Nautical: Pattern Notes

Talk about a stealth knit! I was going through my stash and came upon some Filatura di Crosa Brilla that has been bothering me forever. Sometimes I have something in my stash that I like well enough, but that I have in such weird quantities and color combinations that it really bothers me. Brilla has been a major offender in that way for some time, and I am always trying to come up with creative ways to get rid of it. When I do work with it, I love it. I made my friend Jen a beret from some forest green Brilla for Christmas last year that I just adored. But when it is sitting there, I loathe the stuff, probably because it seems so impossible to utilize fully. I was staring at two skeins of Brilla in platinum and all of a sudden I became hell bent on using it up. I had two skeins of deep navy as well, which seemed like a very good combo, and extremely current, given the nautical turn fashion seems to have taken for the spring. My goal was to use every inch of that Brilla, and for all intents and purposes I did. The result is my favorite summer knit top yet - I love it! Thank goodness I had that Brilla hanging about.

Photos taken in Portland, by the lovely Miss Marnie.

Nautical
MindofWinter Designs
by Yours Truly
Knit with two skeins (120 yards/skein) of Filatura di Crosa Brilla (58% Rayon, 42% Cotton) in Deep Navy (306) and two skeins in Platinum (394), using the Silver Reed LK150, carriage 3, tension 3 for the main body and Susan Bates size US 2 straights for the picot casings. Ties made from Wrights Prestige Ribbon in Organdy Navy, available at JoAnn's.
Gauge: 22.5 sts and 36.5 rows per inch.
Size: 32 bust, 27 waist.

The Pattern:
This is the first Hoolia design of the calendar year to actually make the execution phase. I have done a ton of sketching and swatching and am full of ideas, yet somehow I keep getting distracted by really cute patterns or by the need to use up stash now. I really did find myself driven to remove that silver Brilla from my stash for this piece, so I suppose this falls in that category as well. I went to sleep on a Thursday thinking about my plans for Nautical, and then made the main pieces on the machine on the following Friday evening and Saturday morning. I had swatched Brilla earlier on the little knitter, so I had notes and samples of possible gauges. I didn't even bother sampling the stripes, because I decided that in order to use every ounce of the stuff I had I needed to use a fairly even distribution of the two colors and that I wanted the stripes to be fairly fine - voila! - easy enough.

The part that took the longest was the picot casings, which I did by hand. I could have done them on the machine, but I wanted to leave them until I was finished with the main body just in case, so both edges were done afterward and then hand-seamed, which took some man hours.

Detail of the top with organza ties.The coup de grace is the ribbon. Marnie and I made an impromptu stop at the local JoAnn's in Portland, and I got an entire roll of deep navy organza for $2.99. (Since I scored the Brilla on Elann several years ago for about $4 a skein, the entire project cost me all of $20. Pretty nice, eh?) I am not sure how well the photos convey this, but the ribbon makes the top really different and special. It is sleek as a tube top and I will likely wear it without ribbons when I want a rather sexy evening look out of it with some flowing silk pants, but the ribbons really add a little Je ne sais quoi that gives the top a completely unique nautical flavor.

Tooting My Own Horn:
Although this was a relatively simple pattern to draft up and knit, it incorporates two of my favorite features. The first is the use of the ribbons, which is one of my big things in my wardrobe lately - just an easy way to be a little more fun and feminine in approach.

I wove the ribbons through the piece in such a way that they could be removed easily for washing and for the times when I just want an unadorned tube top. I prefer to have a single bow on the left, but the configuration could be easily changed to incorporate two bows, bows at the top, no bows, or to place the bows on the back, which could be really cute. I adore them.

The second is versatility - also a real favorite for me at the moment. I can wear Nautical with about half of my wardrobe. It looks great as a tube top with a simple silver necklace and some flowing black pants for an evening out, but it would also be cute with the organza ties, a denim mini and some navy espadrille wedges for a picnic. Marnie put together the smart ensemble with the khaki jacket (from her wardrobe) over jeans that I'm wearing in some of the photos, and I'm now pretty certain that I can pair Nautical with a suit (khaki, navy, maybe even white) and wear it in a work setting. As someone who prefers to have fewer pieces of clothing that go together in unique ways, the versatility of this little top is a big bonus for me.

Nautical paired with the white linen skirt I wore with Honeymoon, and some cute khaki capris with buttoned hems.

Techniques:
This would be beginner-easy but for the picot edgings which are sewn down. It incorporates stripes, minimal shaping, and easy yarnover picots.

With a jacket, for the professional look.Modifications:
If I knit this again I would make it just a skoosh longer. I only had four skeins of yarn to work with, so I was being uber-cautious with the yardage in the body. I have a little bit of each yarn left, so I may go crazy and add a half inch or so to the bottom edge, but I doubt it. The effort required to take out those picots doesn't seem worth it when I can simply throw on a jacket or add a sash to make Nautical less tarty in feel.

Finishing:
Once again, the most difficult aspect of making this piece is sewing down the picot casings. Even this isn't rocket science if you understand what you're trying to do. I intended to do a tutorial on this for everyone, but I never ended up seaming at a time when it was convenient to snap photos. I make these kinds of picot casings rather regularly, though, so I'm sure I'll have my chance soon.

Brilla blocks really nicely, but as I write this I realize I didn't even bother to block Nautical. It came off the little knitter in good shape and my picots were even, so it really wasn't necessary. I just seamed and went. I do think it will get even softer and have more drape after a wash, though. It's pretty soft and silky right off the needles.

