I'm done!

I'm so surprised at how fast this knit up. It took me just over 2 weeks-it's amazing how much faster sweaters without long sleeves are!

I tried to take this photo showing how my hair matches my trim as much as the designer's did hers in the original photo on knitty, but it didn't work out so well. :-) But, you can just almost make out those eyelets in the bottom ribbing and the ones at the raglan decreases.

I really think I'm going to like wearing this. The binario looks a lot heavier than it is, because one strand of it is cotton. I think I'm wearing this to work tomorrow.

Now that's lucky...

WittyKnits for you to find a few more balls of the same color/dyelot. This sweater is just-meant-to-be. I'm glad it worked out otherwise creative license would have come into play or a lot of frogging. It's looking great by the pic you posted. Keep up the great knitting.

Progress photo

I've actually gotten a lot more done since I snapped this photo last night, but I didn't have a chance to upload a new one. Here's a closeup of what the binario looks like knitted up:

Near yarn disaster!

So I posted last week about how I feared I'd run out of Binario to finish up the body of my Bad Penny. Yep, I did. I had gone through all four balls, and had about 4" left before I was ready to start the bottom band. I triple-checked my gauge, and I was dead on.

Problem was, the store I bought this yarn from closed two weeks after I bought it. So I spent 2 hours emailing yarn shops all over the country Monday night and posting pleas to various forums. No luck.

Yesterday evening, I ventured to the new yarn shop that opened and had purchased the first shop's inventory. I explained my predicament to them, and we went through several boxes of clearance yarn to no avail. I was just about ready to leave when someone came out of the back with 4 BOXES of Binario, one of them in #17, which is my color. And wouldn't you know it, it was even the same dyelot. So I'm saved!!!! I bought 2 more balls.

If anyone wants to do Bad Penny in the yarn the pattern calls for, they do have enough to do several more. From this shade card they have #17 (my color), 26, 28, and I think 12 or 15. It was $8.00/ball. A bit pricey, but it knits up wonderfully. The shop is Kniter's Mercantile and the phone number for the store is on their site--I don't think these yarns are on their website, so you'd have to call.

Also, as an FYI, it looks like I'll need 5 balls for the second smallest size, which calls for 4 according to the pattern. So you may want to have a bit extra no matter what yarn you're using, just in case. Learn from my mistake. :-)

Ready, Set, Knit...

A big hello to the Bad Penny KAL knitters. Thanks for letting me join in.

I read over the pattern and did a "yarn stash" cleanup to see if there was something within that black hole of yarn that would work for this cute little pullover before joining. ("Black hole" phrase was copped by dh this afternoon when he saw me with ALL of that yarn).

I'm going to use the Nina yarn I picked up at the Knitter's Retreat last November. A good way to use it up and then have something for next November's Show & Tell. The colorways are going to be way different than the original pattern, but this will help stash reduction, which is a good thing, right?

All swatched before dinner and now starting the body, into the seventh row. This will be a great project to take to work with me.

Have a great start to the week. ~ Sherrill

Woot!

Hey everybody, I'm Ashley and after some technical difficulties, I'm finally an official Bad Penny KAL member! I started day before yesterday, and I'm almost halfway done with the YO increases. Hopefully I'll keep up at this pace, but all this nice weather might cause me to slack off this weekend. I'm using some long-stashed Lion Brand Microspun, in light (body) and dark (trim) purple. I hope to get into it enough to post a photo in the next few days. Have a good weekend!

So, what if I want longer sleeves......

Okay, so I am onto the second skein and started thinking that I want the sleeves a bit longer. So, I was thinking I could just make a longer ribbed section on the sleeves and echo the same at the bottom torso band. But, can I just keep doing the YO increases? Would that yield a longer sleeve or would that just make the sleeves wider? Being a newbie and this is my first sweater, I have to defer to others for help.

How much yarn is too little?

I just cast on for Bad Penny this weekend, and after a series of mistarts involving my lack of counting ability, and failing to realize the pattern was top down and therefore casting on in the wrong yarn, I'm finally on my way. Here's the thing though--I'm really quite concerned about the amount of yarn I'm using. I'm making the second smallest size, which calls for 4 balls of the yarn in the main body. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the raglan increases, and estimate that I'll finish my second ball by the time I finish those.

Does that sound about right? Should have the yarn be enough for the body? I've never done a top down raglan before, so I realize it could be just that I'm not used to doing the widest part of the sweater first, but I'm getting a bit nervous.