(Apparently last week was supposed to be Iron Craft 32, so I have 2 of them. Not a big deal at all. Whoops!)
This week's iron craft challenge was to finish something that had been lying around.
This was easy. I have a ton of projects lying around.
See the unfinished projects. Heck I have a ton of projects that aren't finished that didn't even make it into Ravelry. It's true! I'm pathetic about the finishing stages. The lure of a new garment doesn't outweigh the annoyance of seaming.
The best projects are the ones that thus do not involve more than about 20 stitches worth of seaming.
So, one of the projects that was not on that list was the sweater for my husband. Team Hufflepuff, which was started at the movie theater (or right before) of movie 7 and was supposed to be finished for opening day of movie 8.
Yup, just over a month ago. The knitting has been done for a few weeks, but I was punting on the blocking and seaming. And it is completely understandable that I was. It took me most of an evening to crochet the shoulder seams (I was having piss poor luck with the other methods there and spent 2 hours seaming and picking apart at Gather Here, but at least I was amongst friends). Saturday evening was spent sewing the sleeves into the arm holes. Sunday evening was sleeve and side seam 1 (2 hours of Mars Attacks. Why did I want to watch that?) and Monday evening was sleeve and side seam 2 (ah, Will Wheaton was a much less painful experience). Tuesday was picking up stitches for the neckline and weaving in ends.
We photographed this last night even though it was late and it loses the full geeky effect. Better pictures later I'm sure.
The pattern is an amalgamation of the sweater from Charmed Knits and the sweater template from Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.
The yarn is Cascade 220. In a stupid turn of events I started this sweater (November 2010) having only bought 3 skeins of the grey Cascade 220. Wow. Mind numbingly dumb. I ended up buying 5 additional skeins in 2 additional dye lots. Thankfully Cascade's dye lots are usually really close.
I have about 1.8 skeins left (somehow I have 2 started skeins and one that is still unwound). Needless to say, this was not my best planned project ever.
This is also a project that could have used outtakes.
My husband has tried on the project at nearly every instance of the seaming. Things I missed with the camera: the Huffle Poncho, Michael Jackson wore one sleeve, right?, and Do you think this neckline is too much? Why did I miss the Huffle Poncho? It was hilarious!
With all of the yarn left, I wonder if I should make an actual HufflePoncho for my husband or if he would disown my sorry arse! As it is, I will be making with the remaining black and gold a Hufflepuff version of the Elinor's Mittens. The cables are happily unisex enough and the pattern sized enough to fit many a person I know.