March 05, 2007Another Morning, More Marseilles
A little clarification on why I referred to my mornings as goofy in my last Marseilles post: This is what I do from 4:30 a.m. until a little before 7:00 a.m. Not exactly typical knitting or waking hours, but I do what I can to make sure I get my knit on. These photos were taken on Sunday morning - same time frame! She is an early bird, that Hoolia.... The Marseilles Pullover is trucking along. Although I've actually done the knitting in a very short period, it feels like it's taking forever. When I started it back in November last year I was in a frame of mind where I needed something mindless, so I began with a sleeve. That has turned out to be a great choice. The body on this sucker takes a long time to knit and with my gauge modifications it takes even longer. I am so grateful to just have one sleeve to slog through now, rather than two! Here are my tips on knitting this pullover so far: LENGTH: Whether you knit it loosely or tightly the pullover will grow in length, so make sure that you either plan to avoid this by making a big swatch and blocking it properly or that you incorporate it as a design element. The sleeves will not grow nearly as much as the body, so the swatch that you make to get gauge (which is just the sleeve pattern) will not really tell you how much length you'll get for your buck. I don't usually get surprises when it comes to length and blocking, but in this case I'd say that the sweater gained about three inches in length and I was anticipating it would grow by about two inches. The sweater is designed to be knit in a worsted weight yarn and I knit it rather loosely in a dk weight, but I'm not sure if you would have much less growth if you knit more tightly in the worsted, because the added weight of the bulkier yarn would also have an effect on the length. My best friend Laura knit Marseilles in an aran weight, so I'll be sure to ask her what kind of post-blocking growth she got on her sweater. I love the longer length of my sweater, so I lucked out. I'll note the measurements in the pattern notes so that others making it have a ballpark figure to work from. BOATNECK: In both dk and aran weights, the neckline was too wide for Laura and I. The instructions have you bind off the center neckline stitches and reserve the shoulder stitches on stitch holders so that you can do a three-needle bind-off of the shoulders when both the front and back are done. Since Laura warned me that the neck was too wide, I opted to keep all the stitches live until both pieces were done, and then played around to see how many stitches I needed to bind off to make the shoulders the perfect width for me. [Go to my last Marseilles post for photos of this process. Notice the two circular needles hanging from the neckline.] My definition of the perfect width is the point where the sweater is still technically a boatneck, but you can't see my bra straps hanging out. On the size 38 sweater that is twenty-four stitches per shoulder. The original pattern would have you use thirteen stitches per shoulder, so rule of thumb if you want shoulder-width like mine is to add eleven stitches to the number suggested for your size in the pattern and tweak from there. Once you've done the three-needle bind-off on the shoulders, you can simply cast-off the neckline stitches in the round. I hope this helps! Posted by Julia at March 5, 2007 06:01 PMIn main | marseilles pullover
Comments
Oh I would never be bored... I absolutely love this sweater - the cabling, oh my gosh. I can only imagine how long it takes! I love the longer length as well - very flattering! Posted by: Abby at March 7, 2007 06:29 AMHi Julia! the longer length looks perfect on your tiny frame. I love it! Posted by: Kate at March 6, 2007 04:27 PMI am so SORRY I keep doing that - the multiple comments--Please delete 2-thanks edna _________________________________________ E- Not a problem - it makes me feel popular! xox, J Posted by: Edna Hart at March 6, 2007 02:43 PMI love the sweater. It is gorgeous and I really like the longer length. I think maybe I need to start waking up at 4:30 am to get all my knitting done. There are just not enough hours in the day. Posted by: Lara at March 6, 2007 12:55 PMThis yummy pink sweater is even better in person. What a nice Sunday afternoon we had knitting, talking about knitting and laughing about knitting. Thanks for the kind word about my Tunic. I blocked the back and it looks pretty good! I am considering no pockets. See you soon. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edna, it's always great to see you. I'm dying to see the finished tunic. I hope that I have a chance to see it before you send it off! xox, J Posted by: Edna Hart at March 6, 2007 12:37 PMI love this sweater on you, both the length and the color are very flattering. Thinking about this for the fall, but I'm thinking that the tunic length is not going to be great on this frame; I may need to tweak it a bit! Posted by: Jen. at March 6, 2007 08:21 AMOh man, she looks amazing on you. I'm with Nonnahs, even knit to the width of my hips, tunics just don't look all that great on me, but you are making me wish they did. I also really like the sleeve length, long enough to give a nice extended line, but not so long as to be annoying. Posted by: Marnie at March 6, 2007 07:24 AMIt looks beautiful! Posted by: Jennifer at March 6, 2007 06:08 AMoh my gawd. when do you sleep? i really like it with just the one sleeve. -------------- Orli - hee hee. From about 10 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. - and I sleep like a log! I really should do an entire day in the life. It would make you laugh. (Or alternately bore you to death!) xox, J Posted by: Orli at March 6, 2007 01:58 AMOooops! I also knit the cable pattern a complete 6 times instead of the 5.5, but I'm always looking for more length when I knit pullovers, so I'm crossing my fingers. The back and sleeves are done. I'm working on the front now. I hope to have it all done by early next week. ---------------------------- Marie - unless you fall victim to super drape with your yarn choice, or made a size that will cling too much at the hips, all that should really matter is where that extra half-repeat lies. Since the pattern is for worsted and I knit it in dk, my row gauge was off by half a repeat, so I had to re-calculate the vertical shaping to adjust for that. Shockingly, it worked out perfectly. Part of it was just plain luck, but I'll try to give you all the details I can remember in the pattern notes. I can't wait to see yours. I love the color you picked. xox, J Posted by: Marie at March 5, 2007 11:14 PMBeautiful! Marseilles looks great on you in that tunic length (not all of us can pull that off, ya know)! PS: How was the roast chicken? ----------------------------- Nonnahs - the secret to pulling off the length is to make the sweater in a size that is loose on you in the hips. Normally I would have made this in size 34 (for my bust, such that it is), but that would have looked awful on my hips- yikes! - so I instead went for the more accommodating size 38, which blocked out closer to 40, I think (I'll measure it for the notes). The chicken rocked. I used a recipe loosely based on this one by Wolfgang Puck, which Faith pointed out on one of her podcasts. Yum! Posted by: Nonnahs at March 5, 2007 08:12 PMooh lookin good! you mean you're not a lady of leisure? ---------------------------------- There is an inverse relationship between the weather and my FOs. It will no doubt be roasting when I finish Marseilles. However, that means I'll get to wear your skirt again - yay! The key is to alternate finishing hot and cold weather knits. Something has to stick. xox, J Posted by: kat at March 5, 2007 08:07 PM | |||||||||||
