FO!

Mom's Printed Silk Cardigan is finally finished. It's been presented and photographed and here's the evidence?



I am really happy with how it turned out. It looks better in person than it looks in the picture, not that it looks terrible in the picture. It just needed to be adjusted slightly in the shoulders and the ribbing needed to be tugged down an inch or so. It does fit, it just needed some adjustment. But Mom hates pictures and was trying to run away, so I had to take the picture quickly.

Anyway, she's really happy with it. I'm pretty proud of it, and I think it looks really good on her. The style is very flattering to her body, and Mom looks good in that deep orange color. She also happens to love that color, so that works out well.

And there's another thing that makes this sweater kind of special. When I was in the preliminary planning phase of this project, I enlisted my stepdad's help with some reconnaissance, basically. I checked her bra size to make sure I was correct about her measurements. Together, we also measured the bra strap from hook to loop, just for additional peace of mind about how big her underbust area is. And then, I found a similarly-shaped shirt in her closet that I knew fit her very well, and we measured that.

So in a way, it was a joint effort. He didn't help with the actual knitting, but he contributed what he could to the sweater. Considering the circumstances, that makes the sweater just that much more special for Mom. And for me. He always helped me arrange surprises and gifts for Mom. This was our last "covert operation" together. I'd intended to get his opinion on the buttons and stuff, too, but by the time I got to that point, he was too far gone. I don't doubt that he'd approve, though.

The sweater got put on hold several times, and I had a few setbacks, but I'm happy with the overall project.

Here's a recap of the pertinent facts:
Pattern: Printed Silk Cardigan from Interweave Knits, Spring 2008, 34" size
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport in Terra Cotta (purchased 15 skeins and used a little less than 10)
Needles: Knitpicks size 3 24" circulars
Buttons: Five JHB-brand 5/8" buttons made of coconut, purchased at Hancock Fabric in Owensboro, KY
Mods: Adjusted stitch and row count to compensate for gauge differences, customized length to compensate for body differences (and my own mistakes) and worked the sleeves in stockinette with a 3-row ribbed border to match the bottom hem of the sweater body. Also didn't do a sewn bind-off because I wanted something a little firmer and quicker to work. The neckline's big enough that the neckline ribbing doesn't need to stretch that much, anyway. So I chose a bind-off that better matches my cable cast-on. I ended up knitting 2 tog tbl, then placing the new stitch back on the left needle (after twisting, to keep it from being stretched out) and repeating the process across the rest of the row.

I definitely plan to knit another one of these. This time, though, it'll be for me. I'm thinking Shine Sport in Harbor, but I haven't decided for sure yet.

I also need to figure out what to do with the ~5.25 balls of leftover Shine from this project.

Crap.

Well, crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Crap! (Which, by the way, is not really the word I would like to say here, but oh well.)

I have slacked on blogging because life has been crazy, but I have been knitting. I am almost finished with Mom's sweater, finally. I was sewing up the first of two side seams today. Everything else is done, I just had to sew up the sides and weave in the 4 ends of the side-seam-sewing yarn and it was ready for a wash and block. (Yeah, I know, I was supposed to seam the side and the sleeve at the same time, but I went ahead and did the sleeve ... I wanted to make sure it would fit Mom.) I was a little over halfway through, up to the center ribbing, and I realized something was NOT. RIGHT. I was only at the center ribbing on the front piece. I still had about an inch and a half to go on the back before I hit the ribbing.

So I'm sitting here, pulling out all the nice little stitches. And here I thought this seam was going so well. Taking forever, but working out nicely. But oh well, I'll just go back, find where I got off track, make sure all the decreases match up properly and work in any ease from one side being stretched out or whatever the problem was. Right?

Not right.

See, when I started looking at the decreases, they actually did match up. They're off by one row. Not a problem. I can deal with one row. But wait, if all the decreases match up, then why is my seam so off ... oh. Oh no. Oh yes, folks, that's right: the back piece has six sets of decreases. (Which is the correct number.) The front piece, on the other hand, only has five.

Crap. (Did I mention that part yet? Well, I'll say it again for good measure. CRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP.)

