My Guernsey journey (part 3)

I finished the body a few days ago!  Whew.  I've also done the neck edging and completed one sleeve, but I don't have photos yet of that.  Working on it lately has been a little tricky, because my thumb wanted to bother me (tendon issues that come and go) and we have had unseasonably warm weather the past few days.  I love warmer temperatures, but having a wool/silk sweater on my lap creates a bit more than I need at the moment (the junipers have also woken up with our "early spring," which means I'm in sneeze mode, ugh).  

Here's the front:

Close up of the front yoke panel (Tree of Life) which helped me practice my cables (tinking those rows was not fun, so I learned quickly to be more careful).

 

Back  

I have learned a great deal so far and am really looking forward to finishing and blocking this baby.  And you didn't hear me say this, but I might actually want to do another...

My Guernsey journey (part 2)

I messed up.  Yes, all knitters make mistakes, but this one was a doozy--I reached the point in the Guernsey where the chart has to be read back and forth for right and wrong side rows, as I divided it for front and back and was no longer working in the round (where all the symbols are the right side).  This switch was tricky, after doing thousands of stitches right side only...so I found myself undoing and redoing quite a bit, much to my annoyance.

The chart is rather involved (I can't imagine trying to knit a Guernsey without a chart--it is just as important a tool as yarn and needles), so I didn't want to take time redraw it, but I had to have some way to make myself take notice that I should be working on the wrong side.  At first, I had marked the purls in the pattern with an X, leaving the knit squares blank, but habit from working in the round kept sending me off track.  So after tinking another row of 147 stitches (!), I decided to color in the whole square on the graph paper for the purl stitches on the wrong side.  I got out my pencil and set to work.

I'm still making mistakes.  My next option, then, is to color code using red or a highlighter that will definitely get my attention (because I need a neon "hey!"), and I think I will take the time to do that; in the long run, I need to be sure I will know which row I am on (have I mentioned I don't like tinking at all?).  Should I ever have the urge to do another Guernsey, I will take time before beginning to draw out the charts for both rounds and the back and forth work, having learned my lesson!

Here's the progress before dividing--it's going much faster than I expected. Yay!