Thank heavens for little girls

… because I can borrow these from my little girl! 🙂

And here is how I used them…

… that is, for tacking the cardi pieces together while I do the seams. Practical, no?

The above pics were taken a few days ago. Since then, I’ve set in the sleeves (yay!), seamed up the sides and the sleeves (hooray!), weaved in some more ends (yipee!), and finished the collar (woohoo!). All that’s left now is picking up the miles and miles of stitches around the fronts and collar, both left and right fronts. Yes, that’s it, really. And then sew in the buttons. Oh no. Buttons! I haven’t got the buttons!!

Some notes:

Setting in the sleeve was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I’ve heard from quite a few people how nervewrecking it is to set in a sleeve. And in a way, it was. I don’t want to trivialise it, and I thank those people for alerting me. I did have a lot of doubts about whether this could fit into that. Especially because my stitch and row gauges are way off from the pattern, and I have been adjusting the maths as I go. What if the sleeves can’t fit?? As much as I want to be a Knitter, I don’t think I would have the courage to undo the sleeves at this point. One great advice that I found on setting in the sleeve, was from Ann Budd’s book, The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns:

With yarn threaded on a tapestry needle and beginning at shoulder point (leave sufficient yarn at beginning of seam to be used later to work other half), sew sleeve to back armhold to the underarm. Repeat for front armhole.

That is, to start seaming at the shoulder point (center of the bind-off edge of the sleeve) instead of from the underarm. Why didn’t I think of that before?? I’m sure that it is probably obvious to many of you. But I’m glad I read that, and I think it made setting in the sleeves easier for me.

The collar is done in 2×2 ribs, and I decided to try doing a tubular bind-off, to match the tubular cast-ons that I used to begin the body and sleeves. I’ve never done a tubular bind off before, so I turned to the books. Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook seems to be the only book I’ve got that describes the technique for 2×2 ribs. And it says, “For masters of tubular bind-off on one needle.” What?!? Masters?? Eeeek! So in order to not ruin my knitting, I went to jump off a cliff tried it out on some scrap yarn first. And to my amazement, it turned out alright. By the tenth iteration I even got it memorized.

There’s something interesting I found while practising the tubular bind-off on scrap yarn. The book warns that this bind-off on 2×2 ribs has a slant. I found that it is true. But. But! On the wrong side, there’s no slant! I don’t know whether this is true in general or just in my way of knitting. But that was useful to know. So of course what I did was to do the bind off on the wrong side of the garment. Now I’m very happy with how it looks 🙂

I’m off now to do the button bands!