A finished Petrol

Sorry this is a bit late. I meant to post this earlier, honest I did, but I actually got a job (gasp!) so I haven’t had much time to even think about knitting (blasphemy, I know)

There it is. Sideways. Click for bigger, if you like.

I’d hoped to get more pictures, but the recipient (my dad) has gained a little weight since this was planned, so it didn’t fit so well. He says he loves it anyway, though (bless), and now he’ll just have to lose weight again so it’ll fit properly. 🙂

If I ever make this again:

• Definitely will do ribbing again, but next time use a provisional cast-on or tubular or something other than long-tail. I don’t like the way that turned out. Also actually do ribbing on fewer stitches or with a smaller needle instead of just planning to and then not doing it. (I would have snipped it off and redone it, but I was already 2 months behind on this thing)
• Use three-needle bind-off for shoulders. I had actually intended to do this but chickened out. Now I wish I’d just done it.
• Don’t do a slipped selvage on the neckline and armholes. You’ll need to pick up more stitches than that.
• Related to the above, do all decreases one stitch in from the edge. You’ll need to pick that up later.
• The center neck stitch ended up looking a little stretched out. Figure out how to alleviate this.
• Figure out how to make the garter ribs match up at the shoulders. This will drive me nuts for the rest of my life.
• FELTED JOINS. They make your life so much easier.

I learned a lot from this project, which was actually my first sweater. Actually, it was my first anything that wasn’t completely improvised. I think it turned out well, considering.

At the last minute (on Saturday night, before the three hour drive to visit him on Wednesday), he also commissioned a hat out of the leftovers. I managed to finish it before the birthday dinner.

I followed the decreases as instructed in the WWII-era pattern, doing a sl1-k1-psso instead of a more modern ssk. I like how they turned out, even if you can’t see them here. Also, my first time using felted joins (wish I’d thought of this ages ago). He plans to dye this one, so I have no idea how it’ll turn out in the end.

Oh what on Earth am I doing?

I still haven’t knitted on the neckband of my dad’s sweater vest, which I have to give him on Wednesday… And when I called him on Saturday he asked if I could whip him up a hat as well, out of the same yarn, which I haven’t started on either. Does anyone out there know how to knit and drive at the same time?

What have I been doing instead? Working on that shawl for my mom, of course. Why? Well, it doesn’t require me to pick up any stitches or use dpn’s, for starters. Not that I have anything against dpn’s, but I find them incredibly annoying for the first couple of rows. I even started my mom’s shawl on 2 circulars (since I happen to have a spare set of size 6 US circulars), but I can’t do that with the hat, since I don’t have enough circulars in the right size. Unless I want to knit the hat with size 6’s… Hmm… I suppose it would be warmer that way…

No, the vest is more important. Way more important, since I told him it was already finished (shh!). Ugh, I hate picking up stitches. Someone remind me not to pick patterns where I can’t do a provisional cast-on or something.

Here is the offending vest, which is a Petrol with ribbing added at the bottom per the recipient’s request, posing with the cat, who refuses to sit still long enough to be photographed unless I am actually trying to photograph something else. Cats, eh? 😉