Chat Back for March 22

Answering questions from comments and email.

Kathy in Iowa asked . . .

Soooo....do you have a volunteer to be the resident "goose dog"? Is there a class for that?

Since the geese weigh more than the two littlest dogs and are very aggressive in defending territory, that leaves twelve year old, 60 pound Glory to be our "goose dog".

I walked Glory out to the infested area, showed her the geese, and she didn't need training. She ran at them. They honked and flapped and splashed water all over as they scurried to get airborn and away from the crazy dog.

It was beautiful. The only way it could have been better was if my camera batteries hadn't given out during the eviction.

Today we don't need to worry about geese. There's too much snow for geese to settle in on the banks. Even Glory thought the snow was a bit much. Right after taking this picture I asked her if she wanted to go in and she beat me to the house.

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Karen asked . . .

Is there another method of (shoulder seam) decreasing that gives a much smoother look rather than that 'nubby, stair step' look? Someone suggested a slip stitch method but just don't know how to go about it. I would appreciate your comments.

I'm not familiar with the slip stitch method. I use short rows.

There's an excellent tutorial on how to convert stair steps to short rows here.

The article contains a link to a second tutorial on how to do short rows if that's new to you.

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Beverly asked . . .

How is it that a 99 stitch sleeve fits in an armscye designed for 112 stitches? Inquiring minds want to know!

This time it worked. Some other project it might not work as well.

Before I frogged the 112 stitch sleeve, I could see less stitches wouldn't be a problem.

When I had 112 stitches, there was puckering at the sleeve join. I think it would have blocked out OK, but there was plenty of opportunity to reduce the amount of stitches and get a better good looking sleeve cap.

One of the ongoing challenges with this sweater is the gauge changing as the stitch pattern changes.

Gauge at the sleeve cap is 6.2 stitches/inch and 8 rows/inch, so 13 stitches removed wasn't too radical.