Thelma: Pattern Notes

It feels like I am long overdue on writing up some pattern notes for poor Thelma. Happily, what she's lacking in notes, I've made up for in wear. Although we have had the occasional nippy or overcast day, for the most part, it's been a typical Southern California early fall, which means that although it's chilly at night, temps still soar into the 90's in the middle of the day, so Thelma has gotten lots of play.

Andrea complained that our view never makes it into the photos.
Ask and ye shall receive!

Thelma
Designed by Erika Knight, Rowan Denim People
Knit with four skeins (110 yards/skein) of Rowan Denim (100% Cotton) in Memphis (229) and less than 50 yards of BluJeans Indigo (Medium) on Marnie's little knitter (tension 5, carriage 5). Finishing and hems done by hand using size US 4 Addi Turbo circulars.
Gauge: 18 sts and 25 rows per 4" square.
Size: xs, to fit 32" bust.

Close up of the keyhole, top hems and ribbon straps.
The Pattern
This is a really quick and easy knit. The machine knitting on the body took me about 3 hours total, including time for swatching and adjusting the pattern. Following in the footsteps of Miss Marnie, I never use the machine's cast on or cast off edges, but instead treat them as provisional and add two rows at each end for easy transfer to the needles for handknitting. I knit the lighter-colored hem at the bottom by hand and all the hems at the neckline by hand as well. This took a bit longer - about 7 hours! You never realize how long finishing takes until you machine knit a piece. In this case, it was 70% of the work.

If you use a machine, don't be afraid to try some hand-knitting in stockinette on a continuous piece. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to match machine gauge, but it really hasn't been an issue. The machine generally knits at the tension of the "average" knitter from what I've found, so since I knit loosely, I go down a needle size for hand stitching. If you knit tightly, simply go up a needle size instead.

Techniques:
Nothing new here for me. It was very fun to knit the picot hems, though. I love me some picots! The hardest part of this little tank is the finishing. I had to sew down all my hems afterward, rather than using the snazzy k2tog method of hem fastening, because I machine knit and then handknit down from each edge afterwards. I could have done the bottom edge on the machine, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it until after the main knitting was done. If you plan ahead, some of the sewing can be avoided.

Modifications: Just a few. The original piece uses a curved hem at the bottom which rolls up slightly. I didn't want this tank to be belly-baring, so I lengthened the body a smidge and then added the lighter picot edge at the bottom. I omitted the pocket, and changed the denim straps to ribbon. I used some leftover grossgrain ribbon from Asana to do this. The color is a really rich green, a little lighter than hunter green, and it happens to perfectly match one of the skirts that I wear with Thelma a lot (not this one). Eventually I want to outfit several different ribbons with snaps, so that I can change colors when I like. I think a deep chocolate ribbon would be nice. All of these mods dress this pattern up a little, which I like, and make it more wearable for me. I still think the original is really cute, though, and I would love to downsize it for my little niece, Sophie. It would be adorable on a toddler.

Finishing:
Much of this is covered in techniques, but if you skimmed there, be forewarned that the finishing is where the work comes in on this piece. It's a beginner knit with intermediate finishing.

When you work with denim, it always comes out substantially longer (about 15-20%) and a little bit wider off the needles than it will after washing. So part of the finishing process is tossing your knit in the washer (solo, please, in case it bleeds!) and then into the dryer. I didn't check the washer during the soak cycle to see how much bleeding went on, but the color did lighten up (as it should) and the fabric softened and bloomed substantially - in a good way. It shrunk exactly as much as it was supposed to - good job, Rowan!

Rowan suggests that you wash the piece before any seaming occurs, but I went ahead and seamed and stitched down the hems, which turned out fine. I seamed the sides after drying, and added the ribbon then as well. I also steam-ironed the pieces so that they looked crisp. I threaded the ribbon through by clipping a safety pin to the end of it, and snagging that with the tip of a straight needle which I then pushed through the hem. Voila!

Impressions of Rowan Denim:
This is the first time that I used this yarn and I really enjoyed it. Rowan Denim didn't bleed onto my hands while I knit the way that other denim yarns have. [edited to add: Note that Christine mentions it did bleed for her in the comments below - which makes sense since I only hand knit the hems, whereas she knit an entire piece.] I works up very crisply, but it softens and fades nicely once you wash and dry it, and the gaps created by the stiffness of the yarn are filled in when it blooms.

Possible substitute yarns:
I also used some really old stash yarn, BluJeans Indigo, for this project, and it works well, too. It starts out a lot softer, but it also tends to bleed onto your hands while knitting, which is kind of annoying. If it isn't discontinued, the price points are good, though. I have a ton of this stuff and will use it for some other denim projects. The gauge is interchangeable. I think that Elann sometimes carries a denim that would also work, though I haven't seen it in the blue colors on their site lately.

Shots with the Caia Koosher:
I wanted my photoshoot to include Caia girl, but trying to get her in there and get a good view of Thelma was nearly impossible, so I had to do some photos without her. Here are a few where Caia is the star.

What am I saying? Caia is always the star.

[Read all entries on Thelma.]