Sunday Knitting

I've reached the smocking portion of my Coraline cardigan.

To create a smocking pattern, basically you slip two stitches that are several stitches away from each other, wrap the yarn around those two stitches, then knit all the stitches in their original order. It's tricky to get the wraps to all be the same length. You can clearly see that I've failed at this. However, if you are close enough to notice this while I'm wearing it, you are too close for my comfort.

The weird ridge where the smocking area meets the rest of the body is (hopefully) because I put in a life line. I wasn't feeling confident about my smocking skills. I may take it out, but then again I'm concerned about my row gauge being a little off so maybe I'll still have to rip back. I'm very unsure of everything at this point, but the good news is that the weather won't be appropriate for this sweater for several months now, so there's no hurry.

Here's a rather messy view of Coraline in its entirety. Almost there! And almost out of yarn!

Actual Knitting Content

Try not to faint from the shock. I don't have enough smelling salts for all 6 of you.

Also, don't get too excited about the knitting - it's only a dishcloth.


It is smocked though, so that should count for something. You may be asking yourself, what is smocking? Well, it is a fiddly awkward technique I previously used on the hateful Leyburn Socks which I don't think I recognized as smocking at the time. It is a textural pattern created by slipping several stitches in a row, leaving a "float" of yarn in front of the work. On a later row, you put your needle under the float (or in this case, the multiple floats) before putting it in the next stitch, so that it pulls the center of the float upward, making a decorative pattern.

The other day I had just finished a pair of socks (stay tuned for pics!) and immediately wanted to start a project but the only yarn I had available was sock yarn and this cotton. Since I was in the midst of watching episodes of Lost and didn't want anything too complicated I opted for a simple dishcloth. At the rate that I've been knitting, it should be finished right around Halloween.