After hauling this particular sweater from the UK though Germany to Hungary and back, it seemed like I really should finish it. I mean, after all, I have been knitting it (or avoid it) for months now. Admittedly, not as long as I diddled around with the Viking Ship Sweater, but certainly I should not leave it till next winter, now that it is too warm to wear it.

Remember that the sleeves were finished and set it. So it was a matter of deciding on the edging. After thinking about it – I decided to avoid both I-cord and ribbing. This, obviously left me with needing an edging that would create a nice, clean edge and cover up those steeks. I also decided that I did not want color variation in the edging, so using dark grey seemed the safest bet.

What follow is the step, by insane step, method that I used.

1) find long enough needle on which I could put the 165 stitches from each side of the front plus all those around both fronts and backs of the neck

going to the dark side

then there is a long time of knitting in one direction and purling back (remembering to increase on the two neck corners so that they will be mitered at the end) while taking the occasional look at the inside.

facing and bit of steek

In the next picture, I was checking to see if the facing was long enough yet. You can also see the line of yarn on the inside that represents all the stitches that have been picked up to make the facing. I will come back and pick these up at the end to complete the bind off on the inside.

not quite long enough yet

when the facing is wide enough, I inserted a purl row for a turning row, then knit an equal width of facing which will be turned to the inside. When it is bound off, it will enclose the steeked edge.

close up

might be a bit easier to see here. The top edge is bound off, the lower edge shows the open facing completel with the purl row. That faint bit of blue is actually the cable from this particular circular needle .

finishing up the neck

I just have some sewing down to complete around the neck in those places that were “steek free” plus a few lose ends to weave in.

almost done

Like I said, a few threads and then some badly needed blocking as soon as I pull out the woolly board.

Couple of thoughts for those who don’t believe that Kauni needs to be knit at 24/10 cm. I knit this at a much firmer gauge since I had no desire for a garment that was forever around. The result of taking out almost 20 cm? It is firm, it is heavy. and the hand is not as nice as my non-rainbow cardigan. A couple of projects that are in the queue are going to be put back to a lighter gauge as they are not outer, outerwear.

new tracks

When I was a teenager, there were railroad tracks. Since there were only freight trains coming along these tracks, you could walk along them most of the time. Balancing on the rail or hopping from tie to tie, it was cheap entertainment and often a short cut.

Moving to Europe was a shock. You don’t wander along railroad tracks, not in a country where those trains are electric. They simply don’t make a lot of noise and can sneak up on anyone who grew up listening to the loud sound of engines.

Have you noticed that railroad ties are no longer wood? Well, at least in Germany they are no longer wooden slabs. Intellectually I have known this for a long time but really had not paid a whole lot of attention till I was hanging out at the train station on Saturday and staring at the track. With the train late, there was little else to entertain me.

each one is marked

I think they might just be sturdier. Each and every one had an individual numbers which I am assuming relates to date of placement. Given an reasonable record keeping, it should be easier to manage replacement time.

Now, I know that you would rather look at a nice tree

flowering

or the fact that I have finally put together the second sleeve – and am still facing the issue of cuffs…..

sewn together and the cuff started

I was such a good kid yesterday that I needed a reward. I returned to my Phoenix

1/4 Charts completed

See this large, yellow bag clip? I got it at the local = of a cheap household items place. It is bright, it is long, it grips a flat surface and a knitting graph really well. Easy to move, I put it just above my current row and it is much easier to follow all those changes. Line below doesn’t work – I need to see what was on the previous row.

all I need

Video

The good thing is that the Croughton Library had Season 7 of CSI. The bad thing is that a lot of the disks seem to be damaged. This is not fun.