An open jacket shows off the ties.Impressions of Filatura di Crosa Brilla:
I have a lot of Brilla in my stash in varying colors, so I do get tired of looking at it, but whenever I knit it, I love it. It hand knits nicely, and machine knits fairly well, though it is prone to snags and is slippery. The thing to know about Brilla is that it isn't going to stay in place if you have live stitches hanging around. It is hard to frog and get back on the needles, and if one of your stitches gets loose it will make a run of it. Just be aware and tink accordingly. From what I know of it, Brilla wears very well, has a pretty, shiny look, and feels gentle and silky. It's a very good choice for summer knitting, and for knits that you want to give a dressed up look to. I won't be buying more any time soon, as I still have quite a bit to use up, but I will enjoy using it.

Possible substitute yarns:
Anything shiny and silky with a cotton or silk content should do. GGH Mystik, which I used for my Honeymoon Cami, springs to mind, though beginners will find it a bit splitty.

[Read all entries on Nautical.]

Knitting my bliss

Almost there . . .I think I mentioned earlier that I generally have a plan for the order in which I will make things, and that once something makes it into my queue, it generally gets knit, or if not, it gets ripped and revised. I do a lot of intellectual dreaming when deciding on a project, but once committed to the needles, I am pretty good at sticking to the plan. Lately, that has not been the case. I finally bought Mason Dixon Knitting, and decided I needed a quick washcloth. Then before I could cast on for the washcloth, I found myself knitting a nightie. Thursday night I went to sleep thinking of some silver and navy Filatura di Crosa Brilla that I had in my stash, and by Friday afternoon I was halfway finished with a simple Nautical top that I quickly designed.

Again and again over the last month I have found myself suddenly enchanted with one thing (a little less so with the washcloth - it's no nightie), and just immersing myself in it until it is done. I think in part this is because I try to restrict myself to having three things on the needles, and right now I am bored to death with the other two things I have hanging about.

The picots, a zoom out, and a reverse shot.

Rockin' my 1992 overalls. Good times.I am working on a black cotton stockinette hoodie for M -- the Man Hood -- which I designed and knit the pieces for on the Lil' Knitter over a weekend about two months ago. I've done much of the seaming, but the miles and miles of black cotton are just boring me to death. The Man Hood is such a slog, that I joined the slog blog and found that I still don't have the drive to work on it or write about it. Imagine if I had hand knit the pieces! I'm also working on the Lacey Tuxedo Top from the most recent Rebecca Magazine. The Lacey Tuxedo Top promises to be good once I get it on my needles (I did the bottom portion on the machine - all stockinette, size 2 needles - ugh), but since I haven't bothered to do that yet, it hasn't bothered to become interesting. Go figure.

I should probably take the rest of this week to get the Rebecca top and the Man Hood back on track -- and maybe I will -- but escaping from those two projects seems to have given me a huge burst of creativity. Although it is simple, Nautical is the first design of my own that I have actually executed this year. (I'm not quite finished - it still needs one more picot hem, seaming and some straps, but I'm almost there.) It feels very good to get something from my head into fabric and have it look the way that I want it to. If having two snores on the needles will get me a nightie and an adorable stripey top, perhaps it's alright to allow those two UFO's to marinate for just a bit longer. For right now, I'm knitting my bliss . . . .

After Dark Nightie: Pattern Notes

I'm knitting a warshrag. No, really.As I walked out on the porch to do this little photo shoot for you, Moxie glanced at me and asked: "Are you taking pictures of yourself again? The neighbors are going to start wondering." And then, because I was clearly not uncomfortable enough, he added: "Your internet friends get more of a show than I do." It's true. You guys get the After Dark Nightie and Moxie gets sweats. He'll get to enjoy the nightie eventually, but while it's still just off the needles, you get the good stuff!

This was not an easy shoot. I had to strategically place that warshcloth (and my arms!) and be sure to sit down to keep things from getting tarty. I'm not even going to tell you how many full frontal shots I had to take to get one that qualified as "nice". My hat goes off to the model in the MDK book - she was able to pull off hot, classic and wholesome, all the while not revealing a single bit of what the French so delicately refer to as orange peel. Let's just say that it is no accident that most of these are arty "detail" shots rather than the whole shebang! This nightie is wonderful and I love it, but it leaves nothing to the imagination. (By the time it makes it to Mr. Moxie all will be forgiven for this very reason . . . )

After Dark Nightie
Mason Dixon Knitting
Designed by Alison Will Green
Knit with three skeins (270 yards/skein) of Louet Sales Euroflax Originals Sportweight (100% Linen) in Violet (2454), using size US 3 Boye Straights (garter edge, bust lace), US 4 Addi Turbo circulars (vine lace, short row stockinette), and the Silver Reed 150 carriage 4.5, tension 5 (plain stockinette).
Stockinette Gauge: 5 sts per inch. Gauge for the pattern is 20 sts and 32 rows per 4 inches, but my machine-knit stockinette was at a different row gauge, which I adjusted for.
Size: 32 bust, but I modified the length to be 27" (without straps) rather than 23.5". See below.

Detail of the top and velvet ties.The Pattern:
Watch for Alison Will Green. She designed this nightie and the coordinating robe for Mason Dixon Knitting, and she also has a design in the upcoming issue of IK. Alison's designs have a very clean, classic appeal, with nice lines, and run on the Kim Hargreaves-ish side of the spectrum of things that I like. The pattern was well-written and easy to follow. It's also a very quick knit. Using the machine for the stockinette portions, I finished it in a week of very light knitting. If you have more time, you can probably do the whole thing in a week or so by hand. The end product is, in a word, stunning! I've had a great year for knits so far, and this is no exception. It is an heirloom that I will hand down to my daughter (the one I don't yet have) when she is ready to be married and tarty (yet classic).

