Where Knitting and Survival Collide - or maybe not.

As any of the survival guides will tell you, whenever you find yourself in over your head, take a second to calm down and assess the situation so you can think clearly. The same is true of knitting, although the dangers of hyperventilation and broken limbs are vastly reduced from those of an outdoors survival type situation.

I have spent quite a bit of the last few days looking at the Chinese Lace Pullover, deciding how far to go on the body knitting before starting the armholes. (According to the pattern requirements, I have 90 yards less yarn than I should have, and by eliminating the waist shaping I've already used more yarn than the actual pattern. I've also lengthened the body of the sweater. I have no idea what going from raglan shaping to set in sleeves does to yardage requirements.) There has been a lot of smoothing and measuring, looking at the Chinese Lace Pullover pattern and comparing it to Jaeger's Ronnie (the sleeve cap and armhole pattern I'm using to avoid any further thinking on my part), looking at the amount of yarn I have left, and just general thinking about what my gut is telling me about how much farther I can go on the body before I start armholes. (When in doubt, always listen to your gut.) Finally, I was ready, so I started the armholes, dividing the front from the back, and went for it. At one point, there were questions about how much yarn I would have. The back does take more yarn than the front because of the height of the neckline, but I was seriously worried about even getting the back neck done with the yarn I had. I put in a lifeline and went for it. I had enough yarn to finish the back, as you can see in the picture. Theoretically, this should mean that I have enough yarn to finish the front, but then there is a very narrow neckband to be worked and seaming to be done. The seaming can be done with a different yarn that matches colorwise, but the neckband must be done in the sweater yarn. Is it possible? Tune in tomorrow, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel and see for yourself!