Recently in arwen Category

I'll do just about anything I can do lessen the amount of finishing on a sweater. So I knew I'd be doing the hem a bit differently. The pattern instructs you to sew the hem to the inside of the sweater when you're done.

Instead, I cast on provisionally...

knit the hem, the purl turning row, and enough rows to match up with the hem.

To make it easier to knit the hem, I pin it together so I'm not fighting the curl of the stockinette, and thread a smaller needle through the yarn holding the provisional stitches.

Then, I knit together one stitch from the front with one stitch from the bottom of the hem, as if I was doing a k2tog*.

A pic of the front and back...

It doesn't look any different, but I've skipped a couple hours of finishing. That sure feels different.

*edited - originally i wrote ssk but that's not what I do...I was writing this post a little too late at night!

The saga of this yarn continues, but I'm getting closer people!

I love working out sizing issues, but these are the most problems I've dealt with all at once.

• Finished Sizes are calculated with the center cable band overlapping. I'm planning to insert a zipper, so I have to account for that.
• Yarn Bloom is the most drastic I've ever experienced. hate the bloom But it's the bloom that gives the yarn its incredible loft. love the bloom
• Yarn Resilliency or lack thereof. Take a look at this example

pre-stretching	post-stretching

That was after stretching it a half dozen times, and not abusively.

Again, you readers bailed me out. Bigtime.

So here's the plan.

• Knit the fronts, taking into account the lack of cable overlap, yarn bloom and yarn stretch.
• Wash both fronts and see how much they actually grow.
• Stretch them a little.
• Decide how wide to make the back.
• Insert periodic self-doubt and profanity.

The things we do for pretty yarn.

I swatched and washed the Kathmandu yesterday. It took several tries before I got the gauge right.

This stuff blooms *a lot*. The recommended needles are 5 mm / US 8. After washing the swatch on those needles, I got 3.75 stitches per inch. Uhm, not even close to the 4.5 listed on the ball band.

I went down to a 4.25 mm / US 6 to get that gauge post-washing. I really didn't mind though -- I prefer the feeling of smaller needles in my hands anyway.

Several of you commented that the yarn bloomed when washing and stretched when wearing.

Since I was between sizes, I went with the smaller size. It should be about 1.5-2 inches smaller than the cardi I'm measuring against (a favorite from Banana Republic -- no I didn't knit this one!) when it's washed, so if it stretches a bit I should be OK.

Do you see what I see?

Here, take a closer look.

And no, it hasn't even been washed yet.

What gives? Well, it took me a while to piece it all together. I think I knitted my swatch tightly when trying to get the gauge to go down to 4.5 stitches per inch. But when I'm just casually sitting and knitting, I'm knitting at my more normal tension. The yarn is just about 4 stitches per inch.

This just isn't going to cut it.

Since both Jacqueline and Julia mentioned that the yarn stretches out with time, I don't want to knit it so loosely. I'm going to have to experiment a bit more and see what I can come up with.

For those of you who have used this yarn -- what gauge (post-washing) did you get? What kind of needles did you use?