I love the idea of this thread and I’d like to resurrect it. There are so many fun projects on here!

not sure if this will post with the picture of the sweater I’m making, (it’s not showing in the preview…) but in any event I can link to this post on my Tumblr though it is a slightly older picture. I’m pausing on the main body and working on the sleeves. I’m working it top-down so that I can basically knit till I run out of yarn. It is so soft and warm, which is something of a deterrent in this weather. BUT I hope to actually finish in time for winter.

The sweater looks pretty, @Lady-Merian! How long does it usually take you to knit a sweater?

Is anyone working on any county fair needlework projects? I told myself this was going to be the year I entered a knitting project, but I didn't touch my knitting project from January to May - and then lost motivation when I realized that I didn't correct a mistake early on in the project well enough to be unnoticeable. Oh well - maybe next year?

@valiantarcher I had to look back at some records to get an idea of how long a sweater takes me, in part because a heavier weight will take less time (usually) and in part because I haven’t been knitting as much as I used to. This is the first full winter sweater I’ve done in a few years. I would say my average used to be about two months (even in a sock/fingering weight yarn and size four needles!) but the last ones I’ve done have taken me more like eight months, and this one that I’m doing is definitely going to take me more than eight even though it’s a heavier weight on size seven needles. I’m done with the first sleeve though! It was a good decision to work on the sleeves first, I think, though sometimes when I’d try it on for size my sister would talk about my “strange fashion choices” (one sleeve long but with needles sticking out, the other ending just past my shoulder, and an extremely cropped body with needles sticking out of that.)

That’s too bad about the project you’d intended to enter not working out for it. I hope you do get one in next year! What happens if you start something now and dedicate, say, a set amount of time to it a week without necessarily putting aside what you’re working on now?
I’ve never actually gone to our county fair. Or any fair that had opportunities to enter needlework that I know of! (Or maybe they did in the next county, but if so we didn’t view them. We used to go to that one for the crafts for sale and also the best apple dumplings we could get there and nowhere else.)
I used to follow a knitting blog run by two sisters who usually had multiple entries in the Minnesota State fair. They were always impressively intricate and maybe intimidatingly so.   I think I have one sweater that could have measured up maybe.

edit: this time the photo worked, but it is before I knit one sleeve onto it. I’m afraid I don’t have a more recent photo. 

Oh, wow, you've knit a sweater before in two months, @Lady-Merian? I'm impressed! Eight-plus months seems a bit more reasonable to me. Congrats on getting through the first sleeve on your current sweater, though! Will the second sleeve come along quickly? And do all the patterns on the body slow you down noticeably over a plain stockinette stitch?

I suppose I could start another project, but free time is rather limited currently (or, perhaps, I am prioritising other things over knitting) and I feel like I should probably finish the current project before picking up another. That's too bad that you've never gone to your county fair or seen needlework entered in one! Fairs in general are fun and it's especially neat seeing all the needlework and other handicrafts. (But apple dumplings do sound good...) I think people sometimes get too intimidated by the quality of what they think fair entries should be, but really: you'd be surprised at what makes it into fairs sometimes and the competition isn't always fierce...

 I recently went to a small exhibit of some quilted artwork; going in, I thought they'd be quilts proper, but they mostly seemed to be wall hangings (and more free-form/pictorial than geometrically patterned). Irregardless, it was interesting to see all the works displayed and how some of the artists used the quilting design/pattern to provide texture to the images on their quilts. A few of them did leave me wondering if I should give quilting a try.

In the last two years I have reknitted two cardigans. Both didn't quite fit right, so I had unpicked each, rolled the wool into balls, and then hanks, washed and dried, and rolled back into balls for knitting. 

2023 I completed a nice navy-blue jersey. 2024 a better-fitting red cardigan. 

This year 2025 I've merely reknitted the fronts of my orange cardigan from the start of the armholes. I removed the hood, which fitted badly, and remade the front bands and neckband.  I'm looking forward to wearing it this week.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Eight-plus months seems a bit more reasonable to me.

That seems to be about my speed as well, though if I actually worked with any diligence I'd like to think I could do a two-month project.

Auntie, were you the original knitter for your cardigans or did you buy them? And are you going to redo the hood you removed?

This month I finally finished a couple of skirts that had been sitting in my work-in-progress pile and it's been quite nice to finally wear the one I started two years ago... Theoretically I could enter it in the local fair, but I feel my application of the hook and bar is more functional than anything else. (On the other hand, maybe I should think about entering something from the garden...)

@coracle, how long did the reknitting take you for each cardigan? I'm glad this year's cardigan redo was simpler and I hope you enjoyed wearing it this past week.

Do you care to test that thought about diligently knitting a sweater, @Mel? Congrats on finishing the skirt - it looks nice! Hmm, I think entering the skirt would be technically acceptable but I understand too why you feel a bit odd about it (but you should definitely go for the garden entry irregardless).

I did actually pull out my knitting yesterday and get a few rows further. I'm almost finished with the current ball of yarn, which will mean needing to wind the next skein into a ball; unfortunately, winding the first one was a very frustrating experience, so I'm not looking forward to winding the second one even if I try a different tactic.
I also turned a bit of an old denim skirt into a silverware holder for my work lunches; it turned out rather oversized since I eyeballed it all, but I think it'll do the trick. I also learned the blanket stitch to protect the opening as I realised too late that my clever idea of reusing the original skirt hem to avoid a new hem wasn't so smart if the bottom of the hem was pretty frayed.