Counted the decreases on the other front pieces. Again, five. So here's my dilemma. I can go back and add another set of decreases (10 rows) to each one of the front pieces, or I can go back and take out one set of decreases (again, 10 rows) from the back. Technically, I was supposed to decrease 6 times, which would mean the back is the correct piece. But here's the other dilemma. The decreases are completed before the center ribbing, before the textured pattern, before any of the armhole/neckline shaping. You're telling me I have to rip all that out just to add 10 rows? To each piece? No way buddy. That's just not gonna happen. No, what I'm gonna do is cut off the bottom ribbing on the back piece, frog 10 rows and knit the ribbing back on. This may leave me with an extra set of decreases. I'm not sure how many rows I worked before starting the decreases. But I don't care. It's only 2 stitches, it's not really gonna make a difference. It'll also make the whole thing 10 rows shorter, but, hey, that's just a little over an inch. So it'll be an inch shorter. Fortunately, it was a little too long on Mom when she tried it on the other day, anyway. Plus, it's a cotton blend. It'll stretch. That 10 rows will never be missed.

But it means I have to rip out this entire seam, cut off the ribbing, rip out 10 rows, knit the ribbing back and start this seaming process all over again. It's not the end of the world, but it still makes me want to cry. Just a little.

And the kicker? I have no idea how I managed to miscount the decreases on not only one but both front pieces. My own notes clearly say to work a total of 6 sets of decreases. And I distinctly remember thinking that when I was working the fronts. I just counted wrong. In my own defense, I'm not stupid, but I knit those two pieces while my stepfather was in the hospital dying from cancer. I blame my distraction for my sudden inability to count to six.

Guess what? (Warning: lots of pictures below!)

I finally found my Baroness Beret! It was crumpled in the pocket of my former favorite sweater (only former because Luke accidentally shrank it in the wash). I dragged the sweater out the other day when temps dropped, and lo and behold, there was my beloved hat.

So, since I know you've been waiting for months for these pictures (hah) I won't keep you in suspense any longer.


It turned into more of a slightly-loose beanie than a beret, but I think that suits me better anyway.


It's slightly crooked on my head here.


Top view of the hat on a jug of pretzels. Since the jug lid is white, you can't tell too much about the pattern, and the closure at the top looks a little strange because the hat isn't pulled across the lid evenly. But you can kinda see the star-shaped decrease pattern, which is what I was going for.

Yeah they're all webcam photos. I was excited when I found the hat and went for the closest camera. I'll make Luke get better pictures some time. Or I'll make an attempt with the camera timer, but that's harder to do outside and the light in our apartment is horrible. Anyway. I'll get better photos. And I'll try not to wait months this time.

In the meantime... I DID get the better photos of the printed silk progress, just like I promised.


Side view; you can see that my left-leaning crosses are not nearly as neat as the right-leaning ones. This always happens to me. Maybe some day I'll figure out why and correct it, but I kinda doubt it, since I follow directions exactly. But they look a lot better after blocking anyway.


Close up. You can tell that the column of knits between the decreases gets a little stretched-out and makes very obvious vertical lines. I don't mind it terribly, but I'm hoping it becomes a little less obvious with blocking.


This one's blurry, but it really shows off the impact of the embossed diamonds pattern.


Again, not a terrific picture, but it shows how the embossed diamonds look almost like a check pattern at a different angle. It's funny. At one angle, they're the embossed diamonds like in the previous picture. At another angle, it looks checked, like this. And looking straight down at it from above, it looks like vertical ripples, like I mentioned yesterday. (The same thing happens when looking straight up from below, but the individual columns of stitches are more emphasized from below. I prefer the view from above. Mom's short anyway; it's not likely anybody'll be looking straight up at it.)


Another semi-close-up, pretty much just because I can. From this angle (maybe a 45 degree from below?) you can see the individual columns of stitches rippling up but the diamonds stand out more, at least to me. I love this shirt. It's almost like a Rorschach inkblot. What do YOU see?


If the color looks off on this one, that's because it is. Well, actually the color is off on all of them; this one is actually the closest to the real color. It was WAY off when I first uploaded it, though, and I did a quick correcting job on it. I wasn't concerned with making it perfect, just not gray. Aside from the color weirdness, it's a fairly good close-up of the bodice.

At least some of these are about to go up on Ravelry to replace yesterday's crappy webcam pictures.

Aaaaaaaaaand, while I'm here ... I never posted finished photos of Lelah, so here's a couple. (I intend to replace the yellow ribbon with white, but yellow was closer to me at the time. Also, the straps are convertible. Yay!)

I'm back

I've been slacking on the blogging. Life gets in the way. But I have been knitting ... a little. I managed to get the back piece of the Printed Silk Cardigan finished. Now I have a little less than a month to knit both fronts, knit both sleeves, sew it all together, knit button bands and neckband, buy buttons, sew the buttons on and do a final wash and block. Easy, right? Hah.

These aren't good shots of it, because I'm at work. I worked with what I had. What I had was a bulletin board, a ton of push pins and a built-in webcam on my laptop. At least this should give you an idea of how the stitch pattern looks, although in person it is slightly more subtle. And it gives more of a vertical ripply, ribbon effect.

This also has not been blocked. Dimensions are slightly off at this point, and the stitches aren't as even as I'd like. But I didn't want to do a full block until I had all the pieces done.

On to the pictures!




(I promise, that weird wavy thing at the bottom is from the camera. The shirt doesn't really look like that.)

Notice that Blogger clips the pictures along the right side. The whole thing can be viewed on my Flickr account or on Ravelry. There are a couple of other pictures up on Flickr, too, but they're not good at all and don't really show any of the detail. That's why they're not posted.

Progress

I have made a little progress on the Printed Silk Cardigan. Other things have prevented me from working on it much, including an impromptu quick shrug project (more on that later), but I have worked on it a bit.

Wanna see pictures? You know you do... (Ignore the wrinkles, it was wadded up in my bag. Definitely will need blocking and maybe ironing when I'm done.)

Whole piece so far:


Stitch definition:


Artsy! (Looks long, doesn't it? It's only 16" right now and should be about 18" once washed.)


I should also note that those pictures have not been touched at all, as far as post-processing goes, so the colors may be slightly off. But they look pretty close on my screen.

(Photos and project notes are also available on Ravelry.)

At this point, I am a few rows past the first decrease row. I spent some time figuring out how many times and how often to decrease to get the fit right. I'm going to be doing a lot of math to make this sweater work. But Mom's worth it. And this much of the math is already done, and it'll be the same for the front, so ... looking on the bright side ... I'm nearly halfway finished with the math! Most of the measurements are in inches, not row counts. I should be okay.

Speaking of being halfway done. There are six inches of waist-shaping decreases in this sweater! But the good news with that is that once I finish the decreases, I'll be almost up to the center ribbing, which I'm supposed to begin once my finished piece reaches 10.25". I worked 3.75" before starting the decreases. Do the math. That only leaves .5" -- about 4 or 5 rows -- of stockinette between the last decrease and the center ribbing. And after the ribbing, I get to start the fun part. I say fun. I mean potentially complicated, as far as math goes. But at least it'll be interesting. I think.

So yeah, now I just have to plow through the 51 rows of waist shaping, and everything will be just peachy. I think I've worked 6 of those 51 rows so far.

Oh yeah, and my impromptu shrug project. Long story short, I have a dress that I really like but am uncomfortable wearing. I think I'll be more comfortable if I have something to wear over it. (Basically, the top is loose and flowy and not my normal style, and I think I'd prefer something more modest.) This is the dress I would like to wear to a friend's wedding at the end of the month. So, 3 days ago, I found a simple pattern, dug out some stashed yarn and started a shrug. Two days ago, I finished all the stockinette and started the ribbing on one sleeve. I was almost finished. But I left it in someone's car and can't get it back until tomorrow evening. I'll post pictures when I get it back. It may be finished before I get the chance to do so, but hey ... it was a quick project.

Last thing: remember, the Printed Silk Cardigan is a birthday gift for Mom, so please don't spill the beans!

It is begun! (Or, Lessons in Gauge.)

First things first: yes, I did finish the straps on Lelah in time to take it on vacation. They stretch a little more than intended and work much better when crossed in the back, but that's okay. I ended up not actually wearing it on vacation, but that's okay too. I just need to get a white ribbon to thread through the eyelets and I'll be pretty happy with it. I didn't bother blocking, but I don't think it really needs it.

Now, the more exciting news. I have started my next big project: a printed silk cardigan for Mom, as a birthday gift. It's a surprise, so shhhh. She knows I was thinking about knitting the sweater and even helped me pick out the yarn color, but she thinks I was looking at it for myself. She also doesn't know that I've started it or even bought the yarn yet.

