might have to call you tonight to have you help me sort out just where I should be putting the increases on my right front now. You're the best, thank you for talking me out of 'seppuku, circular needle' last night.

[embley]

Alright, here is my progress on the right front. It's really fun to knit, because it's so oddly shaped. Well, and because this is my first sweater, so it's neat to see how all the pieces turn out and imagine how they'll look when put together.


And here's my knitting table (nee coffee table, if I were to drink coffee). Note the kleenex (I'm dying of snot overproduction!), and in the above view, the little kitty legs sticking into the frame. (They are a great help when knitting, acting as lap-warmers/needle-nippers. I think, when I'm done, this sweater will be 80% merino and 20% cat fur.)

[embley]

Back ... DONE!
Right Front ... DONE!

check me out, in all my triumphant doneness: