what I did on my weekend

The Fearless Fair Isle actually looks sweater-like now (instead of just a decorative tube). I pushed on through this weekend and got to the top of the shoulders, did my three-needle bindoff and picked up stitches for the neck. Thanks to Anne's recent blog tutorial I feel I did a better job than usual of that particular task and I'm working the neck back and forth (I guess I could have cast on some steek stitches and done it in the round like Wendy is doing on Mara - oh, well).

I was going to leave the front steek alone until I finished the neck and picked up the button bands (again, a la Anne) but I found it awkward to work the neck that way.

Speaking of Anne - if you've never done Fair Isle before she's got an excellent tutorial on the technique. When I started this project last fall I read up as much as possible - there was no one locally that I could ask to get started. This tutorial was of great help - good pictures and good descriptions of the techniques. I started reading her blog back in April this year and didn't realize at first that this was the same lady I learned from back last fall! Thanks for all the help, Anne!

The installment sweatshirt jacket is trudging along....the 'close-pattern' is going verrrry slowwwly. I'm not sure I'm liking how this part is turning out - it's not so much the pattern, it's the yarn. The yarn is a bit too thick for a slip stitch garter stitch pattern ... I'm having to wrestle with it too much. I either need to change up to a larger needle size to loosen it up or rip it back and do it in plain stockinette. Not too keen on either idea but I'm probably going to have to rip it back either way. Stockinette will cost me less in yarn as this pattern really eats up the row gauge - 34 rows to 4 inches, rather than the 24 to 4 inches for stockinette. (That's an important consideration when you're spindle spinning all your yarn from scratch!)

I'll muse over it and decide what to do this evening.

The railroad stitch sock is chugging along nicely - I've gotten past the decreases, so it's rather on automatic now 'til I get to the heel. I'm deciding if I'll keep to the pattern on the foot or switch over to stockinette (like I usually do). I may keep the pattern going - it's not too lumpy-bumpy and helps maintain stretch. I will probably eliminate the central purl stitch on the back of the heel though; that just looks uncomfortable.

I was going to post this with update photos but, as usual, blogger is having problems with uploading photos. I'll add them tomorrow (hopefully).