There’s almost more patch than original material in these cardigan sleeves.

The embroidery club explored blanket stitch. For the first time during these exercises, I ran out of space before I ran out of things to try. Mostly because the organic, lacy blanket stitch (very much inspired by the works of Miriam Gielen) was so much fun that it grew and took up more space than its fair share.

On weekdays, I simply knit. Sometimes I have more attention to give to the work, sometimes less. But I generally don’t deal with complications, like measuring or making important decisions. Those are for weekends.

Yesterday I blocked this half-done cardigan to see if it might fit. The gauge swatch I knitted relaxed a lot when wetted, so I wanted to check this one before continuing with fiddly bits like buttonholes and sleeves. Seems OK, although I’m not sure about the neckline construction, or the width of the sleeves. I have to finish the neckline before I can reasonably evaluate it, though, and same for the sleeves.

I invested in a set of foam mats for blocking, instead of pinning things to folded-up bath towels. Felt very nice, much more stable and easy to work with.

There are KnitPro foam mats you can buy for about 400 kr. You can hear from the name alone how pro they would be. Or you can buy a children’s play mat, identical in size and material, for half the price.

The green sock on the left is my last sock with a standard-shaped toe. The gray sock on the right is one of my many socks shaped after my own foot.

After quite some time of use, the green sock has stretched to fit the foot decently well. But it never feels quite as comfortable as the custom-shaped ones. There is extra material where none is needed, while other places are stretched. It’s quite visible: the stitches are stretched thin over the big toe, which is where I’m sure the sock will wear out first, and the vertical columns of stitches lean.

I keep the green pair out of some kind of nostalgia, and sometimes I put them on because I like the colour, but they can’t compete with the better socks, so they mostly remain in the drawer.

I happened to read a horror story on a knitting forum from someone who had knitted a whole sweater and then discovered that the yarn relaxed a lot when it got wet, so their sweater grew over 10 centimetres in size in both length and width. They were desperately looking for ways to rescue it, with ideas ranging from just ripping it all up, to forcing it to shrink by tumble-drying it, to cutting off 10 cm from the sleeves and knitting new cuffs.

Theirs was knit in a superwash merino yarn, and I am also using a superwash merino yarn for the sweater I’m knitting, and one that’s unfamiliar to me so I’m not entirely sure how it will behave when washed. I think my knitting is tight enough that it can’t possibly grow by as much as theirs did, but I don’t want to end up with an unwearable garment. So I wet blocked the yoke that I’ve knit thus far, just to be on the safe side.

It grew in width from 31.5 cm to 33, which is a rounding error in my eyes, so all is good. Phew.

Experimenting with Bayeux stitch, named after the Bayeux tapestry which makes heavy use of it. We were only four people at the embroidery club today, which is about half the ordinary strength, so it was quieter than usual but still very nice. It’s always very interesting to look at the others’ interpretations of the same stitch, with their different fabric and yarn choices, different colours, stitch length, general technique etc.

I try to keep some kind of easy knitting or crochet project at hand, even on office days. I don’t pick them up every day, but when I don’t bring one, I often end up regretting it. Yesterday I ended up waiting for a slow build pipeline way too many times with nothing to occupy myself with, because my easy crocheting project got complications, and it was frustrating. Luckily I usually have multiple projects ongoing at the same time, so today I grabbed the bag with my large fluffy shawl instead, even though it’s a bit too bulky for a travel project. And was very glad I’d done it, because on my way home the commuter train got stuck for 15 minutes just before Sundbyberg (the station before Spånga) and I was glad to have something at hand.

I am pretty sure that little ball of yarn is not enough to finish this pattern repeat. Sigh. I was so pleased that I was finally going to finish this lace and hang it up. Now it’s gone back from the “easy work” pile to “it’s complicated”.

This sweater is knitting up unbelievably fast.

On the one hand, it goes really fast. I started a day ago, and I have definitely not spent all day knitting, but already I have half the yoke done. I’m starting to understand how people can knit a sweater in a week.

On the other hand, it gobbles up yarn like there’s no tomorrow. This is a full 50 g skein of yarn gone, in a day.

On the third hand, this yarn is about a third of the price of the hand-dyed merino wool I’ve used before.