I have finished the Bearly Knits project I had been working on for a few months. I have no other major projects on the needles, so it was just time to get back to the bear.
Here are some photos, taken with my Palm camera. Naturally when I wanted to take a picture with my good camera, the batteries were dead.
Here it is with the bear it was made for. Well, not really made for, since it doesn’t quite fit him, but it looks snuggly enough for him.

Here’s a more spread out photo.

I still have a few ends to weave in, and it’s not been blocked, but I don’t actualy have a tiny wooly board (or a human sized one, for that matter!).
It was made using Shelridge Soft Touch Ultra – 100% Wool Fingering Weight Yarn, which was wonderful to work with. I don’t remember there being any VM and it didn’t make my eyes water much (I have hayfever, some wool can make my eyes close up!)
I used US 0 and 1 needles.
I learned a lot about Fair Isle while making this little guy. One, is to read the directions carefully. When I was picking up stitches, I kept messing up left and right, meaning I was thinking from my point of view rather than the sweaters point of view. At first I couldn’t figure out why I was on a RS row instead of a WS on the neckband.
I learned that the end result is what matters, not how you get there. I decided that learning to strand properly on the back of the work was lesson enough and did the whole neckband by starting from the bottom right for each row. There was no way I was going to figure out stranding across the front and keep tension with those tiny needles!
I learned that you can pickup and knit around your steeks before cutting them, and that with a non-shetland wool, it’s actually a good idea! I cut both sleeves at the same time after doing a crochet steek on them. By the time I got to picking up stitches on the second sleeve, it had unravelled a bit. So, when I started the neckband, I finished it before i cut my steek and it held beautifully.
This was a lot of fun. I got Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel for Christmas, and she has a little sweater in there for learning Gansey techniques. I may start after I get back from SW shopping trip. I think this is a great way to learn techniques without spending a huge amount of time. It’s also easier to correct mistakes on such a small scale.
I am really looking forward to the next VC on Arans, this will be great too as I haven’t done one yet.