Sunday, April 7, 2013

skirt wonderland: part one

Inserted even more hesitation into my winter wonderland by spending all last weekend putting zippers into two previously knitted sweaters.

I thought the one I had in my snowdrift cardigan was pulling a little oddly at the bottom edge and I hadn't paid attention to the stitching on the inside of the zipper, not having realized it would be showing any time I wore the cardigan unzipped! So I took that zipper out and replaced it with a shorter one plus a clasp. The clasp is because holy moly, that thing gets warm! As I have learned from keeping a thermometer at the office, my experience of temperature is very uneven so being able to choose between totally zipped, totally open, and clasped at the neck is very nice. I'd been simulating a cloak clasp using a little frankenstein concoction of a big beetle shaped cheap jewelry component from Michael's, some elastic cord, and a lobster necklace clasp; threading the elastic through the looser stitches of the cable area at the low front neck. With that option, I've been wearing the sweater all the freaking time so clearly a more permanent solution was in order.

The second zipper was for the B.O.B. (button on blanket) I'd made with Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky. Despite gauge swatch indicating I shouldn't need nearly as much yarn as the pattern called for, actually ran out of yarn before even finishing the neck, never mind picking up the button bands. Emergency zipper time! Neck ended up kind of like a very low mock turtleneck? I don't know. I want to at least give it a chance, see how it wears, before taking drastic action like ripping back to the sleeve join and winging it on a new neckline arrangement.

But now I am starting to get into the lace pattern of the winter wonderland skirt. And may I just say that "ssp" is my least favorite of all the stitches? Seriously: "Holding yard in front, slip two stitches individually knitwise ... then slip these two stitches back onto the left needle (they will be turned on the needle) and purl them together through their back loops ...." The only thing worse than this is trying to do it when one of the stitches involved was one of two consecutive yarn-overs in the previous row, meaning there's nothing in particular to separate it from its other dual yarn-over half.

I don't know, crazy collar, you may not be long for this world.