Cap it off

In a “what is time anymore?” moment, I realized recently that it’s been nearly two years since I’ve knit a sweater for myself. That gave me the spark needed to finish the body of On the Grass and move on to the sleeves.

I’ve knit sweaters with raglan sleeves and set-in sleeves, but this is my inaugural attempt at creating a sleeve cap (as opposed to “cap sleeves” of which I’m not a fan). Regular readers will know that I love learning a new technique and am a visual learner, so off to YouTube I headed for a tutorial.

KnittingTheStash provided the level of detail I was looking for; she even sketched a diagram of the short row process needed to create the shoulder “cap.” Her demonstration used German short rows while On the Grass includes wrap-and-turn (w&t) short rows, but the concept for building the cap is the same: pick up the stitches, then knit a wedge (of sorts) of short rows back-and-forth to create the cap.

I always find the process of picking up stitches around the arm hole to be finicky and messy. This sleeve took three pick-up attempts, and while I’m still not thrilled with the smoothness of the result, I decided it’s best to just move on. When I’m done, I’ll go back and tidy up the gaps with a few stitches here and there (and there…).

In non-knitting news, I capped off the weekend with an evening road trip to New Hampshire for dinner with Michael, my favorite camp counselor. Since camp is different this summer — no overnight campers, just day camp for local families — his evenings are free and dinner with Mom is a welcome treat.

The feeling is mutual.