trucking along

I figured out the mattress seam finally. I've got the left side of the sweater done. I probably could get the right side done tonight. Right now I'm feelin a bit tired though. I think I just ate too much. I'm just going to have to eat smaller meals more often or something. Anyways, I'm glad I did this sweater in acrylic. I would feel bad if I had wasted wool on it. hehe When I made the sleeves longer, they became kind of baggy. I know if I had ripped the seam back I could have fixed it, but it is too late now. I weaved the tails from the color changes into the edges of the seam. Someday I'll learn how to weave in ends without ending up with a thick hard fabric.

Ignoring all the other wips I've got and feeling pretty good about nearing the end of the sweater. So of course I cast on for another project. :OP I've always wanted to try Fair Isle knitting. I finally realized that the way I change colors in knitting is actually not the way you would in Fair Isle. I bring the new color under the old one and if I'm working back across I untwist them in that row. It keeps the yarn from twisting unless I'm adding a brand new skein. When I add a new skein I put a small knot in the yarn. Before ya freak, I do undo the knot before weaving in the ends. The knot just holds the yarn from pulling and creating loose stitches.

Anyways, I found a chart for sort of a flower I guess. I'm doing the flower itself in pink and the background in red. Yes it is acrylic. Since I'm just kinda screwing around I don't want to risk nice yarn on it. The only thing I would change is the pink yarn is either sport or dk and the red is worsted. I was tired when I started this so I didn't notice. It just kinda makes the background look a lil puffy. I'm doing 6 repeats of the pattern and if I do keep working it, it will end up being a small bag. The chart is kinda big, so I may only have to do one or two repeats high.

I did come up with an interesting idea on how to keep the pink yarn below the red. I've got a ring that has a large stone in it and it fits on my index finger. I wrap the yarn under my pinky, over my ring finger, under the middle finger and over the index finger on my left hand. I put the pink yarn on the inside of the stone and the red on the outside. Unless I work a longer stretch of one color, it does a pretty good job. I need to figure out a better way of weaving the floats though. There are a few spots where there are 7 or more background stitches and I don't want the pink yarn floated free that whole time. The fact that the pink is thinner yarn is helping hide the weaving a little better.

Btw thanks to those of you that have commented on my yarn storage. I really am liking having it organized up there. I'm going to use some of the extra grid pieces to divide the patterns. I just need to decide how to attach them.