I'm using Knitpicks Shine Sport in color Terra Cotta. Don't be fooled by the picture on the web site. The color name is accurate. It's actually rather dark, very much like real terra cotta. Maybe a little more orangey. But definitely not the pinky, salmon-y color that shows up on my screen on the online color card. Oh well. Mom'll still like this color, I think, and I think it'll look okay on her. Not as good as a salmony pink. But she does like orange, and this is sort of like a deep burnt orange color.

I love this yarn. This is the second time I've used it, and I still can't get over how nice and smooth and silky it is. Definitely the best cotton I've used, by far. But I am having a slight problem with it. I can't get gauge. I'm apparently not the only one, either. A lot of people on Ravelry made this sweater with Shine Sport and had trouble with gauge. But it's kind of ridiculous. The recommended yarn, Fiesta La Luz, is quite a bit lighter than the Shine Sport, in terms of yards per ounce, but it appears to be a slightly heavier yarn weight. (That sentence would not make any sense to non-knitters, I know.) La Luz is DK, as opposed to the Shine's sport weight, and the gauge is 23 sts/4" on 6s whereas Shine is 24 sts/4" on 3s-5s. So you would think they'd be close enough to make it work. You would be wrong.

This is where the lessons in gauge part comes in. The gauge called for in the pattern is 25 sts/4". I swatched on 5s. WAY too big. 25 stitches was more like 5 or 6 inches. I swatched on 3s. Very close. Until I washed the swatches and they grew. My 4-inch swatch became a 4.5-inch swatch. Non-knitters, I know, that doesn't seem like a big difference, but do a little math. The pattern calls for 6.25 stitches per inch. The smallest size, which is the size I need to make, asks me to cast on 113 stitches, for a finished piece (the back of the sweater, in case you were wondering) of just over 18". So then do the math for my knitting on 3s. 25 sts/4.5" is about 5.5 sts per inch. Again, it doesn't seem like a significant difference from the pattern's recommended gauge, until you figure out how much of a change that'll mean over the whole sweater. If I followed the pattern as written and cast on 113 stitches, my finished back piece would be 20.5". 2.5" too big. And the front would be that much bigger, too, for a total difference of 5".

That won't work. I don't want to give Mom a sweater that is 5" too big for her. That IS a significant difference.

(Okay, my actual gauge was more like 5.25 sts/in. I couldn't remember exactly how big my swatch was after washing, so I just guessed. The basic principles are the same.)

So it looks like I'm going to be doing lots of math. I figured out how many stitches I'd need for the correct measurement, figured out the stitch count for the repeat (repeat of 16 stitches + 1 + 2 for edge stitches) and ended up casting on 99 stitches. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it fits. Most of the lengths are measured in inches, rather than row counts, so I shouldn't have a huge problem there. I'll just have to do some fiddling with the increases and decreases. And I'm hoping that changing the stitch count doesn't mess up the embossed diamonds pattern. The alternate sizes change the stitch count by 12 and 14 stitches, not a whole repeat, so it's a little confusing.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm using 3s (rather than the pattern's recommended 5s) to get this gauge? That's why I don't want to drop any more needle sizes. I have a feeling I'd have to go down to 1s or even smaller to meet gauge. I really do NOT want to knit an entire sweater in two months' time on needles that small. It'd be like knitting plate armor, anyway. The drape is already a little stiffer than I'd like. 5s were too loose, though, and rather than trying to find 4s I like and cast on even fewer stitches, I'll deal with the slight stiffness. I'm sure it'll work out just fine.

It is looking rather nice. I've already made one small modification, in addition to changing the stitch count. The pattern doesn't have any sort of border along the bottom edge. It's just pure stockinette from the bottom cast-on to the waist ribbing. Rather than combat the curling, I worked 3 rows of 1x1 rib at the bottom. It'll match the waist and neckline ribbing, and it should keep the bottom from curling upwards. I think 2 rows would've looked better, but I was afraid it wouldn't be enough to combat the curl and would just flip upward. So 3 rows it is.

Pictures to come later! I know, I wrote out this long post and now I'm not posting pictures. But I don't have the real camera handy and I want to show off how nice the yarn looks. So just pretend I've included pictures. (P.S. I'm 10 rows in on the back piece.)

Oh, and for my own personal reference ... I cast on yesterday, Aug. 9, 2009. My goal is to have the sweater completed before Mom's birthday on Oct. 27.

Wish me luck.

-Amie