Girly Top: Getting Close

On Tuesday I wrote this long post, as I do, and when I hit the "publish" button I was redirected to the login page.

I thought that was a bad sign, but I completed the login process only to be greeted by a polite message that they could not process my request at this time.

And my post was gone. poof!

There wasn't even a draft saved.

I was so traumatized that I've been unable to blog since.

Well, that and we were closing an issue and you know how cranky and unavailable that makes me.

Shape Armhole, Shape Neck
Fortunately, I was not so traumatized that I was unable to knit!

That would have been rather disastrous to my Ravelympic aspirations.

On Tuesday I was just finished the bottom patterning and starting on the stockinette stitch portion of the body.

As of last night the knitting is basically done!

I think I have one more row to work on the shoulders, then I can three-needle bind off the front to the back.

Let the finishing commence!

Shoulder Shaping Rebellion
The pattern is not written for a three-needle bind off.

It is written with some step shaping, a traditional bind off, then sewing the shoulders together.

I rebelled against that, just worked to the required number of stitches, left them live on a holder, and cut the yarn.

I didn't even short row them. Mainly because I botched picking up the short row wraps on Nell's shoulders and I'm worried about botching them again.

Of course, now I wish I had worked the shaping since I've finally been reading my copy of Sweater Design in Plain English by Maggie Righetti and have a better understand of why sweater shoulders are shaped.

Oh, well, too late now.

Actually, I might have to count rows. I might have worked rows even that should have been shaped, so I might have enough yarn to pick them out and shape them. But I wouldn't hold my breath on that if I were you.

I am a little concerned about how wide the neck opening looks when I laid it out for the picture.

I'm pretty sure I worked the neck shaping properly. It just kept saying X stitches Y times. But I went a head and worked the bind offs every other row.

I mean, you basically have to. The yarn isn't in the correct place otherwise.

My coping mechanism is reminding myself I'm going to pick up around the opening and work a little collar.

On Track
The knitting just flew along. I'm a bit surprised it only took me about seven days to knit the front.

This gives me nine days to work on sewing it together, weaving in ends, and working the collar.

This is where things get dangerous.

I don't like finishing.

I like the idea of finishing.

And I like the magic of turning these pieces into a sweater and the way the stitches suck together as I'm sewing, but the actual process doesn't appeal to me.

Also, I can't watch TV and seam a sweater at the same time, which conflicts with our evening activities.

I might have to be focused and work on the sweater when I first get home before dinner while Hubby is doing school work.

Wish me luck.

Oh, and the second green step sock is ready for its heel flap. Thanks for asking.