Rogue on the beach

First photos of the completed Rogue, there will be more to come. Location... a very chilly windy Sunday morning on Long Island's Long Beach. Thoughts... I love my Rogue.

Another Rogue update

Both sleeves are coming along nicely - they are nearing the halfway point, just lots of stockinette to go before I do some shoulder shaping.

I never took a photo of the finished hood, I think it can wait until the sleeves are done and there are final photos of it. I am worried about wearability, the alpaca in the yarn seems to bother my neck a bit, and I cannot wear turtlenecks, but hopefully it'll soften up when it is washed and blocked.

I want to post photos of my finished Ravenclaw socks, but that has to wait until they are in the recipient's hands. I am going to include a bit of the leftover contrast yarn, because I don't know if she will like the cuff/bind off, and I'd like her to be able to adjust it if desired. I should be sending them out by the end of the week though, so hopefully photos can be posted soon.

In a strange random last thought, I removed all links to other blogs in my sidebar - I switched everything over to Google Reader, but I've not yet taken the time to do the sharing thing so I can have a nifty link for everything in my sidebar. It's be much easier if they could just have a link to everything without needing to do the share bit, but whatever. If anyone has any tips on that let me know.

Rogue progress... the photographic version!

Taken this morning, just after completing the first of five hood increase sections. And because I know I mentioned the use of different yarn for the hem, but never posted a photo of it...



And before I forget, to expand on the mention of my gauge changing in actual knitting, the stitch gauge is still spot on, the row gauge grew a bit, from 6 rows/inch to 5.75 rows/inch (see, not much, but enough when you consider inches and inches of knitting). If I were to change needle sizes, my stitch gauge would change, which would be a bad, bad thing. So I will instead futz with the pattern a little, because I haven't already modified it any. ;)

More Rogue progress/new camera

It seems a post with a mention of a new camera in it's title would have photos from said new camera. Alas, it's been dreary and raining here for the last three days and so photographic evidence of said new camera shall wait.

With the dreary rain and much cooler weather (which is already changing and the next few days will be back to their summery normal temperatures), I've managed to get a lot of Rogue done. A lot. Finished chart A last week, finished the back and a good portion of the front yesterday, and finished the front a few minutes ago. Next on the agenda - the hood. Once the hood is done, I will be working both sleeves at the same time to keep them nice and even.

I do have a minor problem with my Rogue - my gauge swatch was dead on for both circular and flat knitting (size US8 for the circular part, and a US8 and US7 combo for the flat because I purl looser than I knit), but apparently that changed a bit in actual sweater knitting, so the flat part is a bit longer than it should be, but not much thanks to some minor adjustments and removal of a few rows on both the back and the front. I will figure out something for the sleeves, because while I like longer sleeves, I fear that if I don't adjust the pattern slightly, they will be far, far too long due to the gauge shift.

Hopefully I will have photos of the progress soon. I do love my new camera and want to use it every chance I get. It's a Nikon D40x, because I couldn't justify the additional $200+ for the D80 when they are almost identical. Well, that, and the D40x fits better in my hands.

Rogue progress...

Currently at the beginning of the third ball of yarn, ball #2 covered all of the main narrow cable repeats (5 in my case since I am making the 48" size), and the increases for the top part of chart A are started.

Also been working on the log cabin, which needs more blue and less pink. I've not officially been told yet by my sister, but my mom was never able to keep secrets, and already I am planning other boy knits for the future nephew. I don't intend to start over in order to omit the pink, but I will be trying to downplay it a bit. Regardless, the blanket is soft and squishy and getting too big for 14" straights and my Boye Needlemaster points of the (supposed) same size as the Susan Bates straights are bigger than the straights by a rather good amount, so I think I will see if JoAnn's has a SB circular in a US6 that is the same size as the straights so I don't screw up the gauge when I switch over.

One skein

One skein of Jaeger Shetland Aran will produce one gauge swatch of roughly 4" square and 31 rows of actual sweater (counting two for the hem, one before the purl row, and the purl row).

I finished the first skein earlier, just before the end of row 29 of the first cable chart, and will be joining the second skein tomorrow.

Surprisingly, even with the diagnosis of carpal tunnel in my left hand/wrist, I've still been able to knit, though much more slowly than before. Wearing a wrist brace almost constantly has been helping immensely, but my hand is still rather weak and numb. Hopefully it will continue to improve though as I've not been able to cut fabric or draft patterns for several weeks and I was already far behind with the sewing.

Rogue progress and wee baby knits

The above was taken yesterday morning just before I finished knitting the hem and body together. So far I am absolutely loving the yarn I am using - Jaeger's Shetland, 80% new wool, 20% alpaca, in black, because I like to live dangerously. ;) I also, in my need to not follow directions exactly, made the hem much shorter than the recommended 12 rows.

I am glad I gave up on the original Rogue Yarn (KnitPick's Main Line), it was way too thin for this sweater, but it will eventually get used, probably as a SKB.

I think I will most likely be working on only this for the remainder of the summer (I don't need to rush it since it's not hooded sweater weather right now), or at least until my sister finds out in about 8 weeks whether she will have a girl or a boy so I can then do some baby knitting.

OMG. I never did mention that anywhere. My sister, who thought she's never have a child of her own, is due sometime right around the Winter Solstice. Yay for baby knitting! I have already found a ton of patterns I'd like to make, but want to wait for gender confirmation so I can decide what color(s) to invest in.