ASJ: The Hard Part

Despite my best effort to knit in the ends as I worked I still ended up with about 24 ends to weave in when I was done.

Since I was changing colors every 10 rows I knew I'd have a lot of ends to weave in at the end. Fortunately that realization hit me with the first color change and I immediately too steps to head the ends off at the pass.

Now, I learned how to weave in ends as I knit during a Lucy Neatby class at Knitting Central but I think this blog post shows the technique pretty well. There are a lot of pictures so if you're on dial-up you might get bogged down.

On the row I changed colors I would weave the color I was dropping. I would knit back on the next row normally. Then on the third row from the color change I would weave in the end of the new color. That way I quickly eliminated both ends. ha!

If I was so conscientious how did I end up with 24 ends to contend with? Simple. Things went south when I started running out of yarn. I was changing colors on right (public) side rows, but if I ran out on a wrong (private) side I just rolled with it. I find I can't do the knit-in-ends thing on the wrong side; the yarn is in the wrong place for me.

The Edging
A number of the ends were concentrated at the bottom right (on the body) corner. For some reason I couldn't weave there either.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture but I did end up changing yarn every two rows.

When it is time to work the final edging/border you knit across the last center flap row, then pick up stitches along one side of the flap, knit back down, across the bottom of the flap, and up the other side.

I thought this was going to be a really dreadful process because I don't like picking up stitches, but it turned out to be really easy. When I sat down to do it I reminded myself that it was going to be just like picking up along my beloved garter stitch heel flap, which is really simple. Just go for the strand in between the garter ridges. yippee!

Anyway. Since you go up and down one side before working the other side your stripes could end up uneven. As you know I'm a little neurotic about being matchy-matchy. Therefore I knit up and down the first side, across the flap, up and down the second side, and across the flap, stopping at the bottom corner where the row started. In this manner I got two rows of the color on each side.

Insert happy sigh here.

Pick Up Line
Oh, and the other cranky thing I did with the edging was picking up the left hand side (on the body) purlwise.

The right hand side picked up from the public side, which was just fine. But when I knit back around to the left side I was picking up from the private side of the work. This made an icky ridge on the public side.

Now it might have blended in with the garter stitch fabric, and it might have been covered by the button band, but either way I would know it was there! So I pulled that side out and picked it up again purlwise then went back to working garter. This made one little stockinette row so there is a blip in the fabric, but it's going to be covered by the button band. Also, no one should be close enough to the sweater to see it aside from Hubby and the puppies.

And if someone does see it I think it will be more attractive than the blobby edge from the first time around.

My new concern is that I didn't work a deep enough edging. The pattern says to work the button holes after two ridges then to work 4-5 more ridges. Well, I got so caught up in changing colors every two rows that when I worked the Noro Kogarashi rows (which is the yarn I cast on with) I got so excited I cast off. This was actually only three ridges after the button holes.

Part of me says this is going to be fine since it's basically just the button band. The button holes have been placed and that will dictate how much I have to work with when closing it. Still, I'm not going to cut that last yarn until I can try it on.

Which brings us back to another hard part.

Weaving in the ends went very quickly last night. phew. Now I just have to close the arm seams. I'm really happy there are just two seams since I don't like finishing much. I think I'll go with a three needle bind off. I just have to select the color to use.

At this rate I might have finished project pictures to show you tomorrow!