Shot of the upper lace band.The only possible errata that I spotted was in the lace band at the top of the nightie. There is no schematic, but the listed bust measurement for a size 32 is 32". (D'oh!) The lace sits on the top half of the breast, about a half inch above the nipple-line, so presumably it would need to be 32" in circumference, or 16" in width on each piece. There is no change in stitch count between the stockinette and the lace, so for the measurements to remain consistent, the lace would have to have the same gauge as the stockinette. This simply does not happen in nature to my knowledge. Lace will always have a larger gauge than stockinette, and you have to adjust accordingly. The lace repeat is only 4 sts, so it is very easy to adjust the lace. Simply swatch the lace to get your stitch gauge (it will be bigger than your stockinette gauge), multiply the stitches per inch by the width your piece should be to get the total number of stitches you'll want, subtract that number from the number of stitches on your needles, round to the next increment of 4, and evenly decrease that number of stitches across the purl row before the lace begins. It's easier than it sounds - I promise! I am not sure if the decrease row got omitted from the original pattern (errata), or if Alison's lace gauge was close enough to her stockinette gauge that the difference was negligible, and she simply did not need to decrease (not errata, just variations in personal knitting). Either way, the way to ensure your nightie works is to swatch the lace.

Strapless from the other day.
Sometimes the "candid" shots work best.Ina wrote me a comment about the side-shaping that goes on in this piece, and suggested that it would be better accomplished through darts. While I don't believe this is errata-worthy, I think she is right. The pieces of the nightie decrease in at the waist and then increase back out to accommodate the bust. All increases and decreases take place at the edges of the work. This is the standard method to use for this kind of shaping. I used it when I designed Honeymoon and Clementine. Kim Hargreaves used it for Bond, and many, many other pieces. It works well enough if you have proportions that are exactly standard, but if you are long-waisted, short-waisted, or like me, just a little off in one direction, this kind of shaping can stick out in a funny, less than attractive way. It is only through two decades of knitting that I have finally decided I am done with this sort of shaping. For me, it is going the way of the stepped shoulder - from here on out I'm doing darts to customize the fit of my garments.

For those making the nightie, I would suggest two things for the waist-shaping: First, move the decreases and increases closer to the center of the knitting. I think the best placement should be in line with where you intend to place the straps. For me, this was about 4 inches in, but this will vary widely, especially in those who have more womanly curvage going on than I do. Find a similar dress or top in your closet, measure where the straps are set, and go from there. Second, knit each piece to the point of the top lace, pin the pieces together and check the fit before finishing the top lace portions. This way you'll know if you need to make adjustments before the top lace panels are finished.

Neither of these adjustments require brain surgery smarts, so I would rate this pattern as intermediate and encourage everyone to give it a try if it appeals. The nightie is short and sheer, but we all have a little orange peel, and our husbands, significant others, lovers du jour, etc. are aware of that. The menfolk really just like to enjoy us as nearly nekkid as possible. Take the plunge and enjoy making the lace.

Another of the velvet ties.
Just because.Techniques:
Beginner lace. Beginner in this case does not translate to "easy." If you've never done lace, you will need to be patient, and even if you have you'll probably rip back a few times - I did! The vine lace is the harder of the two laces, as it is a little counter-intuitive. If you think that you are off, you probably are. Get a feel for what each stitch will look like after it is completed, watch the lace as you go and count, count, count! on the reverse side.

Modifications:
I knit this in the original yarn and the original color and I retained the side-shaping (this time!). The biggest modification that I made was in the top lace panel. The first time I knit it on US4's - the same size needle I used for the stockinette. I ended up with a gauge of 4 sts per inch as opposed to 5 sts per inch! (My open-lace gauge varies much more than most.) The piece I was working on was consequently 4 inches bigger than it was supposed to be, giving a total circumference of 40" rather than 32". Clearly a problem.

The gorgeous vine lace at the hem. Yummy!Last year I discovered that although one would think that one knitter's lace gauge would vary from their stockinette in the same proportion that another knitter's would, this is not the case. This is something that it appears not many designers realize, so it isn't unusual for gauge to be given in stockinette alone, when you actually need to know stockinette gauge and lace gauge. Hence, the sad demise of the Prairie Tunic. It seems that if the lace involves fewer yarnovers per knit stitch (such as the vine lace), my gauge will stay proportional. But if there are a lot of yarnovers proportionally (the top lace, the Prairie Tunic lace), my gauge will generally grow quite a bit proportionally, such that I need to swatch the lace to make sure all the measurements come out right. Some people will have the same gauge as the designer, so this won't be an issue, but the only way to be sure is to swatch.

There are two ways to fix this issue. One, mentioned above, is to decrease the number of stitches. Another is to go down in needle size. Here, I opted to do both. I could have simply decreased 16 sts to make gauge on US 4's, but I felt that my lace was too open on that size needle, so instead I decreased only 12 sts and went down to US 3's on the lace. Voila!

Vine lace lounging with MDK.Another modification that I made was to the straps. Initially, I intended to use a lucet to make straps out of the Euroflax. I had coveted Becky's lucet for a very, very, very long time (can't find the post, but I think its 2004), so when I found one at the Fiber Factory in Mesa while out in Phoenix last month, I jumped on it. Unfortunately, although making cord with a lucet appears easy enough, I am far from accomplished in the skill (more on that in another post). I decided to keep practicing and instead use some thin velvet ribbon that I bought for Christmas ornaments in DC a few years back. It gives a great tone on tone look - it's perfect!

My final mod was the length - I added 3.5 inches to the lower portion, which was perfect for me. If you have rockin' thighs, knit it at the original length - just don't go out on the front porch in it. Hubby will love it, but you won't be able to bend over to scoop up the Sunday paper!

