Closer than I Thought

When you're knitting a sweater in fingering weight yarn, it always seems like you have a long way to go. That has certainly been the case with my Airflow, especially during the long rows of the body when there were increases thrown in for good measure. I sat down the other night to tackle the second section of short rows (two sets of them are worked on the fronts so that those sections hang lower than the back), fully prepared to only get through part of them, and completely surprised myself by finishing the whole section. That means that all that's left to do on the body is the 1x1 ribbing at the bottom.

Now, this isn't just any ribbing. This is 1x1 twisted ribbing, which means a bit of knitting gymnastics (purling through the back leg) on every other row. But I only need to do about an inch of it, so I'm hoping it won't take too long. Once the body is done, the sleeves should be relatively quick -- after all, there are fewer stitches and they're worked in stockinette in the round. The pattern has two sleeve length options, and I'm going for the longer sleeves, but those are still only three-quarter length. I'm still trying to decide what to do about the rolling fronts, though at this point I might delay that decision until the sleeves are done and I see how much yarn is leftover.

I have been working on the new shawl during my lunch break at work this week and have managed roughly two repeats per sitting. I'm not exactly sure how many I need to do (this is one of those design-on-the-needles projects), but I'm thinking it's likely to be in the neighborhood of 30 to 40. I want this shawl to be a good width when it's done, though given the spring of the yarn, I think I can block it out a fair amount bigger.

My Stash Dash progress has slowed somewhat this week, though I think my first weekend of activity gave me a good initial burst. My current total is 658 meters, but that will likely go up to closer to 1,000 by the weekend, as I should have two more skeins of handspun done by then. If I can get this sweater done soon, I'll get a nice push toward 5,000!