I spent all day Friday weaving many ends of yarn into the seam allowances of my latest sweater. Now that I’ve had a chance to try it on without tons of ends hanging out, I’ve decided that I need to cut an inch off of each center front half of the sweater.

Before subjecting my newly knitted sweater to scissors, I figured I’d better try cutting up a swatch first. After dusting the sewing machine, adjusting it to produce a small zigzag stitch and sewing two lines of stitches down the center, I carefully cut between the two lines. I tested how well the stitches would hold together by tugging on the stitches. The stitches held quite well, although I did produce a bit of fringe. I wouldn’t use this technique on seam allowances but will be using it on the front of my cardigan. Fringe won’t be a problem since the edges will be covered with a very pink satin ribbon strip.

Tonight I made a special trip to the fabric store to pick up matching pink thread. While I have many spools of thread not one of them is hot pink.

It is finally coming together. Now I just need to fix all the yarn ends, sew on the knitted collar and then sew on the satin ribbon hook and eye tape. The yarn ends are going to be quite a job, which gets me thinking that perhaps I should have attempted to knit it in the round. Oh well, maybe next time.

As you can see, I had a little fun with Photoshop Elements today. I have almost as much fun with this program as I do knitting.

The seam is worked in two steps starting from the top of the shoulder. Pull half of a piece of thread through to the right side of the sweater.

Take a stitch from the rows on the body of the sweater by catching the bars between stitches.

Then take a stitch from the sleeve by placing the needle under one knit stitch of the sleeve.

Repeat these steps until you reach the seam under the arm. Pick up the other half of the thread at the top of the sleeve and sew the other half of the seam.

It helps to have a quality control inspector on hand.

I’m making progress on the Latvian mitten and will take photos this weekend.

One sleeve is now attached to the body of the sweater. Like always I looked at several books before doing this. I think “Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques” by Nancy Wiseman has the best description and diagram for this technique*.

This armhole is larger than the sleeve so I carefully pinned the two pieces before starting to sew the seam. I made sure to well-measured stitches, keeping in mind that I needed to fit the “large” armhole to the sleeve. Nancy’s book says that the proportion of sleeve stitches to shoulder rows is 3 to 4. I found that it was more like 2 to 4 on this sweater. Nancy’s book also mentions to start from the shoulder seam, which really works well. This makes it much easier to fit the armhole to the sleeve.

After subscribing to Interweave Knits last Saturday I asked Pam Allen if I could get the subscriber code for the new subscriber only section. She sent me one today and I just zipped through the web site a couple of minutes ago. There are quite a few free patterns (most from old issues), a sock and crochet column, an extensive illustrated glossary and “Beyond the Basics” columns.

*I don’t have Vogue Knitting.

Saturday we went hunting for chanterelle mushrooms but could only find four. While the mushroom hunt wasn’t productive, my knitting was. I finished the sleeves and the collar ribbing for the striped cardigan. If my translation is correct, the pattern says to iron the collar before sewing it on to the sweater. I guess this might keep the stitches from unraveling but it could also melt this yarn. I started to iron the knit stitches and quickly remembered that the orange yarn is made of 50% acrylic. Luckily, I didn’t end up melting it.

The next step is to assemble the pieces by sewing on the sleeves and side seams, weaving in all the ends and then attaching the collar.

The next project will be a Christmas stocking for my mother-in-law. The pattern will be based on the lighthouse socks by Sweaterscapes but will tweak the pattern a bit. The lighthouse and landscape will be more like the one on the lighthouse sweater.

I’m working both sleeves at the same time and will soon start shaping the sleeve caps.

Check out the Morris Fern sweater on Anne Modesitt’s blog. I’ve been anxiously waiting for the winter issue of Interweave Knit ever since I saw a small preview of this sweater on her blog. Sadly, it didn’t make it into this issue but will be offered via a subscriber only link. This really bites. I don’t subscribe to any of the knitting magazines because most are not worth $6 (especially Vogue Knitting). Ok, I will admit to buying an issue for only one pattern, but kind of feel cheated when I do this. Now, they want me to plunk down $24.

Update: I decided to subscribe to Interweave Knits and sent them an e-mail letting them know that it was because of Annie’s sweater. I received a reply from Pam Allen (the new editor) and she said that they knew her sweater would be a big draw. Hopefully the new on-line content combined with the magazinewill be worth the subscription. I just hope they don’t try this with their other magazines. I doubt that I would subscribe to more then one.

I started the ribbing for one of the sleeves and noticed that I was getting low on the Sunset Turquoise yarn. Once I got past the ribbing on the first sleeve I decide to start the other sleeve to see just how far I could get before running out. Well, I ran out on both sleeves just after the ribbing! This yarn was ordered from Europe, so I had a quick twinge of panic.

I really didn’t want to wait on another order. I quickly remember a yarn called “Candlelight” by YLI that I saw when first scouting yarn for this pattern at the local yarn store. I think it will work just fine. The color (medium blue 006) is a perfect match. I actually prefer it to Phildar Sunset. It’s a bit thinner, has a tighter twist, and doesn’t seem to snag as easily as Sunset.

While the knitting is going quickly, I’ll have a heap of yarn ends that will need attention. I actually don’t mind dealing with them in the traditional way but I’ve been wondering if I could just sew the sweater on my sewing machine. If it works for steeks, wouldn’t it work seams? I haven’t seen this mentioned in any knitting books but I think that’s how most commercial garments are put together. I did a google search and found a posting on this site. I wanted to check Knitter’s Review but their site seems to be down.