I finally finished Mikey’s Bob Dobbs Sweater (with a skull pattern instead of Bob). I will be posting a picture as soon as it is washed and dried…which should not be such a feat since I can stick it in a machine!

I finished my Spiral Doily from yarnover.net. Its been washed, blocked and doing its job on top of our end table for about a week. I even took a picture, which I will post this weekend with details of the adventure it was, if it kills me.

And now, instead of finishing that second Red Sox sock, I of course picked up another project on my “Future Projects” List. The Emma Jacket from Knit Picks. I am about 65% done with it now, which means I post entirely too slowly for my knitting. Or it means I don’t post enough. But, I do have some beef with this pattern…it only cost me 1.99 for it, so I probably shouldn’t have any gripes…but, it isn’t very clearly written and it took a lot of time on my part to figure out what I was supposed to do, when I was supposed to do it and how the outcome of it would be.

Of course it helped when I figured it was being knit from the bottom up…with every other seamless sweater I’ve knitted, its been top down…had to switch modes there. Once I figured that out it was almost smooth sailing. Then I had to find out on my own after increasing for 2 inches I had to add the first short row, then after I had knit 4 inches total I needed to add the second short row…all the while increasing. Then after I had knitted and increased 6.5 inches of fabric, I was to put the increasing on hold while I did the waist shaping. Then continue on with the increasing until I was done with the increasing.

I started out increasing to the total stitches I needed, then doing short rows and then having a big ‘?’ mark on my face when I got to waist shaping and yeah…total confusion ensued! After some creative math, that took about half a day to do, I figured out how I should have knit it, ripped back almost all the way for the third time (third times a charm) and knit it correctly. What could have prevented this big confusion folks? A simple sentence, something to this affect:

Continue with next steps of the pattern (short rows, etc.) while alternating knit and increase rounds until you have reached the Total Number of Body Stitches.

Would have had that magic light bulb light up in my head if that sentence was there instead of:

Alternate knit and increase rounds until you have reached the Total Number of Body Stitches.

Followed by the instructions for short rows.

Sleeves were uneventful, except for the fact that I decided to venture out and knit both sleeves at the same time, its kind of like double knitting without crossing the yarn to bring the fabric together. So, instead of having a thick sleeve, I have two sleeves knitted at once. You can find a great tutorial in this Knitty article that explains how to do that, thus ending second sock and second sleeve syndrome:

Extreme Knitting: 2 Socks in 1

Pictures were taken of that also and I will be posting about this in a more detailed post this weekend as well.

After the Emma Jacket, its off to do either Snow White or the Gray Flannel bag from “Pursenalities.” Two projects that I am extremely excited to dive into after this jacket is finished. I must say though despite all the beef, this jacket is turning out nicely so far.