Finishing:
Easy peasy. I dunked each piece in a nice warm Eucalan bath, spun out the excess water, blocked to dry and sewed two long seams. My tip for seams like this with lace at one or both ends is to seam the stockinette portion first, leaving a long tail to finish up seaming the lace afterward. Stockinette lines up really easily, so you'll stay on target for a long expanse and then pick your way carefully through the lace when you get to it. I did the same thing for the Daktari Skirt.

Impressions of Louet Sales Euroflax Originals Sportweight:
This was my first time using Euroflax or any other linen. (!!!) I am a convert. I completely understand why the girls at MDK love this stuff and use it almost as much as they use Tahki Cotton Classic (another old-time favorite of mine).

And now we return to our previously scheduled warshrag . . .Euroflax will not be for everyone. It has a rough hand while you are knitting, and no resilience, so if you are sensitive working with it will be hard on your wrists. I am more sensitive to changes in needle size than fiber, so it was just fine for me, but I also only handknit the lace panels and the short-row portion, so my exposure was not what most people's will be. I also had a lot of work to do the week I knit the nightie, so my knitting sessions were short and well-dispersed. If you are sensitive beware, and give yourself breaks.

The resulting fabric is wonderful. It's soft enough to wear next to the skin (though again, I am not very sensitive - try a swatch first), and the stitch definition is insane. Euroflax holds its shape beautifully and has an excellent crispness to it.

Price points on the linen are great, too. I initially bought some of this for Marnie and thought it was expensive at $15/skein. What I didn't realize was that Euroflax has incredible yardage - 270 yards per skein! So compared to your average-sized skein, that works out to about $6 per skein, which is pretty darn good. On sale at Black Sheep for 50% off, it was even better. It took about 2.5 skeins to make the nightie in the smallest size, and I'm pretty sure I could make a tunic version (to wear over jeans, Kay!) in just over 2 skeins.

Possible substitute yarns:
Although I am sure there are other linens out there, I am not aware of them. I would imagine that Hemp for Knitting might be a nice substitute, but not having worked with it, I can't be entirely certain. If anyone reads this far and has other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

[Read all entries on the After Dark Nightie.]

MDK's ADN: Lil' Knitter Rides Again

After Dark Nightie on the hooks.At some point I really want to do a post on the benefits of the knitting machine, and why these handy little guys might appeal to some of you. (It's definitely an "extra," but avid knitters and designers could find it useful.) For now, here's a little intro and a summary of the things I use Marnie's for. If anyone has a similar model and gets more or unique use out of it, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

This particular model - Silver Reed's LK 150 - does both more and less than you might expect it to, and I have to be completely honest and tell you that I know absolutely nothing about any other model (in fact, on one occasion MH brought over a computerized model and I had no idea what to do with it! We'll figure it out some other time!) This machine is a fairly reasonably priced model ($350-$400 ballpark, but shop around, it can be gotten cheaper) that is very manual. It looks like a piano keyboard. You thread the yarn through it like a sewing machine, and then slide a cartridge along the hooks to create the loops. Each row requires that you manually push the cartridge across the hooks, and every manuever other than knitting is done manually. You move different stitches around with the aid of "eye" tools to create decreases, increases and cable crosses before you knit the row, then zip the cartridge across to seal the deal. The wrong side is always facing you, which can make it a bit confusing. Its pretty easy to do, but its also amazingly easy to f*ck up, so you can end up spending a lot of time ripping as well as knitting.

So many good things in this photo.
Do you see them all?I've been able to short cut a lot of the learning process since Marnie taught me (it's her machine). As a consequence I don't bother to muck around with casting on, casting off or short-rowing on this machine - it just doesn't do them in the way that I prefer, so all my cast on and cast-off edges are provisional and done by hand. Similarly, if there is a short-row section, I do that by hand as well (I can't remember if Marnie found a nice way to do that on the machine or not). This particular model will not do ribbed portions, but it will make slip-stitch patterns (again, you move the stitches individually) and it has - get this - a fair isle cartridge! Fair isle on this puppy is no picnic, as you move the stitches manually and have to manipulate all designs from the wrong side, but the results are pretty cool. It is still a bit faster than fair isle by hand, and I can definitely see swatching for color combos in fair isle or slip stitch on the machine, as you could determine which ones you liked relatively rapidly and then go on to hand knit your chosen colorway.

My special, patient helper.I'm not sure I'd often use the fair isle cartridge to make an entire fair isle sweater, because that is something I prefer to do by hand, but I have used Lil' Knitter quite a bit to bang out long stockinette pieces on small needles. For me, that is its best use. If you have fairly even tension, it is not noticeable when you change from hand knitting to machine, surprisingly enough. On my mother-in-law's sweater that I re-created from a favorite of hers last year, I did from the bustline up by hand (It was full of short-rows) and the transition was seamless. I don't think it was my own knitting expertise that made it so - I'm pretty sure that if you've been knitting at an even tension for a little while it won't be noticeable when you transfer from machine to hand.

Another look at the vine lace.Ann and Kay's After Dark Nightie (designed by Alison Green Will) is the perfect example of my favorite way to use machine knitting to get the knit I want fast. I love, love, love working with Euroflax Linen, and if I didn't have about a zillion things going around here and very little time, I would knit every stitch of this by hand. Since that is not the case, however, I'm speeding up the process by using Lil Knitter to zoom through the stockinette portions. In this case, I knit the 5 inches of vine lace (seen at the bottom) by hand over the weekend, and then got up at an insane hour in the morning a few days during the week to place the live stitches on the machine and bang out the stockinette portion.

