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good, not perfect : red sweater details


Some background for the red yarn: in 2011, I used this yarn, Shibui sock yarn, to knit myself a Radian Yoke sweater, pictured below.  Although it fit well, the yoke didn't look as open and lacy as the sample in the magazine, and I never wore it, except for a few pictures.  Also, I'm not sure it would fit as nicely, now.  It does have lovely bust darts.  

It sat on a table for years; time for a new purpose.  With about a skein and a half still in a bag, I'd have to take the sweater apart for enough yarn for a new project.  (Literally never seeing the light of day for eight years, there should be no problem with color fade.)  The yoke was the first part knit, so I started unraveling at the bottom.  As this sort of pattern (top down) requires one to put stitches on hold and add sleeves later, and venting on the bottom meant separating into front and back, there were some smaller yarn pieces.  Eventually, it was all apart, wound around my arm for a small skein-type structure, and tied with white thread.  I soaked the yarn in water for a few days (unnecessarily long) and then got to hanging it on plastic hangers to allow gravity to dry it straight.  After that, it was ready to rewind and knit!  

Starting with the unused yarn, and then the biggest hanks, I knitted the back and front, per my chart mentioned in this post. As I was attempting to sew up the side seams, I couldn't figure out why they just would not match up.  Suddenly, I had a niggling of a memory.  Maybe I had added a repeat while sitting on the couch, watching tv - away from my computer and main pattern?  I counted the motifs on both pieces.  Sure enough, the front had ten, the back had nine.  Rather than ripping out the top half of the back - which had already been blocked, and would therefore render very kinky yarn that I should soak and hang to straighten, sigh, I decided that it would be faster to cut the bottom edge off and add a new pattern repeat, then graft.  So simple!  I bet  you're horrified, but I've actually done this before and it worked really well.  However, as I was attempting to carefully separate the main body from the cuff that the last time I did this, I remembered there was not cabling on every right-side row last time.  Whoops. 



The primary brain problem for me is how to get the cable row after the separation on to the needle correctly.  I'm sure more experience would lend more information, but I'm definitely not looking for more experience on this!  The secondary problem is that picking up stitches on the bottom of patterned knitting, i.e. ribbing means that one is working between the stitches.  It's a whole big mess.  There are several other options before you have to get to this but I thought I was taking a shortcut. Ha ha.

It is not perfect, but it's been awhile since I've done so much of the design work on a sweater.  It's a sweater I intend to wear on my chilly days around the house.  This time, a good sweater is preferable to tearing my hair (and yarn) out to make it perfect.  It fits very well, and it will be a good sweater.  If I like it enough, maybe I'll make yet another, with a different cable in the center.

Adding Sleeves:
I seamed the front piece to back on the sides completely, but on the shoulders loosely for about an inch.  I wasn't sure how small I wanted the neck opening, so I planned to come back and redo the shoulders later.  Beginning at the bottom of the arm hole, I picked up 1 stitch in each bound-off stitch, and then up the back, around and down the front, I picked up about 2 new stitches for every 3 stitches on the body; so 1:1 at bind-off, and 2:3 around the rest.  You can also do 3:4.  I don't do a lot of math for this, I already know about what size it's going to be, but here's a really good video about the picking up, and the short rows, and if you want more on the math,  you can look for the Part 1 video she has.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv3YDmqnQzA

I mark the top of the sleeve/shoulder.  This is where I would want my pattern centered - in this case, a cable.  However, for something like Stockinette or Reverse Stockinette, there's no need.  Again, refer to the video link above for a visual on using short rows to make the sleeve cap.  I use German short rows.  Here's the shortest video I could find on that. 

Decreases are worked on the bottom of the sleeve, as with most sleeves.  As it turns out, I got too fancy and made the armscye way too big, so I decreased at the underarm for several rows after the short rows.   Once the sleeves were down to the "right" stitch count divisible by 4, taking into account gauge to match the original blue sweater, I worked in k2, p2 rib until I ran out of yarn.  I would have liked to make long sleeves, and I would probably have worked the cable pattern for most of the sleeve.  However, good over perfect is the theme.  

Finally, weave in ends, and fix that shoulder seam situation.  I tried on the sweater and marked the preferred spot to end the seams.  I pulled the loose seam out and worked a sort of modified whip-stitch from the underside, making sure the ribbing lined up.


Because so much was added after blocking - a couple inches on the back, and the sleeves, I will block it again.  In the meantime, I found a mistake I didn't even know about!  Leaving it.  It'll be plenty good!  

Comments

  1. Oh. My. Gosh. I may or may not have a headache LOLOL. That sounds SOOO complicated! Please show us a picture of the finished sweater -- I can't picture what the sleeves look like! The back basking in it's blocking glory is gorgeous!!!

    ReplyDelete

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