This post was supposed to be a “look what I made this weekend!” post, but since I’m pretty under the weather with a head-cold, I didn’t feel like getting all dolled up to take pics of my new Renfrew. Instead, I’m sipping a Rum Hot Toddy and wearing my comfy velour hoody and pants (don’t hate on the velour, it’s perfectly acceptable indoor wear. And nowhere else). After this whole thing clears up, I’ll make sure to take pics to share, I’m really excited about how it turned out!
On the knitting side, I’ve made minimal progress on my Carnac sweater due to the debacle of the sleeves. I’ve tried knitting the sleeves on double pointed needles for the cuff and transitioning to a 16″ US 15 circular, but that didn’t work. Before that, I tried to magic loop on a 32″ US 15, the needle I used to knit the body of the sweater, but that didn’t work out well. Thinking that magic loop was going to be the solution, since size 15 DPNs are not easy to find, I purchased a 40″ US 15 Addi Turbo needle this weekend and tried it again. Still not good! It was so fiddly and fussy with a big curling cable getting in the way of me trying to slide around my stitches. I don’t know if it’s the lace pattern which is making it difficult to do magic loop or what, but I really don’t want to break down and order DPNs online, which look to be around $25. I already dropped $20 on the Addi circulars and another $8 on the 16″ Clover circulars. This is getting to be a big needle investment for this sweater.
Maybe there’s some experienced magic loopers out there reading this: how do you keep the tension even between the stitches on both needles? I find that when I finish the last stitch on one needle and slide the stitches around to get the next half on the needle, I pull to tighten up the slack from the last stitch and continue knitting on. But then, when I finish knitting and need to slide the stitches around again to get the next batch of stitches on the needle, they’re too tight to slide easily. If you could follow that explanation and know what I’m talking about, I applaud you.
Oh well. Maybe I’ll just knit the sleeves flat. I’d rather not, since it would be an ugly seam underneath the sleeve with the lace pattern. Or maybe I’ll just suck it up and order some double pointed needles.
I’ll give it one more shot…any ideas/recommendation on magic loop knitting?