Sheer and sexy....Once done, I put all of the live stitches on a smaller straight needle, and dunked the entire thing in some Eucalan to rest and re-shape. Machine knitting tends to leave stitches stretched out for a while after the piece is taken off. It usually requires a decent rest and a significant swish and block to get things to look as they will. In this case, the linen has uber-memory for stretch, so I'm guessing it will take even longer.

Anyhoo, I blocked the bottom portion and laid it out to dry yesterday morning. Today I'm going to finish the second bottom lace panel and the second round of stockinette for the front. That way, I will be able to finish the nightie in the car on our way out of town Friday morning. Moxie and I are taking a little trip to celebrate our anniversary, which was last month. . . more on that soon.

Reclaiming Siena

Lacey Tuxedo Top.
Click to zoom out.I have the weekend off (yay!) and the weather is gloriously misty and chilly, so I've been devoting myself to cleaning up the loose ends in my knitting so that I can move on to some fun new spring projects that I've been swatching for. I ripped out the faulty seam in Moxie's Man Hood, and then seamed the modified raglans for one full shoulder last night. M is really pressing for me to finish since his birthday was two weeks ago. My disinterest in seaming, cuffing and hooding black cotton stockinette is apparently palpable, and he takes this as a reflection of my life priorities. Clearly, I do not love him enough! Sigh.

Once those modified raglan seams get going, they are rather fun little things, but getting up the interest takes some work. I should probably be seaming rather than blogging, as we speak.

Unraveling the Prairie Tunic.I could not work exclusively on that black swath of stockinette, however. The other project I got started on yesterday was the "silk top with lacey center panel and frilly edges" from the latest Rebecca Magazine (No. 33). (Where do they come up with these fabulously creative names for their projects, anyway?) In order to do that, though, I had to reclaim the yarn from the prairie tunic, which gave me such a hard time with its lace panel last summer. (I hope there is not a pattern here!)

Curly hanks prior to washing.I often leave a project that I intend to abandon whole until I plan to reclaim the yarn, because I feel that there may be information contained in what I've knit already that I will need again. The prairie tunic was no exception, and retaining it did pay off, because the gauge for the two projects was exactly the same, and with the needles still dangling from the prairie tunic it wasn't hard to remember which size I had used.

A view of the front.
Lovely, no?I purchased 5 skeins of Jaeger Siena for the prairie tunic, and had only knit less than two, so I was able to start the knitting phase without having to reclaim any yarn, but since it was the weekend and I had time, I decided to get ahead of things and do the reclaiming, too. Here, in a nutshell, are the steps for yarn reclamation if a knitted object has been sitting around for a bit or if a yarn has particularly strong memory for curl:

1. Frog all the knitting by skeining directly onto a ballwinder.

2. Hank all the skeins on a niddy-noddy (or, in my case, a niddy-nosty (scroll down) - love it!) (If you don't have a ballwinder or a niddy-noddy you may want to collapse these two steps into one by frogging directly into a hank, wrapping the yarn around your knees or the back of a chair.)

3. Fill sink with water (hot if cotton as here, tepid if wool) and a dash of wool wash.

4. Gently immerse the skeins for at least half an hour, a bit longer if wool, less is okay if cotton.

5. Gently squeeze water out of the hanks and place in the washer on the spin cycle to remove water (cotton or wool).

6. Snap hanks and thwack violently against a pole or other hard surface to spank any remaining curl out of them (cotton or wool - really).

7. Place unweighted hanks over hangers to dry outside in the shade.

Curly hanks taking a soak.After doing all of that, I left the two hanks to dry, and set out to knit my "silk top with lacey center panel and frilly edges" which we will now call my Lacey Tuxedo Top. The top is made in 100% silk in the original version, but since I have met my yarn-purchasing quota for a while and still do not seem to have a 100% silk of that weight, I am using Jaeger Siena, a 100% cotton. Jaeger Siena is a lot like Rowan Cotton Glace, so it works up in a crisp fashion rather than having the drape of a silk. I think the silk version would be insanely soft, drapey and luxurious, but I think that a crisper cotton version should work well, too. It will be less dressy - kind of a "playclothes" version of the top, which is what the lifestyle of the Hoolia requires.

Straight hanks,
post-thwacking.The original pattern calls for US 5 needles, but I made gauge in the cotton on US 2's. The pattern starts with 13 cm of stockinette in the round which is a bit daunting, but I cast on and knit a round. It was a long-ass round. So I had another thought - this is what knitting machines are made for! I knit two pieces flat on the machine and let them sit overnight to settle into their true gauge. This morning I measured gauge again to see if I was on in my guess for the correct machine tension (tension 3, carriage 2) and to seam the pieces together. Looks like it! From here on out, I'll knit everything by hand. Voila! I'm on my way to having a Lacy Tuxedo Top! Oh, little knitter, how I love you...

The Name is Bond. Jane Bond.

I'm still plugging away at the hand-knitting. The Marseilles Pullover is coming along, and I've pulled out the Daktari skirt, one of my older UFO's. I have finished knitting the skirt (I hope - more on that later) and have the first half blocking. I've stretched that bugger out to within an inch of its life. But, as a little respite from all this handwork, I also took the opportunity to dig into the stash and crank out a nice little basic sweater on the machine last weekend. I spent the week hand-knitting the ribbing and seaming, and had it finished just in time to wear for the hottest weekend we've had in a while. When I started this sweater a week ago it was chilly and rainy, but not surprisingly it was eighty degrees for the photoshoot I did today.

The name that either Kim Hargreaves or the Rowan team chose for this sweater is Bond. I'm not really sure why. It took all my restraint not to stage photos of myself swooshing down the alps while being chased by Russian operatives. Somehow I managed to hold back. Instead, you get yet another shot of me on the side deck. The color is a bit lurid, as my Exilim is in the shop and the Powershot that Moxie got for Christmas hasn't decided to play friendly. C'est la vie.

