This Week's Knits

I can't decide what to knit this week!

I'm usually more of a monogamous knitter, but between getting new yarn, waiting on new needles, and needing a project I can easily bring to work, I've kind of just been hopping around. So I figured I'd share what's been going on in my world of knitting this week.

Take Turns Tank

Last week I talked about Noro Ohajiki—how my swatch turned out, my first impressions of the yarn, and my progress in using it for a Take Turns Tank. At that point I was still on the back yoke and now I'm getting pretty close to being done.

I decided to stop the torso here for now since I was starting to get worried about how much yarn I have left. I wanted to make sure I had enough to finish the ribbing around the neckline and armholes, so that I can use the rest of the yarn to make the body as long as possible. 

New Needles! 

I didn't want to deal with magic loop for this, especially with a mostly cotton yarn. So I took it as an excuse to complete my set of ChiaoGoo shorties! (Plus, I'll most likely need them for my Camisole No. 9 soon enough.) 

As I waited for my needles to come in the mail, I got some more work done on my Esther Sweater—but we’ll get to that later. 

Once I got my hands on them (last night when I got home from work), I immediately picked up around the armhole and stayed up until about 3am knitting ribbing that ended up getting frogged this morning.

Even though the pattern doesn’t call for going down a needle size, I decided to go down 0.25mm anyway, but that actually wasn’t enough. The ribbing ended up looking loose and sloppy, while the stockinette curl came out stiff and didn’t really want to curl.

So I started it again, this time going down 0.5mm for the ribbing (2.75mm) and then using the same needle size as the body for the stockinette curl (3.25mm). At this point I’m almost done with my reattempt, and so far it’s looking a lot better. I think I’m going to use a bind off that alternates Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off with a regular bind off.

I just keep feeling like this thing looks absurdly small. I know once I finish the armhole and neckline ribbing. I know once I block it. I know it lines up pretty closely with another tank top I own. I’d be lying if I said I’m not still a little nervous.

I’m sure at some point soon I’ll post a final verdict.

Esther Sweater

I've been needing to finish my Esther Sweater—waiting for my needles was just the push I needed. I don't usually love letting a project sit for too long because it starts to feel a little stale, but I don't feel that about this one. 

I finished the body and neckline ribbing before taking a little break to start the tank top. But once I finally got the sleeve pickup count right (after about the 15th try), it started feeling fun again.

I love seed stitch, and there’s only one diamond texture repeat in the middle, so it stays interesting without me having to count the entire time like I was on the body section.

I don’t feel any resentment towards this project, but I do really want it to be done.

Also,

I got a new tattoo: