NaBloPoMo day 22: Naming of parts

The daily blogging being completely blown, at least I can show you what I've been doing with another of this month's tasks - the NaKniSweMo cardigan.

I have pieces.  All the pieces, in fact...

From top to bottom, two sleeves, two fronts and a back.  The colour's actually a pale cool grey, but this is how it looks on the chair by the PC in the lamplight...

Having these sorted by the 22nd is great; but I'd really like to get the bands picked up and finished tomorrow, because it's too big to carry to work and back...

That's 76,692 stitches, at my best calculation...

NaBloPoMo day 12: Nearly halfway. Ish.

So, other than attempting to blog every day, one of the other things I'm trying to do this month is knit a sweater.  Or in this case, a cardigan.

As of last night, I had a back, a sleeve and the ribbing for another sleeve.  In theory, that means I'm halfway. In practice, there's all the sewing up and picking up for bands to do, and that's a real pig. On the other hand, if I were knitting in one piece from the top down, it would long ago have got to the stage where I'd have to be hauling a backpack around, so the sewing up is a necessary evil.

It's not the most exciting garment in the world; but here it is so far.

The gory details of the pattern, yarn etc. are in Day 1's post so I won't repeat them here.  This represents 39,524 stitches, at nearest reckoning; onwards with the fronts now, with the second sleeve as knitting-group knitting as it needs very little concentration...

NaBloPoMo day 1: Statement of intent

The more observant, or frankly the not-dead, may have noticed that the name of this blog is a Trades Descriptions error in 2014.  It's not been a great year; and I've been on social media a lot more than previously, possibly because being cheerful in 140 characters is easier...

But the clocks have gone back, and it's dark outside, and I need something to boot me into regular action... So I've signed up for this again

Let's see what happens.  It won't all be knitting - I'm hoping to remember some of the good things this year, most of which have some sort of fibre content - but I'm hoping there'll be a bit more of a textile thing going than there has been...

I've signed up for a couple of other things in November, too - for the first time, I'm going for NaKniSweMo - which is the equivalent of the National Novel-Writing Month which has been going for years.  For the knitty version, I need to knit a sweater of more than 50,000 stitches in the month of November.  Unlike the writing version - strapline The world needs your novel - nobody needs this sweater, or in fact cardigan, apart from me; but I could really do with a cardi for when autumn finally sorts itself out, and express-knitting one seems like a good idea.  I already had the yarn for Burrard, bought from the lovely Aimée at Harbour Yarns when I was up there in August, so that was the one; it's neutral enough in colour that it'll wear with a lot of things.  The yarn is softish but still definitely wool, and it's amazingly sheepy smelling, for a machine-washable wool/nylon blend (Aire Valley DK from West Yorkshire Spinners).

Here's Day 1's progress; 7,600 stitches; which doesn't actually get me much more than a third of the way to the armpits, so I'm going to have no problem hitting the 50,000 but may still not finish the sweater! 

I'm envying slim and elfin people on the Ravelry group who are wondering whether to add long sleeves or collars to get the stitch count!

Tomorrow, I'm intending to get to my first Fibre Festival of 2014, Festiwool in Hitchin. I'll report back; not least on whether I see anyone knitting the way illustrated in the bottom right-hand photo in that link!