I'm not in the mood for pattern notes today, so instead I'll spend a few minutes sharing some recent observations on the compatibility of Rowan designs and the knitting machine. I've always loved Rowan, but I have discovered, after going through about twenty back issues in the last week, that until recently most of their designs were, well, boring. What made the magazine so great, and kept it from becoming the knitter's version of the Talbot's catalog, was great styling, unique accessories, and hot models. (How many times have you been suckered by a hot Rowan model? It happens to me all the time. Although I know I probably shouldn't, I'm still planning to knit this silly sweater with butterflies all over it someday because I just can't resist the model. She looks so great covered in butterflies, surely I will, too. I am such a sucker for packaging.)

Boring is not a bad thing, though, or at least not in my book. I think that the Rowan model of style is singularly instructive (although I have been known to make fun of the fact that many of their models do not don pants). Most of my wardrobe is solid in color with classic, tailored lines, and is completely coordinated with everything else. Every once in a while I will buy a zany orange dress or some fun lime-colored slides, but as a rule I wear these things infrequently and stick to my uniform, perking myself up with the occasional fun accessory in a wild color. So a classic, fine-gauged sweater in a nice neutral color is right up my alley, even if it is a bit of a snooze.

And this is why the knitting machine is such a wonderful invention. I want the boring sweater, and I want to use the lovely fine-gauged wool that has been languishing in my stash (for eight years, no less), but if I have to choose between making an interesting sweater in a funky color by hand or knitting endless miles of stockinette, I know what I'm going to do. With the knitting machine I can have it both ways. I slowly continue work on lovely cables and lace by hand, and pound out a wardrobe basic on the occasional weekend. Lovely.

Anyhoo, my advice to those of you who find yourself slogging through Rowan's exquisitely-crafted stockinette sweaters on US 3 needles season after season is to run out and invest some money in a knitting machine. (Or do as I have and beg, borrow and steal one!) It will be worth every penny and you'll suddenly find that you have time to finish hand-knitting that intricate aran that has been sitting in a pile for months.

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.]

Pieces of Thelma

There's nothing that I like quite as much as a nice line of finishing work - a hem, a seam. . . . a picot is like a little reverie.

I got out Marnie's knitting machine (aka little Knitter) the other day and decided to go to town on Thelma. The knitting machine is not for every occasion, but it can be nice for a long stretch of stockinette when you just want to punch something out quickly. Using a machine deprives you of the feel of the yarn in your hands, and for me the speed is always bittersweet for this very reason. It concentrates the work into the planning and the finishing details.

The Whole Shebang.For Thelma, not too much planning was needed. I made two swatches, let them sit overnight, took my gauge and went. I made a few little tweaks on the way through the pattern, but my biggest change was in the finishing. Instead of the oval roll edge at the bottom of Thelma, I worked a picot edge in a lighter denim, which will hopefully mirror the lighter denim scraps I'll use for the ties. I haven't yet decided if I will add a pocket or jettison that detail completely. If I do, I may place it over the side seam rather than at the front. Just a little pocket - to fit a key or a few dollar bills. We'll see.

Finishing has been another issue altogether. The machine knitting for the body took only about one or two hours, but knitting the hems and sewing them down has taken over twice as long.
The reverse side for the curious.I'm on the last hem now. The wonderful thing is that it hasn't been hard to match my gauge to the machine. I keep expecting my knitting to look wonky next to Little Knitter's and it doesn't. The first time this happened I was pretty smug at my good fortune and hopeful that it had something to do with skill, but now I think that the real difference between hand-knitting and machine, other than the handful of manuevers that hand-knitting cannot quite achieve, is simply the careful finishing. If you take the time to learn it, it all looks seamless, so to speak.

Project MIL: Pattern Notes

Me and my fabulous MIL reunited with her favorite sweater.

Project MIL
MindofWinter Reconstruction,
Knit with (barely) eight skeins (98 yards/skein) of Rowan All Season's Cotton (60% Cotton/40% Acrylic) in color 178 "Organic", on Marnie's "Little Knitter" and by hand on size US7 Addi Turbo Circulars.
Gauge: 16 sts and 24 rows per 4 inches.
Size: 41" chest and 20.5" length in final finished garnment.

The Pattern
This sweater is a reconstruction that I worked up the pattern for over Christmas, based on my MIL's favorite sweater. I lucked out, because the sweater was in a large gauge for a machine knit, in a fabric that had the same fiber content and characteristics as Rowan All Season's Cotton. There are many commercial sweaters out there that are beautiful but hard to reproduce. This isn't one of them. It has some very pretty details and some clever shaping, but all of these features are readily apparent, so re-creating them wasn't difficult. I could have very easily knit the entire piece by hand (it probably would have been faster in this case!), but I planned to make it for my MIL many times, and I also wanted a fairly straight-forward pattern to use to try out Marnie's knitting machine, so instead I did about 50% of the work by hand and the other 50% by machine.

The original sweater, laid out for planning at Christmas.

The reconstruction, slightly different, but the fit is true.

This was my very first machine-knitting project, and it went really, really well until I decided that the short rows the machine created looked like poo and ripped out the front and back pieces. In itself, this would not have been such an ordeal, but because I only came to my decision after binding off, seaming and crocheting the edges, it was a bit of work. I reworked the pieces with decreases instead of short rows, but my machine tension still wasn't great from about the neckline up, so ultimately I decided to handknit the tops of both pieces.

