The Stumbles Continue...

Well, it's a good thing I gave myself an entire week to do the finishing on this sweater. Something inside me knew that a something would go wrong. And of course, something did. In fact, a few somethings did. I knew that the neckband would be the most challenging part of the sweater. It involves picking up stitches and doing decreases in the front to create a seam. I'm always kind of "freeform" about the way I pick up stitches because I find that I have to do it over and over to get the right number. Most of the time, it's no big deal, but in this case, it really made a difference. I read the pattern and started picking up, but realized I'd started in the wrong place. I figured if I got the right number of stitches overall, everything would be alright, but I ended up with this instead:

The seam is supposed to line up with the center rib. So, I ripped it out and decided to seam the sweater first and then deal with the neckband again as the final element. I'm still thinking I'll finish on time though. Seaming was another comedy of errors where first, I seamed my front and back together when I was trying to set in the sleeve, leaving the sleeve to swing in the wind. Whoops. Then, I seamed my sleeve together inside out! Ugh! Anyway, the seaming is almost done. Just one more sleeve to seam up and I'm ready to get back to the neckband.

After all of my screw-ups today and yesterday, I got a wonderful surprise in the mail:

Yep, that's gorgeous Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Tahoe colorway. Aren't they beautiful? There's some pair of socks out there just waiting to be made with this beautiful yarn. There was also some yummy candy and a design-your-own coffee tumbler from Starbucks. I just LOVE all of my goodies. Thank you Secret Pal! You are so cool and generous!

Have a good one!