And sleeves! And it looks a lot like a sweater!
Lots of loose ends.
I think this is taking as long to make as my sweater took, maybe longer. Granted, I only have 1 good hour to knit most days, and some days less than that, but it just feels like this sweater is going SO S L O W!
However, it is coming along and since we have at least another week of 80-degree weather ahead of us, I do still have time.
I ended up closing the pockets up along the zipper edge of the sweater as I knit them up the sweater. It worked out really well.
The pattern says to pick up stitches for the pouch one row above the ribbing. I picked up half the required number of stitches from the zipper edge out toward the side. I followed the instructions for the shaping and edging for the pocket, but had to somehow close the pocket at the zipper edge. Typically what I do on edges where I know I’ll be picking up stitches later is to slip the first stitch of every row, instead of knitting/purling it. (I’ll be picking up those edge stitches to knit a band for the zipper to be sewn to.) That makes for a really clean edge like you see here on the edge of the sweater body.
Edge of sweater body
This means there is one edge stitch for every two rows of the main fabric.
One edge stitch for two rows.
On the edge of the sweater at the zipper edge, I picked up the next edge stitch…
Click on the photo to see the text details in the arrows.
…and knitted or purled (depending on which pocket I was working on) them together with the last stitch of the pocket.
Purling edge stitch of the body together with last pocket stitch.
This quite neatly closed up that side of the pocket that I was worried about. Then I just fused the pocket to the body by knitting the stitches of the pocket together with the corresponding stitch of the body along the top of the pocket.
Pocket on front needle, sweater body on back needle.
Knitting pocket and body together.
Pull the stitch through both loops.
There’s a pocket!
It turned out to be easy-peasy and I’m pleased with how it looks.
We had Jellybean try it on before I finished the raglan decreases in the yoke and darn it if I’m not going to have to make the sleeves longer. This kid just keeps growing! The end of the sleeves comes right down to just above his wrists, and of course the sleeves are knit from the cuff up. No worries, though. When I finish the rest of the sweater, I’ll fix it. I’ll have to rip back all of the decreases (it was also tighter than I’d like at the cuff), pick up the stitches and knit down from there, decreasing more slowly (every 5 rows instead of every 4) and do one less decrease. I’ll show you how I manage that, too, when I get there.
Do you remember last year’s sweater? Jellybean has suddenly decided that it’s cool and he’ll wear it every chance he gets. I’m sure it has something to do with the Daniel Tiger episode where he learns to button his coat. After watching that episode, Jellybean remembered his sweater and put it on, buttoning all the buttons himself. (We actually sing the “Keep Trying” song a lot – we’re at a stage where we hear “I can’t do it!!” quite frequently.) He’s still excited about his new RED sweater, though!
Several times I’ve been tempted to buy him a light fleece jacket for playing on the playground at daycare so he doesn’t ruin his sweater. I stop myself every time, though. Where will he wear his sweater, if not daily on the playground? If it gets dirty or torn, I can wash or repair it. I would rather he wear this one and I have to repair it than it sit at the house shiny and new because I don’t want it to get ruined. I hope he really does want to wear it daily. I would be so proud and honored.
