circular sweater – Curls and Q

– One of the most unique projects I have ever done is making the body of a circular sweater on the knitting machine and then hand finishing it. I have done small projects on the knitting machine, but I have never finished a large one. This was one project I really got excited about. Q found a perfect lace edging for the circular sweater. I told her I wanted a knit-as-you-go pattern. I did not want to pick up a jillion stitches around the edge.

The tricky part of hand-knitting a knit-as-you-go edging is picking up a stitch from the body. I found that using double pointed needles works great. I used double pointed needles since I only have a max of 23 stitches on the needle. You can use circular needles just as easily. Here I have all of the stitches for the row and I am ready to pick up a stitch from the edge of the sweater.

See how I pick up one stitch from the edge of the sweater with the point of the needle. After I pick up the stitch, I slide the stitches back to the opposite end of the needle. I knit to the last lace stitch and the picked up stitch.

When you reach these two stitches, you knit them together and presto the lace is attached. Knit-as-you-go.

I am half done. I am looking forward to blocking it. After blocking, I am going to make a decision about sleeves; should I add sleeves, or leave it sleeveless? Decisions, decisions, decisions!

There are quite a few wonderful edgings at this site; they can all easily be attached to a sweater, cuff, etc. If you want the knit-as-you-go, the edge stitch of the garment is counted as the first cast on. You will pick-up a stitch from the garment every other row. Continue the lace pattern until you reach the end of the garment where you want it to be.

– Dragon Boat Races are highly competitive. On Saturday, San Diego hosted it’s third annual Dragon Boat Race on Mission Bay. Read all about the history of this unique event and the history of San Diego’s Dragon Boat Race at their web site: www.sddragonboatrace.com. The date of the race is referred to as the “double fifth” since Duanwu is for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which often falls on the Gregorian calendar month in June, but it sometimes falls in May or July. This year Duanwu fell on May 5.

The boats are rigged with a decorative Chinese dragon head and a tail. The dragon’s eyes are covered until the monk whips them open.

There is traditional dancing all day. A wide variety of vendor booths are set up. There is an overall feeling of a festival!

This was the second time that my husband, Al, competed in the race. Last year his team took second place. As the race has become more popular, more teams and tougher teams have entered. Saturday there were about 30 teams of all ages. This year the teams were a lot harder to beat, so, unfortunately, after 3 races Al’s team was out. For each round, two boats are race against each other, after two losses a team is out of the race. Each boat has a drummer who’s pulsation of the drum is the “heartbeat” of the dragon and sets the rhythm for the rowers.

Above are two pictures of Al’s team. The picture on the left shows his team in their dragon boat. Al is the one looking at me with his paddle up. In the right photo he is the team member kneeling on the bottom left.

This is how I watched the races! I am busily hand-knitting as I attach a lace border to my machine-knit circular sweater. This is the circular sweater I will be using for demonstration in Large Blocking Projects Part Two. Since my ankle was still swollen, I did my knitting and took pictures from my chair. Luckily I had a front row seat directly in front of the starting line, so it turned out to be a perfect spot to watch the races begin. With the water in front of me it was easy to view the race and take pictures! Primo location!