Kimono Sweater, Post #5

I am excruciatingly slow at seaming. I don't think it should have taken all night to attach one sleeve and then mattress stitch the rest of the left side together. But it did.

(Again with the bright red color in the photo. My camera does weird things sometimes.)

Ok, the speed problem is likely attributable to the fact that this is the first time I've ever done seams properly. Yes, you read that correctly. Up until now, I haven't known what I was doing while seaming.

It's not so bad though; this is only my third sweater, and the first one where seaming matters. The first one was deliberately 'punk' - I used red stitching on a black sweater - so I didn't care about nice, even, hidden seams, but wanted them to be blatant and maybe a little screwy. And my second sweater was made with a chunky boucle yarn so the seams were hidden regardless. The only other projects that have required any seaming have been bags, and those were felted - so again, proper technique was unnecessary.

This time, though, I wanted to get it right. I've invested too much time in the Kimono Sweater to have it ruined by wonky seams. So I pulled out my copy of Stitch 'n Bitch Nation and double checked the diagrams, and... well, I have to admit, it was like magic. (Very slow, deliberate magic.... but magic nonetheless.) The seam stitches disappeared, and I got nice even lines. What can I say. I impressed myself.

So the first sleeve is done. Yep, I stitched it onto the body before doing the second sleeve. I like to have as much of a project as I can consolidated into a single piece. Less work in the end that way. I've even woven in all my ends thus far. The second sleeve is about 3 inches long right now; that's 3 out of 18 inches, but those 3 were done in just over an hour so I'm not that concerned. I have that to finish, then the cabled neck band, and then blocking. (I decided to skip the belt, and DH concurred. He thinks the belt looks silly.)

And look what good knitting company I have. Brendon had been keeping his PS2 and a 13" tv on the ship, in his stateroom, but since yesterday was his last working day on the ship he brought it all home with him. Gran Turismo 4 has been running at our apartment pretty much non-stop since then. He's worked himself up to a Formula One Racer and something like 4.5 million "credits." I don't know if that means anything to anybody, I think it's supposed to be pretty impressive, but it definitely indicates that he's been getting in a lot of racing time while at work the last few weeks.

As for Riley, that's his favorite spot while I'm knitting. He lies there and insists I rub him with my feet while I work on whatever project I have. This probably contributes greatly to the amount of fur floating around the room to then get stuck in my yarn, but what can you do?