When we left for Hawaii, I had all of the pieces in a bag with the sleeves bound off, and the partial front and partial back secured with waste yarn. I was somewhat nervous about finishing, because I wasn't absolutely sure I could match the machine's gauge, and I was afraid that the handknit section would look wonky. It is one thing to do a ribbing edge by hand and a stockinette body by machine, and it is another entirely to switch between the two in the middle of a long plane of stockinette. Blessedly, it all worked out, most likely due to my inexperience on the machine and my experience with handknitting. I am still shocked that this little manuever worked.

The original sleeve with full fashioning.I was able to finish the body pieces, bind off, seam, crochet the edges and steam the piece in time to present it to my MIL on our last day in Hawaii. She was thrilled and showed the sweater to anyone and everyone who might be remotely interested, and insisted on wearing it to dinner with her new necklace - also a beloved possession. If she had been a knitter herself she could not have done a better job of making me feel appreciated and making every single bit of the effort that I put into that sweater worthwhile, and I love her for that. So much so, in fact, that I would still be willing to make five more of these sweaters (as promised) if that was what she most wanted. I think she would still like to have a few more and I am sure that I will produce a few in varying colors here and there for birthdays, but what she really wants next is a River Stole. I think you know what I'll be knitting for Christmas.

Techniques:
This sweater incorporated many interesting shaping and full-fashioning details. I used the shaping for the shoulders, which included increases to broaden them for a swimmer's form. I intended to use the full-fashioning as well, but because you see the wrong side on the knitting machine, I kinda goofed up, so the fashioning is not as exciting as in the original. The big technique that I used was a single crochet border (something I've done often), done in a 2:3 ratio (two crochet loops for every three knit stitches) (something I've never done before). It was pretty cool to have it work out, and the result is nice. It pulls the knit in a little to give a bit of puff to the edges.

The reconstructed sleeve
with a little less fashioning.Finishing:
I would have loved to have had the luxury (time) to wet-block this piece, but with the constraints I was working under, I had to resort to steaming it. I had the foresight to bring along a little $15 hand-held steamer that I got at walgreens years ago, and it did the trick. I hung Project MIL on a hanger on the door of the closet in our cabin and let the steamer get to the point where it was really bubbling along, and then I steamed the sweater very meticulously and slowly, letting the steam seep into every inch of the fabric before moving on. It definitely removed any wrinkles and evened out the stitching, although a wet-blocking would have given a more professional result. If you need to resort to steaming, even with a cheapy steamer, know that it can be done.

Impressions of Rowan's All Season's Cotton:
Rowan All Season's Cotton is a yarn that I return to again and again and again. It's not a yarn that makes me go crazy with need when I see it on the shelf - it's more of a standard, like Karabella Aurora 8 or Rowan Wool Cotton. This isn't the prized yarn that sits in my stash unused because it's beautiful but doesn't go with anything. It's the yarn that goes with everything that I purchase in bulk when I have a design idea. Two of the four things I made with it are original designs, and a third is a reconstruction which required designing. It's a perfect blank canvas that will wear well, drape well, and give great stitch definition.

Possible substitute yarns:
There isn't an adequate substitute for All Season's Cotton in my book. This is one of my favorite yarns. You could use GGH Samoa, but it just isn't quite as nice.

Read all entries on Project MIL

State of the MIL

I know you're wondering if Project MIL has gotten swept to the sidelines while I selfishly bask in the company of the River stole. Have I abandoned my sweet MIL to pursue my own kidsilken pleasures?

You can't see the short rows. I've already decimated them.

I have not. I've been working diligently, but there is less of project MIL this week than there was last week, despite my efforts.

It's not good, people, but it will get better.

The MIL was going along swimmingly. I knit the front, back, and sleeves in the course of about three to four hours on Little Knitter,* got everything nicely seamed and bound off, and then proceeded to play around with some crochet edgings on one of the sleeves. Still, as nice as all of this was, I had some nagging doubts involving the neckline, which I had done with short rows.

I am not the strongest swimmer when it comes to short row wraps. I've been known to somehow miscombobulate the wraps as I hide them and end up with ugly, elongated stitches. In my heart of hearts I know that I need to go back to my Vogues and IKs and re-read the short-row tutorials, or head on over to Nona's and see what she has to say. (If Nona can short row, I can too? As an aside, Nona shows us many methods of short-rowing in her tips and techniques - I'm thinking wraps may be a thing of the past!) I know that it is simply a matter of habitually going into the stitches in the wrong manner and that if I commit myself to understanding how the hiding of the wrap works, I will have lovely, hidden short row wraps and never have to worry about this again. I just haven't done it. Yet. (Don't worry, I really will do it this time, I just have to get through some other stuff -see below- first.) The thing is, in this case it wouldn't matter if I were an olympic short rower, because short-rowing doesn't appear to be Little Knitter's strong suit, either.

Moxie: "Even I wouldn't do that much work for my mother." How soon he forgets that he is speaking to a woman who spent five months of her life designing and knitting a sweater for him. Twenty hours on Project MIL? Nuthin'.

I hadn't loved the appearance of the neckline from the start, but for some reason I ignored its ugly presence - most likely believing that I could either do some fancy footwork to correct it, or hide it under the crochet edging in some fit of genius. Let's just say that the genius didn't arrive. It wasn't for lack of trying.

Isn't this a lovely seam? Sob.So, in a fit of something quite other than genius, I tore the neckline apart. And when I say tore, I do not mean carefully unravelled with forethought and planning. I attacked that neckline and got out all of the negative feelings that I had toward it.

You may be wondering why I was so annoyed. It was, after all, only the neckline, which would seem relatively easy to access and re-knit. It wasn't. I had to get through shoulder seams, armscye seams, and even side seams. Have I mentioned that these seams were perfect? Beautiful? Flawless? I love a good seam, and these were seams, in cotton, which I had meticulously, painstakingly completed.