@valiantarcher a few months for a full knit or reknit. Of course the more time I spend each day, or each week, the quicker it gets done.  Starting in autumn would have been a good first step for having it ready to actually wear in actual winter! The next item I make will have to have an earlier start. 

@mel they were all previously knitted by me, which made unpicking easier.  The wool from the hood was basically used up in reshaping the tops of the two fronts - they needed more wool.  The remainder of the wool can be used for bits and pieces, nothing big. As the orange one was made before 2017, it was a bit worn in places too. 

@coracle, a few months sounds like a pretty decent pace still! And starting in the autumn or late summer in order to have the sweater ready for winter is a great plan.

Anyone have any advice or thoughts about how to handle snags in knitting projects? My current project had a little tangle with a piece of velcro and - despite my careful attempts to disentangle - has a handful of distorted stitches due to some of the plies in the yarn being pulled away from the rest. If worse comes to worst and I frog it, can the yarn itself be smoothed back down or is it ruined for good?

@valiantarcher If you have little pulled threads, are you able to poke a needle through from the outside, allowing you to put each thread into the eye of the needle and pull it to the back (wrong side) ?  if they are loops, perhaps you can very carefully use a crochet hook (small size) or even use a thick wool needle and thread a loop into the eye to pull through?

@coracle, thanks for the thoughts. I had misplaced my yarn needle and didn't have a tiny crochet hook, but they were mostly tiny snags, so I carefully poked them to the back side of the fabric with the pointy end of a stitch holder. It kind of worked, I guess - at least it looks better than it did before!

@valiantarcher you're welcome. It reminds me that there are several pullouts on my sofa, where my cat's claws needed trimming and she was getting very attached to the cushions! I should try the needle, if I can take out the cushion from its cover (ugh, hate doing that). Alternatively I could try gently pulling further along that thread (it's a very course weave) to even it out.

@valiantarcher multiple, according to my notes! My notes are spottier than I’d like (I was more diligent to record things 10-15 years ago) but I’ve even got one cardigan that was actually more like a month and a half. Thin yarn, long sleeved, and everything. Lace does go faster than cables for me for some reason, but a quickly memorized stitch pattern goes faster than one that requires constant referring to the written or charted pattern. Regular stockinette is probably the fastest still but certain lace patterns do make me wonder about that. This current sweater has none of that.  

Second sleeve is done, and I’m almost 6” along on the body. Nearly to the waist! I would be further along if I had stopped increasing for the yoke sooner. I’d wanted a slightly larger size than normal so I could wear it even over a thicker sweater in the coldest months, but I may have overshot a little. In order to change that I’d have to undo quite a lot, and now I’m sure I’ll still have enough yarn to do what I want, so it’ll just be loose even over a heavier sweater. The trouble is knowing whether I’m satisfied with this result or whether I just don’t want to undo so much of the body and both sleeves.   But having tried it on again to get a picture of how it currently looks (*whew* it is warm!) I think it doesn’t look nearly as oversized as seems like it is, and that’s without a heavy sweater underneath.

well I just looked out of curiosity and the fair we went to did have an exhibition hall with categories including (but not limited to) all kinds of needlework, but I also remembered one thing we did make time for was going through the antiques shop in town and what with the longish drive the day always ended up being a long one as it was, so that explains why I never noticed there being an exhibition. Nowadays my sisters make the apple dumplings (or something like them that taste just as good) and we can skip the drive and the heat. The quilt exhibit sounds neat!

@coracle it’s always frustrating when something doesn’t turn out quite right, but I love how knitting can be ripped out and the yarn is still (usually) perfectly usable, unlike my many mis-cuts in sewing. It does sound like you’ve been going at a good pace! How has the orange cardigan turned out?

@mel November being National Knit A Sweater Month, I’m once again pondering seeing how far I can get if I diligently work on something and choose something easier than these cables. I expect my current red cardigan to be done by the end of October if not mid-October. I have too many sweater quantities sitting around that I want to get to all at once and yet I keep being tempted by some lovely yarns at work…

Hurrah for the skirts! I’ve been avoiding my sewing for some unknown reason. It can’t be only the heat in the room where I keep my sewing machine. There must be something else.

ooh, garden entries sound intriguing!

@valiantarcher How sad about the snags! Pulling them to the wrong side of the fabric seems to be the right choice. In theory if the yarn is frogged the snag should be able to be smoothed back into the rest of the yarn, but I’m not sure I’ve had it work that way too often.  

So I'm no where near as advanced as everyone else, but I decided to dust off my crocheting skills to make some washcloths as Christmas gifts to go with the recipes I've been putting together from family history. 

I'm randomly going through shapes, but one shape I have always struggled with is the basic circle. I need help. Does anyone have a simple pattern or a video or something I could look at? Any time I try, it's always curling on me. 

@coracle, were you able to do anything with the couch cushions yet?

Oh nice, @Lady-Merian! A month and a half?? Wow! Do you have a default lace pattern you use then?
...yeah, I would live with the sweater being slightly oversized rather than starting over. It's looking great (and really not oversized)!
Ahh, good to know the fair DID have exhibits at least. Still sad that you didn't get to see them.
And that's too bad to hear that frogging the yarn doesn't usually help.

@starkat, I unfortunately never got very far with crocheting, but I took a little gander online and have you seen this article? It looks like she has a simple pattern and then some tips on what might cause curling. I hope you're able to figure something out - the washcloth and recipe gift combo is a nice idea!