February Sweater Update

I've finished one sleeve of the February Fitted Pullover. I've knit two sleeves worth but only have one to show for it. In last post I talked about how I was using the sleeve as a gauge swatch and started over on smaller needles. The smaller needles gave me 19 sts/4inches, so that the piece is smaller than it's supposed to be (17 sts). Smaller is better in this case. I can block the sleeve (and the rest of the sweater out more) and I'm hoping to be smaller myself. I lost 40 pounds in 2009, which explains why I have not been knitting much for myself lately. I never wanted to knit for the bigger me because it was harder (bigger sweaters, few (and unflattering) designs) and I didn't want to put the effort in it and then end up with a too large garment in the long run.



In the beginning of the post I said I knitted the sleeve twice. First I ripped out half the sleeve due to gauge issues. Then I knit through the decreases on top only to find that my stitch count was off. What I was doing wrong was to continue in the lace pattern without taking care to pair every increase with a decrease. The second time around I kept a tally of the decreases on paper (see photo) as well as what the stitch count was supposed to be and counted the stitches regularly, at least after every decrease row.



It was well worth the extra effort. It made things simpler and more 'Zen'. I really enjoyed the process. Much more than when I was just knitting and hoping it would all add up in the end.