Take Two, Already

So I started two swatches. One yarn looked smaller but the stitch count was the same. So I did measurements and math and cast on.

The main color will be blue. I have 10 balls left from this afghan.

That’s a lot of leftover, but I remember having no clue how much I’d need and not wanting to chance running out. The other leftovers are from a sampler afghan I made in a class that presented a different technique each month.

My favorite blocks:

Fair Isle

Counterpane

I also have some left from a sweater I made and a sweater a friend made and contributed. No photos of those sweaters.

So swatch finished, measurements taken, directions read, math done and rechecked, I’m ready to cast on 322 stitches. And I get this far.

Something made me stop and count stitches. Uh oh. The sleeve section was fine but the back was already 10 stitches fewer than I should have after about 10 more double decreases. I considered doing single decreases on the sleeve side till it was down to where it needed to be. The area was underarm, so the lack of right angle might not matter. But if it turned out that it mattered, I could rip out later.

But I wimped out and decided not to take a chance. I reread the directions and redid the math. This time I figured I needed to cast on 366 stitches. (Yes I had checked my math before. Apparently I’d made the same error when checking. This time I couldn’t get the old number, so I’ll never know what I did wrong. At any rate, I now am this far.

Is knitting and reknitting a way to get double money’s worth out of yarn?

ETA I don’t have enough to add for another post—knitting process isn’t as interesting to post about as quilting process. So for Scrap Happy visitors, here is the link to Kate’s post with links to other scrap posts.

https://talltalesfromchiconia.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/scraphappy-january-5/

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The Return of BSJ

Plan A had been to do some quilting, but books got in the way. Then I finished Christmas knitting and had some leftovers. So it was time to return to the Baby Surprise Jacket. Here it is a little under halfway.

You can’t see much—24-inch circular bunches it up. The side showing is supposed to be the right side. I changed yarn on the wrong side so got the extra line. Then decided to do all changes that way to make it look on purpose. Don’t think anyone will be fooled.

Moving the marker to the center worked wonders. Now the double decreases do what seems intuitive: one stitch off each sleeve and one off the body each time. I’m at the more stitch-counting part now, and the count keeps coming out correct. Soon we’ll know if the more complete instructions work better. I think they will.

Scrap Happy day will be here on the 15th, so I’ll mention that the brown and dark blue are scraps. The light blue is new; I wanted to be sure to have enough of the unifying color. Cheating again. I know I have left overs of more colors, but of course I can’t find them now. I’d wanted a more multicolored look. Maybe another time.

Starting December you can see more Scrappy projects linked at https://talltalesfromchiconia.wordpress.com/