Sesame and Wedding Accessory

You guys are fab with your replies; thanks so much for answering my question about the neckline over the weekend. I've since finished the back, the right front panel and am about to start working on the neckline of the left front panel. WOOHOO! Bank holiday weekends rock for knitting progress. :D

Now, since apparently my brain thrives on being crammed full of stuff, I'm thinking about what to do about arm coverage for my brother's wedding in December. The bridesmaid dress looks like this and I know I'll get cold. I was thinking maybe a wispy shawl or similar type cover or a shrug type cardigan. I dunno. Anyone have any ideas/patterns they think would match well and look elegant?

Sesame neck

Well, I've been cruising along on Sesame this week while taking thinking breaks from writing, or at night once I've finished worked for the day. I've got the back panel nearly complete and am at the neck shaping, only I've hit a bit of a snag.

The pattern says:

Neck shaping: Working each side at the same time - work 22 (22, 23, 24, 25) sts. Place the next 28 (28, 30, 30, 30) stitches on a holder. With a second ball of yarn, work remaining 22 (22, 23, 24, 25) sts. Dec 1 st at neck edge every row twice; 20 (20, 21, 22, 23) sts remain. Work even until armhole measures 8 (8, 8.25, 8.5, 9)" / 20 (20, 21, 21.5, 23)cm.

Shoulder shaping: Cast off 10 (10, 10, 11, 11) sts at each armhole edge, work 1 row even, then cast off rem 10 (10, 11, 11, 12) sts at armhole edge.

I've worked the 20 sts on either side of the neck and done the decreases called for:



only I've still got those 28 sts on the holder, as the picture shows. The pattern says to 'work even' blah blah so my instinct is telling me to start reworking those stitches on the holder, but as I'm not sure, I've stopped:



As you can see, I'm currently working the WS. My doubt really arises from the instructions for the shoulder shaping since it only says to cast off 20 sts total along the armhole edges. So, what about the 28 sts along the neckline??

Help? I'm sure this is all fairly basic but as it's my first sweater, I really don't want to screw this up.

ETA: I just peeked at mariknits' pics of her finished Sesame and *think* I've figured it out. Will this be solved by:

Neck finish: With right side of work facing, starting with yarn A, pick up and knit 4 sts from right front neck holder, 20, (20, 20, 22, 25) sts from right front neck edge, 3 (3, 3, 4, 4) sts from right back neck edge, 28 (28, 30, 30, 30) sts from back neck holder, 3 (3, 3, 4, 4) sts from left back neck edge, 20 (20, 20, 22, 25) sts from left front neck edge, and 4 sts from left front neck holder; 82 (82, 84, 90, 96) sts. Work 36 rows in 2x2 rib stripe pattern. Cast off loosely in ribbing.

If so, hurray! And gawd I feel like an idiot. *hd*

Fried

Gawd I'm so tired. My next door neighbors decided to get drunk and argue all night last night. And I was really looking forward to getting a good night's sleep so I could straighten up the flat and run some errands before sitting down to knit.

Instead, I'm walking around like a zombie (well, sitting actually, heh). I woke up to a cold and rainy day (no errands for me then; I don't feel like lugging around groceries etc in the rain), a missing potted rose from my balcony, and the other knocked over. My foggy brain tried to figure out if the roses had been victims to the drunken neighbors or the wind. This meant going downstairs to ask another neighbor if my rose was in her garden. Luckily, I stopped to get the mail first and my potted rose was in the foyer so I guess it had fallen downstairs and she wasn't sure which of the flats above her it belonged to. So I got fully dressed for nothing (as opposed to comfy, rainy day clothes). Ah well. Mystery solved. I've now got a load of laundry in, and I plan to at least move things off the couch; the rest of the flat will have to wait til I'm more awake.

In knitting news, though, I've finished my socks, hurray! Actually, I finished them last weekend but haven't had a chance to come ramble about them. No mistakes with the second sock and I was able to work in a whole bunch of scraps of left over yarn into the leg of this one. I also tried a different method for adding in a new yarn. Rather than slip knotting the new yarn on to the end of the strand that's finishing, I held the new yarn against the old and worked the two strands in together for a few stitches before dropping the old one. This is probably not a new method for anyone else, but I was well chuffed with it. Huzzah! Thank you Betsy McCarthy! (I found that trick in Knit Socks!) The socks are now in the machine being washed after their first week as sleeping socks.

I've decided my next project will be Sesame by Melissa Wehrle. At first I had thought of doing the stripes, but I changed my mind when I realized, hello! first sweater here. I don't need to worry about weaving in umpteen ends on top of seaming the whole thing together. Seaming is my biggest fear as the only time I seamed anything was my legwarmers last year. The result wasn't too heinous but it was tedious as all get out. TheBlackSheep suggested I knit it in the round and if I could figure out how to convert the pattern I would (*failz at knitting math*). Part of me thinks I should do it in pieces though so I know how to do that if needed later. I can always figure out how to knit sweaters in the round later. (Heh, that's kinda like my 'I'll figure out how to do fair isle knitting later.' :p But that's a long story better left off for another time.)

Oh! I almost forgot. TheBlackSheep sent me kewl socks for my birthday. Columbine Peaks by Cat Bordhi. Tres nifty and so friggin soft!
Aren't they purty??

Well, I'm off to find comfy rainy day clothes and start casting on my first sweater. Wish me luck!

More on the socks .... and felting!

What do you know? I got sucked into Harry Potter and all things related. I went down to London the week of the book release and attended Sectus, an HP fandom conference, and was there for the madness of a midnight release party! I've never done that before as I usually just order from Amazon. Aside from getting sucked into the book and trying to keep my bearings in the fandom aftermath, I also visited John Keats' house, Charles Dickens' house, the British Library, and St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a lot of fun but would someone please tell me why I forgot to take my knitting?!

The second sock is now in the gusset stage (finally!) so I'm starting to think ahead to my next project. I brought yarn with me for two known projects and also sock yarn for boredom/emergency purposes, as I've said before. One of these projects is a Lucy Bag which requires felting. This is all well and good except that my washing machine here is not top loading. And I've never manually felted anything in a sink or bucket or anything. Has anyone got any tips? Can felting be done in a front loading machine?