Tuesday, February 22, 2011

NERD WARS

nerdwars

I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I had submitted a dissertation proposal for the three month NERDWARS tournament.  Finishing in three months may be a bit of a challenge, especially since I didn't submit my proposal until 02.14.  I am going to try to knit HEY, Teach!

The challenge is on a few fronts.  1. It's a fairly large (gotta fit me!) project and I have a tendency to get bored and wander off.  2. It's a sweater and there are at least 6 seams involved.  I am not a big fan of seaming.  3.  Adaptions must be made because I cannot get both row and stitch guage.  I went with stitch guage - but as the shaping for the armholes are in the lace section, I will need to be careful to not get weird armholes.  4. It must be done by April 30th - and I am only 95% sure I have enough yarn.  

I do have a plan however!  1.  I am also participating in a couple of the monthly challenges, I have to get a St Patricks day swap item done, so by mixing projects I am hoping to alleviate some of the boredom.  Also the only stockinette stitch (yawn) is in the bottom 8 inches.  2.  At some point I am going to have to learn to seam.  I do have a finishing techniques book and I am going to put on my big girl pants and go for it!  3.  I made a section twice as high as the lace pattern to help me figure out armhole placement.  4.  From when I cast on, there were 11 weeks and 4 days until the deadline. The project uses 10 skeins of yarn.  So the plan is 0ne skein per week leaves me 11 days to block and seam.  As of right now I am on target.



I don't know if you can see, but the yarn is red, like pure red.

IMAG0583.jpg

My swatch - the lower third was done on the recommended needles but was clearly not working out, so I did a garter border and went up a size.  That got me stitch guage but not row guage.  The top third is 2 repeats of the 12 row lace pattern in the larger needles.  I did not steam block because I am pretty sure I will need about 1/2 of the yarn in this skein (I'm not sure but if you look at the top I didn't cut the yarn from the skein)

IMAG0584.jpg

My current progress 8in + 8 rows of rib.

3 comments:

  1. Yeah! this is going to be super pretty for you. Good Luck with it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ohhh, very pretty red, dare I say the same red as the car of that driver we like so well? I know you can do it! Knit on!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. But of course T! Any project that long must have it's rewards.

    ReplyDelete

I've gotten rid of the word verification for posting comments. To tell the truth, I have trouble reading the new stuff they are using. Feel free to disagree, but spammy or obnoxious comments will not go up.