Central Park Hoodie

I can't believe it's Friday already. I've been trying to blog this since Monday, but Blogger and a cold have combined forces to make sure that it didn't happen until today.

Thanks for comments and emails re; oiled yarn. Sorry I didn't hear you at the SECC Heather - I may have been a little delirious after having bought all that yarn! See this is why I do the SECC alone - I'm utterly unsociable when there are crafty delights all around begging to be purchased.

Cheers Heather - I would love to get any help that anyone can give me on yarn goodies to be had in Tokyo, and also to see steeking 'live'.

I have finally finished the back, 2 sides and 2 sleeves for Central Park Hoodie. Blocking was required in order to seam the shoulders and join front and back pieces for the hood.

Now you all saw that I did a tension square right? It fit perfectly with the specified tension with no effort on my part. And I remained all calm and zen-like whilst knitting it - trying not to knit it with a rushed 'this is a waste of my time' attitude ...

Well - the hoodie is about 4 inches too long and had to be stretched as wide as it would go - in fact the sides were practically transparent they were stretched so wide. So I figured screw it - I'll block the life out of it so that it will go to the diagram size for seaming and then reblock it.

Some gratuitous 'arty' blocking cable shots because my thumbs were so sore from pinning in 8 million pins that I couldn't knit for a bit.

See the diagram above? I blocked the 2 front sides 91/2 inches wide, and then I wondered whether the diagram includes the rib stitches that I'm supposed to pick up around the hood and both sides of the cardie? I had already pinned a gazillion pins at this stage and so was beyond caring whether this no longer fit anything except a pencil. I decided to soldier on.

Picking up stitches for the hood - top pic was perfect. Bottom pic not so much *sigh* you might have to enlarge it to see that it doesn't glide seamlessly into the hood. I took the decision to leave it this way because the hood is going to cover this, and it'll be rare that the hood will be up after the obiglitory blog shot.

Shot of all stitches picked up and hoodie beginning to take shape.

And pretty shot of my kitty lying with his head on the arm of the sofa dozing. It's a bit yellow since I discovered he objects to extreme macro close-ups with the flash on ... and his rapidly closing eyes go red - which isn't cute.