designs: fall 06: September 2006 Archives

So the big black blob of the back is done. I did a quick mattress stitch of the sides and tried it on -- success! I can't be the only one who's terribly nervous at this point on every sweater, am I?

The motif is stretched a bit more across my body due to the negative ease, but the picture makes it look more skewed than it is. You can't see how it's going out and back in around my bust.

The sleeves

I've always been curious about top-down set-in sleeves, but then Lauren went and posted about it several times this year and put me over the edge.

I'm thrilled I did. I had very little fretting to do with this sleeve -- the thing just worked. It's the closest I've come to knitting magic in a long time.

I feel the way I did the first time I knit a cable or a short row.

In addition to the sleeve cap fitting beautifully, I can now try it on as I go. I have a couple of ideas on sleeve cuff treatments and this will make it so much easier to try them out without the fear of wasting so much time knitting. And, there's just something simpler about knitting a tube in the round. I know I could have knit the sleeve in the round anyway, but this just makes it that much easier.

I love it.

Neckline

I finished the intarsia last weekend but then I stalled -- not sure what I wanted to do with the neckline. I decided I wanted something shapely but not fussy -- and I wanted the edge to be knit on versus picking up stitches afterwards.

The edge is pretty simple. I slipped the first stitch of the edge to keep them tidy. Then each side has a purl stitch as the third stitch -- allowing the edge to roll under just a bit, but stop at the purl stitch. I think it will lay nicely once it's on, but I have to finish knitting up the back to find out for sure.

Waist Shaping

I did basic waist shaping, decreasing about an inch on either side via

The decreases were knit about an inch apart (the section from the bottom going up toward the waist), but I sped up the increases to accommodate a full bust by spacing the increases only three-quarters of an inch apart. You can see the difference in the photo. I did this instead of short rowing -- as an experiment more than anything else. I had planned on short rows and the motif was small enough that short rows would have fit. But, I wanted to see what this did for the fit instead. I won't know until the back is done and sewn together.

Blocking Cash Iroha

I am *so glad* I washed and blocked my swatch before starting this sweater. This yarn blooms A LOT. Take a look.

I placed the back-in-progress on top of the washed and blocked front. They both have the same number of stitches, yet the front is a good 2 inches wider (at least). See that pencil? That's how many rows I've knit on the back. The row gauge grows considerably too.

I've also read that Cash Iroha has a tendency to stretch out as you wear it. I think the sweater will be a tad snug when I first put it on, but assuming it will stretch a bit it should fit like a good pair of jeans after an hour or so.

At least, that's the plan.

I've been calculating and measuring sweaters all week trying to decide how deep to make the armholes. My problem has been the fact that I don't own many sweaters that are as large of a gauge as this one. In fact, I thought I only had one, and it's a raglan sleeve so the measurements won't help.

Then I remembered Rogue. I knit Rogue as my first big project after getting back into knitting. The pattern came out a couple of weeks after I started to knit again and so it seemed like the perfect project.

And in many ways it still is.

While I don't wear Rogue much at all (I didn't wear it even once last winter*), it taught me TONS about good fit and what works for my body.

   

For example -- the armholes on Rogue are way too deep. They're almost 10.5 inches! That's huge for me. I've been thinking I'd make this top 8.5 inches and after trying on Rogue again I'm convinced that's the way to go.

The next area that I was unsure about was the shoulder width. Again, since the yarn is thicker I'll be going for a slightly more relaxed fit. But how much more? I was thinking 16/16.5 inches and when I measured Rogue it was 18! Again, that's perfect -- Rogue's shoulders drop on me about an inch on each side.

It's nice to know my intuition (really, my obsessive measuring of every sweater I own) has translated into something tangible before I knit these parts. And now that I'm confident these measurements are right, I'm going to do just that.

* this is not a commentary on the design or the pattern's instructions. both are great. if there's any advice to take from my words, it's that you have to know how to knit for your body. patterns are just a starting point, and unless you're knitting a boxy, shapeless sweater, you'll most likely need to make some adjustments to the pattern along the way.

Alright...I'm halfway through the motif and I *still* love it. The colors are blending the way I had hoped, and you can actually make out the motif. I was worried it would look like a blob of color.

Considering I cast on last Sunday and travelled for work a few days this week, I'm making nice progress. I'm almost to the armholes.

There are a couple of tight spots before I'll be completely convinced this is going to work out. I need to come up with good armhole shaping (I'm doing set-in sleeves) and I don't want to have to rip it because I can only imagine that ripping intarsia is bad.

I also have to get the neckline to work with the motif. I was going to do a V neck but the motif is so high that I couldn't make it work right (I suppose that might have something to do with my 5'2" height as well). So instead I'm going with a rounded neck with a slit (somewhat V neck, and still very casual). Probably rolled like the hem.

I worked on the sweater every spare moment I had all week. And yet, it just looked like a black blob. And even though a bunch of you emailed asking me about progress, I know you really weren't asking to see a pic of a black stockinette stitch sweater.

Finally, last night, I got to the moment I'd we'd been waiting for -- the color! I was nervous and unsure the first few rows but I knit on. And now? I love it!

I know you're curious what I decided on for the yarn and the colors. I went with Noro Cash Iroha in black with 3 shades of yarn going from harvest gold to a dirty fuchsia for the motif.

I hadn't considered multiple colors for the motif until I received Amy Lu's comment about doing the intarsia Kaffe-style by cutting yard-long pieces of yarn. What an awesome suggestion! All along I thought I hated intarsia, but really, it's the fussy bobbins that I hate. I have at least 10 strands of yarn hanging from the back of the sweater right now, and I'm barely phased by it. The fact that it's just strands of yarn (and no bobbins to get all tangled up) has made a world of difference!

Thanks, Amy Lu!