I find I am working from patterns (rather my own designs) this Fall – it is marvelously expedient (since someone else has worked out all the bugs!) and a good learning experience as I work through another knitter’s process.

Most especially Elizabeth Zimmermann’s process – which is the stuff of legends!  I have taken on her “Green Sweater” partially because I fell in love with it when I saw it on the  Brooklyn Tweed Blog and partially for the opportunity to work through her clever and efficient construction techniques.  It kind of goes:  knit, knit, knit…(for, say 6 or 8” of fabric), then do something kind of exciting, then knit, knit, knit….

I had gotten through the “knit, knit, knit 8 inches” part of the body a couple of weeks ago and had put the sweater on hold until I had some good quiet “brain” time for the “kind of exciting” part.  Last night, I had some time (and some brain!), so I tackled the set-up for the sleeves.

It involved putting 31 stitches (for each sleeve) from the lower body on waste yarn and  casting on 5 steek stitches which will stand in their place while I continue knitting the upper portion of the  body in the round (knit, knit, knit!) – the steek sections will eventually be cut open (yikes!) and, voilá, sleeve holes! 

The really interesting part of this procedure was putting in EZ’s Phoney Seam which adds the look and support of side seams to a garment worked in the round.  To do so, one drops the side-center stitch all the way down to the hem and then hooks up the stitches as one would for any dropped stitch – except that one alternates hooking one ladder bar and two ladder bars (at once – kind a vertical ‘knit 2 together”).

Here are some (very poor – sorry!) photos to illustrate (yeah, I took the photos at about 10:30 last night while I was in process and I should have tinkered with the lighting, I know – what will Sarah say?!):

All went smoothly – except for the ten minute of bewilderment and slight panic when I thought I had 16 extra stitches (I didn’t, as it turned out – just a counting oversight!).  Now, I (you guessed it!) knit, knit, knit…again.