Strange Magic

My many digressions to the contrary, I have been working on the Frog Prince.  Today I'm going to show you where the rubber meets the road, in terms of making it a sweater.  Up until this point, the thing was a (fairly cool-looking) combination of steeked rectangles and a collar.  Here you can see the next steps:

I picked up 342 stitches from the bottom of the hem on the front, up over the shoulder, and down the other side to the back hem.  The number of stitches is not pertinent, other than to make you feel sorry for me.  I just worked a stitch through three out of every four rows, as is my usual unscientific habit. Then I settled in for a long winter of plain black stockinette.  This was interrupted by some moderately interesting stuff, notably:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned: