Beauregard Bear and His New Hoodie

Gosh, not having an operable digital camera has really affected my blogging frequency! I have pics today, but they're from Jared's cell, so not the best. However, since I have something to show, I thought I'd post :-)

Last Wednesday, my daughter's preschool teacher handed her a tote bag with a teddy bear and journal in it and told her that she was to take care of "Beauregard" for two days until her next day of preschool. When we arrived home, Marie asked me if I could knit something for Beau. So, I took his measurements and some scrap KP Andean Silk yarn and made him a little hoodie. This was a fun project because I got to make something from scratch and try out top-down short row sleeves.

Details:
I CO and did 1x1 ribbing at Beau's tummy. After working stockinette ITR up to almost his underarms, I did some decreases at the sides since his chest was smaller. For the armholes, I placed 4 sts on holders on each side. Next I began shaping the armholes at the front and began the front opening. Using kfb at every front opening sts, I separated every other stitch and placed them on two needles, one in front of the other. Then I worked each front side separately, shaping the armhole and keeping the opening edge in seed stitch (i.e. moss stitch, UK). The back was shaped the same way, and I added one set of short rows below the neck so that the neck would be higher and help the hood sit better against the neck. For the hood I kept all the stitches I already had OTN, picked up a few more at the sides of the neck, and did kfb increases in every stitch (on the next row) except the seed stitch border. After that I still had to do 4 more evenly spaced increases so that my stitch total was somewhere near what I had earlier at the hips. I used a three-needle BO to finish the hood and also when joining the shoulders.

The next part was something I'd never tried until now: top-down short row sleeves! I used US4 dpns (3 sizes smaller than the US7's I used elsewhere) to pick up stitches around the armhole, making sure to use at ratio of 3:4 for horizontal/vertical areas and a 1:1 ratio elsewhere. Leaving the bottom armhole sts that were on holders alone, I took the top 4 picked-up center shoulder stitches and worked short rows back and forth, wrapping one more stitch each time at each end from the picked up armholes stitches. This meant working a wrapped stitch and then wrapping the next new armhole stitch before turning. When I ran out of stitches to wrap on the RS, I continued across the 4 held armhole stitches (picking up the last wrap when I came around to it) and finished the sleeves ITR with a new color. They (the sleeves) are not perfect and they don't match since I ran out of green, but they sure were fun to do! In retrospect, I need to figure out a better way to hold all the picked up armhole stitches because here's what I had: 4 armhole sts on a holder, 2 dpns at the sides, and 2 circulars at the top. Maybe I could've done each sleeve entirely on 2 circs with no dpns? Hopefully, there exists a simpler way of doing this method of sleeves specifically concerning needle placement, and I just haven't discovered it yet!

Other knitting news:
Hopefully, I'll remember to take and upload pics of Jared's finished black lattice stitch socks and of my new WIP Evenstar Mitts. I'm just about finished with my tidepool heather Knotty or Knice socks. I modified the toe and heel a bit, so I'll be blogging about that soon. The new Twist Collective is out and fabulous as usual. I've already faved the patterns I like on Ravelry. Hopefully the next IK preview will be out soon since subscribers will be receiving their new issues soon. The cover jacket looks really nice!