It’s done!
Last night I finished the second sleeve, sewed it to the body, then sewed the side seams. Then I picked up the stitches for the collar.
Anmiryam asked the other day:
Did you join the saddle shoulders by seaming them as written or did you knit them together with the live stitches on the front and the back? I did that with Little Rivers and I’m considering doing the same with Inishmore. Anything to avoid seaming vertical to horizontal pieces!
I seamed as written.
I have often knitted a shoulder strap directly to the live front and back stitches, but opted not to this time. The stitch gauge for this sweater (over moss stitch) is 22 sts/28 rows to 10 cm. The row to stitch ratio is approximately .71 rows to each stitch (did I figure that correctly? My math skills suck). So you can’t simply knit each row, or knit every other row, together with a live stitch from the body and expect it to lie flat. I didn’t feel like figuring out how to knit it to make it lie properly, so I seamed the sucker. And it actually wasn’t that painful. I mattress-stitched and it turned out looking pretty good.
Actually, I mattress-stitched the whole sucker together. Usually I prefer backstitch because I think it makes a stronger join, but I prefer the way mattress stitch looks when I am seaming moss stitch. I think it makes for a far more invisible join.
So I hauled Inishmore onto the train with me this morning. I no doubt looked a bit odd (well, odder than usual) with the whole sweater in my lap, knitting on the neckband. This is not really commuter knitting! But it was really quite pleasant.
Usually I detest knitting the neckband but I guess I had reached my moment of zen on this. This was the happiest neckband knitting I’ve had in a long time.
I was planning on doing 18 or 19 rounds for the neckband, but liked it at 15 rounds, so that was that. I have a somewhat short neck, so a deep neckband on a crewneck sweater is not the best look for me.
Maybe I’m just glad the sweater is finished.
I finished at 4:55pm today. I checked the spreadsheet to see who came closest to guessing the winner — that would be Mary Beth M., who guessed this evening at 6:18pm. I’ve emailed Mary Beth and will be sending her this:
Fiesta La Luz silk yarn, in the “Alaska” colorway. Two full skeins and one almost-full skein.
Speaking of Prizes
L-B has generously offered to send a prize to the person who comes closest to guessing her finish date and time, so stay tuned for that!
Speaking of L-B, here is the back of her beautiful Inishmore.
And a close-up.
Speaking of Prizes Some More
We will hold the drawing for the raffle prizes on June 1, so if you’d still like to contribute and get chances at the raffle, you can do so if you send your donation (see info in the sidebar) before June 1.
Thanks from L-B and I to everyone who has donated thus far.
And please note, that there is another prize on the prize page, kindly donated by Eklectika!
Oh and by the way — hand pain? None to speak of now (speaking for myself, of course). Sunday evening’s hand pain was simply brought on by hours and hours of weekend knitting. (Well, duh.) The paws were a tad swollen this morning, but it is after all, raining. They seem fine now.
Oh and double-by-the-way — in answer to Mary‘s question in the comments: I’ve never used a lifeline in my knitting. L-B hasn’t either. I asked.
I’m not saying that I’ve never been in a situation where a lifeline would have been handy — I have. Namely, knitting lace. Early on in my lace knitting days it would have been really useful, as ripping out knitted lace is a scary scary thing.
Speaking of Lace
I hauled out a bunch of lace patterns this morning to see if anything caught my fancy. (Lucy helped by obligingly sitting on the patterns.)
Stay tuned.