Recently in St Brigid Category

alternatively entitled, the post that took 3 years to write

It's finally done, and I find myself at a loss for words. I've been done for a full week now, and I still can't quite believe that it's true.

I knit St. Brigid

There were many false starts (including one I never documented). I'm not quite sure why this time did the trick. The color? Maybe. The deadline? Maybe. The encouraging comments? Most definitely.

I have so many people to thank, and I'm positive I'm going to forget some of them. Thanks to Katy for hosting the KAL, Vicki for finishing hers almost 3 years ago and being an awesome cheerleader for my own, Marnie for encouraging me to consider retaining the saddle shoulder, Christy for knowing the right amount of good-natured ribbing to keep me on course (because she knows how fickle I can be!), Jessica and Kristy for enduring our Thursday night get togethers with endless whining about my boredom, EZ because without her I may not have had the courage to consider modifying this sweater as much as I did, and to Maggie Righetti because her chapter on sleeve shapes kicks ass.

I knit this sweater in under 10 weeks, and I don't recommend it. My hands hurt. I was bored. I was hyper-focused every weekend and I was up until 2am the Sunday of Rhinebeck just so I could wear it in 75° heat. In my ideal world I would have taken a break after the body was done, but maybe in my ideal world I never would have finished at all.

specs

pattern St. Brigid by Alice Starmore from Aran Knitting
yarn Cascade 220 Aporto. 9.5 skeins
needles Knit Picks options size 6
mods tons, read my archive for a full list

sleeves and hood

The sleeves came out rather nicely and pretty much as planned (thankyouverymuch Maggie Righetti). There's a lot to share on the sleeves so I'll write that up as a separate post. The quick scoop is that I changed them to a set-in style (but retained the saddles) and knit them 2 at a time because I was afraid I wouldn't take good enough notes to knit them individually.

The hood worked out pretty well too. I knit 4 repeats of the chart up each side and then grafted the 2 sides together (they're mirror images of each other so they grafted together perfectly). My grafting is a bit tight in a couple places so I may go back and loosen that up a tad.

thoughts on the sweater

I never expected this to be a shapely sweater. Having said that, it's still a bit more bulk-adding than I expected. I probably could have gone down an inch or two more in the body and still have been OK, but I wasn't sure because bulkier sweaters need more circumference to fit right.

I love wearing it and love the fact that I finally made it. I've hit a milestone in my knitting that I thought I might never hit, and in doing so I've learned a few new things about why I knit and what it means to me. It's going to take some time to gather my thoughts, so I'll leave that to my next post.

For now, will you excuse me while I pop around town in my new sweater!

After a marathon knitting session yesterday, and a marathon seaming session this morning, all that's left is the hood.

I'm feeling a big relief now that:

• the sleeves are knit
• the sleeve caps fit
• the saddles are knit and look good
• i've tried it on without the use of pins and it still fits!
• i have almost 3 hanks left so i can't possibly run out of yarn
• the only finishing work that remains is to graft the hood -- and I like grafting!

Someone must be on my side because I finished knitting the sleeves at 11:30 last night. By the time they soaked and got rung out and on the blocking board it was midnight. I left the ceiling fan on high overnight, and by 6 am they were bone dry. No kidding, they were completely dry.

I'm looking forward to knitting the hood -- two "small" cables and a huge span of stockinette. My hands will certainly thank me (I think cabling without a cable needle is harder on my hands).

I have lots more to share about how I calculated the sleeves, but I've already taken a 2.5 hour break. I'm still hopeful I'll finish the hood tonight, and since I still have some shopping to do as well as getting a hair cut, buying a pair of prescription sunglasses, laundry and dyeing my hair myself, I best finish tonight or I'll have to start crossing things off my list. We leave for Rhinebeck Thursday after work, so there's not much time left.

The payoff though -- a full day on Friday at the cottage with the girls.

I did it! I got through the front!

i'm a little curvy since i'm still unblocked

And damn if it doesn't feel good. For the first time on this project, I feel like it's completely doable. Not just if-I-hope-and-pray-and-don't-have-to-rip-back-too-much-or-f-up-the-armholes-or-the-front-split.

A couple details:

front split

I'm giving enough detail so someone else could copy me if that's of any interest. I'm sure I won't remember this in a few months.

The front consists of 8 repeats of the main cables. I split the front at the start of repeat 6. Instead of continuing with the Chart D (the big center chart) I split them into Chart E (split) Chart C.

Then, to make a smooth edge, I did an attached 3-stitch i-cord edge flanked by a single purl stitch as follows:

row 3 Follow Chart C. You'll have one extra purl stitch in the middle before you start to follow Chart E. Increase 1 using a lifted increase, knit f&b into the center purl stitch (these 2 sts split to form each of the i-cord edges), increase 1 using a lifted increase, and then follow Chart E.

row 4 When you get to the area with the new increases, slip the first increase purlwise wyif, m1 knitwise, slip the next st purlwise wyif. Attach a new ball of yarn, slip next st purlwise wyif, m1 knitwise, slip next st purlwise wyif, knit Chart C.

At this point, your attached i-cord has been setup. Next step is to add in the purl stitch between the i-cord and the cables.

row 5 Knit in pattern until you reach the i-cord. M1 purlwise, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1. With other ball of yarn, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, m1 purlwise, cont with Chart E.

All following WS rows Cont in patt to purl st before i-cord, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif. With other ball of yarn, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, cont in patt.

You've now split the neck and have an i-cord on each edge.

setup for hood

As you can probably guess by now, I'm going to continue the cables flanking the i-cord all the way around the hood. To give the hood a comfortable fit, I stopped knitting the center cable one repeat before the end (in other words, I knit 7 repeats instead of 8). Those stitches are on some waste yarn and I'll pick them back up and continue once I start knitting the hood.

armhole decreases

I find that armholes can often distort in the curved area, misshaping it and creating a larger armhole than I wanted. To address this, I slipped the first stitch of each row.

For aesthetics, I also decreased into the armhole. So, at the start of rows I did a k2tog, and at the end of rows, I did a ssk. I did these decreases one stitch in from the edge.

So, decrease rows went as follows (always on a RS row):

Slip 1, k2tog, cont in patt until 3 sts rem, ssk, k1.

All WS rows were:

Slip 1, cont in patt until end

Once the decreases were finished, I stopped slipping the first stitch because I didn't want the armhole to bind. I just wanted to give it some extra support.

shoulder bindoff with cables

This is the place where I winged it the most. If I just bound off I would have had too much cable splay -- the bound off edge would have been wider than the garment itself.

After a little experimentation, the solution that worked in most cases was to decrease whenever 2 cables would have eventually crossed. Occasionally, I'd notice there was still a bit of splay, so I'd tink back, decrease another stitch, and continue on.

staging the front

What would a St Brigid post be without showing you how I took the pics? With autumn's arrival, morning light is getting less abundant. Lolly's post this morning reminded me of my own light tent. So, I took it out of the back of the closet so I could get some decent pics early enough this morning.

Thank you!

If you've made it this far then you deserve a huge thank you! All your comments have really motivated me to keep on going. And while I haven't personally responded to each one, I want you to know how much they're really appreciated. Thank you thank you thank you!