Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Apparently, I have been uploading photos and failing to write about them.  I came here today, fully expecting to see this as the blog entry for yesterday.  As a first post for the year, it would be fine.  As a late first post for the year it will still be fine, just late.

New Years Eve was spent getting things ready to wear on New Years day.  I did sweater surgery and worked on my socks.  

The sweater surgery turned out quite well.  I cut off the existing collar and pulled back a row all around till I was in the stockinette part of the sweater and then put the stitches for all but the front of the neck on a holding string.  Then I carefully dropped stitches at the front to make a deeper u shape.  

I then picked all the stitches and reknit the collar and wove in all the many ends.  It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

The entire process dropped the front neck about 3 inches.  Three inches, according the the Vogue Knitting, the Ultimate Knitting Book ,  three inches should be about right for an average neck.  However, contrary to popular opinion, this is one little place where women of size might want to check their own individual measurement.  That bit of extra padding on my shoulders means that three wasn't quite perfect.  

It still pushes a bit oddly on the neck,  though that did relax once I was wearing the sweater a while and it 'self blocked' on my shoulders.  If I were doing that again, I would drop closer to four inches.  I never measured that drop before but it appears to be an area of significan difference from average.  It also looks a bit weird on the sides but that was gone in the wearing of it too.  

The rest of the day, I worked on the socks so I could wear new socks and a new sweater for New Years day.

I didn't quite finish these on New Years Eve.  My hands were stiff as they sometimes are and knitting wasn't a lot of fun.  I was chilly till the landlord turned up the furnace.They did get finished on New Years day though so it counts.  New sweater and new socks for New Years Day.

And so it went.