It’s all Susan‘s fault. But yes, Margene and I agreed to her crazy plan to knit 12 sweaters in a year (preferably one sweater a month). Now other crazy people are starting to jump in.

So it’s now official. The National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon*, also known as NaKniSweMoDo.

“Sweater” is used loosely. It doesn’t have to be a long-sleeved pullover or cardigan, it can be a sleeveless top or vest. So the basic rules are to complete 12 adult-sized sweaters or tops in 2009. They must be fully completed and ready to wear by December 31, 2009.

We have a button for anyone who wants to join the insanity:

And a Ravelry Group too.

Let’s go knit!

Dodecathon: (“dough-DECK-uh-thon”) From “dodeca-“, meaning twelve sided and “-athon“, meaning an event of unusual length.

Woe.

The color repeat of the blue-gray-ish color is not as long as it was for the first sock. It’s only about half as long. Which means, of course, that after all my careful planning, the sock stripes will not match. Poop. I am contemplating the idea of ripping out the green part and splicing in some extra yarn for a few rows, so that the green will start in the right spot – then hopefully it will match for the rest of the sock, or at least through the heel.

In other WIP news, Forest Canopy is moving along quickly. Did I mention that I’m doing the “Knitting With Nora” KAL?

And then there’s my sadly neglected Lacy Gloves. I really want these to be done, but I’m not much in the mood for gloves right now – I want to think about Spring! But also, I’m to the thumb gusset and I have to think about whether to change it for the second glove. It was ridiculously oversized for the first one, and I’m trying to decide whether to adjust it before I finish the gusset, or just make the second one the same as the first.

Hmmmm… maybe I could block what I have, and just add the border later…

The lace is very stretchy, so I know it will block out much larger, but I still have a little concern about the size. The finished length is supposed to be 62″, and my unblocked length is only 43″. The border will probably add another 4 inches, but that still leaves a big difference. It won’t matter if it’s a little smaller, but it’s not a huge shawl to begin with.

I did go down a needle size, since I almost always need to do that in order to get gauge, so if it comes out small, it’s my own fault. But I’d rather have it be a little smaller than end up running out of yarn. If I’d been smarter, I’d have gotten a second ball of yarn and not have worried about it.

The first few rows were really hard for me – I wasn’t used to working with such a super-fine yarn, and with the loop cast-on, it was pretty sloppy at first. And of course, I couldn’t tell if I was making any mistakes since the pattern wasn’t established yet. But once I had a few repeats done, and a couple of inches of fabric on the needles, it got much better. The lace pattern isn’t too difficult once you get into it, and now I can at least read the lace enough to usually notice pretty quickly if I’ve made any mistakes.

It doesn’t look like much “at rest”, but when stretched out, you can really get a good idea of what the lace will look like when blocked.

Sorry I don’t have a photo of me wearing it yet – my photographer is out of town until late tonight.

I even found some buttons that are a perfect match – almost exactly the same color pink, with a lighter pink swirl in them, so they really match the yarn’s highlights and shadows. They’re 3/4″ instead of 1″ as called for in the pattern, but the buttonholes didn’t really seem large enough for 1″ buttons anyway.

Pattern: “Dollar and a Half Cardigan” from Interweave Knits Spring 2007, designed by Véronik Avery

Size: 36-1/4″

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in “Pinkaboo”, 6 skeins (I had about 1.6 ounces left of the last skein.)

Needles: US 7

Modifications: Made two cable fronts, with the cables mirrored, and knitted only 2″ of ribbing on the sleeve cuffs instead of 4″. The sleeves stretched a lot, so I could probably have reduced the total length by 4″ instead of only 2″. Also, when I picked up the stitches for the neckband, I picked up about 2 stitches for every 3 rows, which ended up being the same stitch count as the pattern indicates to pick up for the smaller size. So I just followed the pattern for that size instead, and it worked out just right.

Tips: The increases and decreases in the lace were tricky, but it helped to realize that there should never be a YO right next to the first or last stitch in a row. I found it very useful to keep a list of what round the decreases should be on, and the number of stitches I should have after each decrease. When decreases for the lace fall on one of the PSSO rows, the easiest way to deal with it is to knit that row normally, and omit the last YO on the next row.

Part of the trouble was that I was knitting both fronts at the same time. That worked great up until I started doing the decreases. Then it got really complicated trying to keep track of the increases on both sides of both pieces (and decreasing on the right side of one, and the wrong side of the other), plus keeping track of the cable pattern. I finally gave up and put one side on a stitch holder, and worked each side separately. That went much better. Unless you’re a really good knitter, I’d highly recommend doing that, even if you want to knit both sides together up to where the decreases start.

One thing that finally clicked for me and made things easier was that when decreasing on row 3 or 5 of the lace pattern (the rows with the PSSO), the way to do it is to just follow the pattern for that row without any changes. Instead, you’ll really make the decrease on the next row by omitting the last YO in the pattern. Veronik mentions that in her tutorial, but I really didn’t “get” what she meant for a while. (I really tried following her explanations for the decreases, but I just couldn’t quite follow it, so I just faked improvised my own way. You will occasionally end up with 4 stockinette stitches together at the neck edge for a row or two, but it works out okay.

Because I’m incredibly stubborn, I refused to let the decreases defeat me. I ended up staying up 3 hours later than usual, until I had the fronts done. My adrenaline was pumping, and I knew if I went to bed, I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I was so worked up about it. So I kept at it until I finally emerged victorious. (Good thing I could sleep in this morning!)

That leaves me free to work on Icarus tonight. Yippee!

I was planning to work on Icarus last night, but after a couple of glasses of wine, I figured I’d better stick with this. Once you’ve done the lace pattern the first time and see how it works, it’s easy and the knitting goes very quickly.

For anyone who doesn’t “get” the “Dollar and a Half” name, or for those who do but would like a little tour down memory lane, here’s a little vintage Joni.