I'm joining Kat & the Unravelers today for Unraveled Wednesday!

KNITTING:

Oh boy, it's getting exciting now!

The collar was knit with German Short Rows for shaping and it turned out great... after a couple of tries and a pause. I had to begin twice -- I was almost at the halfway point when I dropped a stitch (one of the GSRs) and couldn't recover. Fine & dandy, I was a lot more confident the second time and, of course, it knit up quicker. At the halfway mark, though, I struggled a bit with what I was reading in the pattern and how it would actually be done. I put it down and took a break -- two episodes of Ted Lasso (finally!) allowed my brain to calm down and I told myself what I always tell myself in these situations: "Just do what it says!" When I actually picked it up and DID it instead of just reading it... VOILA!

So it looks great and then the pattern said to graft the collar stitches to the picked up stitches. I went a tad further and picked up NEW stitches in the original stitches picked up for the collar because I thought it would be much easier to graft live stitches, and because I thought it would look neater... more finished. It was kinda fiddly but I did it.

I went with the flow and what felt/looked good, so there were about 9-10 fewer new stitches picked up -- the stitch markers are where I'm fudging an extra stitch so that it all evens out. 

I'm also grafting 1x1 ribbing to stockinette... and decided to do it in regular kitchener stitch (stockinette) and I think it's going to work out great! I did about 1/4 of the grafting this morning. I'm using the video from City Knitting in Grand Rapids that Kay posted the other day at Modern Daily Knitting. So smart!

READING:

I'm still reading The Miracle of the Bells, by Russell Janney, and listening to A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders. Actually, I haven't been listening much at all lately! With all the people in/out and car shuffling in the past month or so, I didn't even have my car for quite a while... and that's where I do the majority of my listening.

Hope you're having a great week! I'm off to pick up Ann and run a few errands.