They are gone.

Even worse, I had decided that it was a good idea to bind off the neckline, cuffs, and body in the round after seaming, for a more perfect edge. So all of the bind-offs had to be taken out and re-bound-off as well. (By the way - if you are thinking of doing this, it's not worth it. It's a lot of trouble if you do need to take a seam out, and it doesn't add much.)

The only thing that I did which saved me some time was leaving the ends loose. I never, I repeat never, weave in the ends of my seaming yarn until a piece is entirely seamed and I have tried it on and am certain that I am happy with it. This is such a great practice and saves me so much grief - 'cause who wants to find an end that they have so carefully hidden? - that it deserves blockquote status.

Initially I put lifelines in below the neckline and those clever shoulder increases and above the armscye decreases, but I'm thinking that those will go and I will instead rework both the front and back in their entirety. Although I can usually count on All Season's Cotton to be free of "issues," this batch had a few tiny areas where some strands of another, darker yarn got incorporated, and they are noticable to the discerning (read: MIL's) eye. We can't have that. Previous to the neckline debacle I was considering grafting. Now I will simply cut out the offending areas and re-knit. Stay tuned.

*Marnie's term of endearment for her lovely knitting machine.

Return of the MIL (Sweater)

I didn't plan to blog again until I was ready to unveil the new digs, but I have gotten so into this little renovation that it has become, well, big. I am obsessed with optimizing, automating, adding little bells and whistles. In order to accomplish what I envision I've been teaching myself about things like css, javascript and dhtml. The techies out there will probably have a good giggle when I'm finally done, because I'm quite sure this isn't rocket science. Still, for me, it's an accomplishment. Anyway, that's a long-winded way of letting you know that I'm posting now - something you've probably already caught on to.

Moxie: "It's kind of ugly. I don't like the blue frillies."As part of the house-cleaning jag that I've been on, I've been clearing my slate of projects that have been hanging on a little too long. Some of you may remember that way back in December I told my sweet mother-in-law that I would replicate her favorite sweater for her. She's had this sweater for some time, and says that it fits her swimmer's body in a way that no other sweater she has found can. If she could, she would own six of these sweaters in different colors and wear them all the time.

With testimonials like that, how could I resist offering to duplicate this sweater six times?* (Yes, I know, someone obviously is desperate for love and approval. It's an illness.) Luckily, I'm a smart girl. I told her that I would do it by Christmas 2006. I also planned to make all of them using a knitting machine that I just knew a certain generous someone would lend me. Since I knew that certain generous someone would be going out of town soon, I took the opportunity to find the necessary yarn for the job and arrange to handle the care and feeding of said machine while she is away.

Swatching for gauge.
The "frillies" are waste yarn.Let me just say that I have taken to this machine like a fish takes to water. Marnie brought it over after our SnB on Sunday, and I swatched three different yarns that night. Monday night, convinced that I was sufficiently acquainted with the machine, I swatched for Project MIL. Tuesday night, with my swatches sufficiently blocked and dried, I completed the front of the sweater. This was a little more complicated than I envisioned, and I hit a minor snag when I got to the armhole decreases, which require that you do two consecutive decreases. After a few false starts I realized that you have to make the decreases closer to the midline of the sweater before the decreases that lie closer to the edges. The one thing that I didn't get right was the full-fashioning. The decreases on this sweater are designed to stand out - the equivalent of a k2tog on the right and a SSK on the left. To do this, you have to reverse the order of the decreased stitches on the needle, but since the purl side faces out on a knitting machine, I didn't realize that I had goofed on it until I was done with the piece, and I didn't feel like ripping, since I had a perfectly lovely sweater front, sans the fancy detailing. I'll go all out with the decreases on the next five!

Weaving a smaller needle through the stitches 2 rows down.
This will give me sufficient yarn to bind off.This was a totally fun experience. In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to practice more than straight knitting before diving into the sweater front and having to do increases, decreases, and short-rowing (Which is shockingly easy! The decreases are the hardest maneuver.) Having made it through on a wing and a prayer, however, I am emboldened to persevere. Last night I finished the back. Tonight, the sleeves!

I don't know how other people do this, but my plan is to leave all the waste yarn on the body in place until I get around to seaming and finishing. That way I can bind off all the edges in the round. Stay tuned!

Rip, bind off on a larger needle, and voila!

*For those of you concerned about copyright (hopefully everyone), it is fine to copy a sweater that you own for yourself, and it is also fine to copy a sweater and give it to a friend. These things fall under the category of "personal use" and are perfectly legal uses of intellectual property under copyright law. Likewise, if you see something you like on the fashion runway that you do not own and have the skills to reverse-engineer it without directly referring to the original, you may do so for personal use. It is not okay to pass the sweater off as your own, to distribute the pattern for free or sell it, or to make the sweater for sale. This is true even if the sweater you are copying is from a free pattern. Sound complicated? It is! Learn more about copyright for knitters. One of my patterns was recently infringed, so I'm particularly sensitive to the issue.

Calling All Crocheters: Project MIL

It's vacation time and I have an unprecedented amount of free time on my hands, so the task of the day has been deconstructing my MIL's favorite (and sadly well-worn) sweater:

We here at MindofWinter take our sweater construction seriously.

Since I know you guys are likely to be skimmers like me, I'll present you with the single outstanding issue first, and then give you a tour of the fun aspects of this sweater later in the post. The issue is this lovely edging along the hem, sleeves and neckline:

Elegant, no? It prevents the stockinette from curling and leaves a smooth edge. Need another view?

My best guess is that this is a single row of a very simple crochet followed by a bind off, worked on live knit stitches. Upon close inspection, the ratio of crochet sts to knit looks to be about 2:3, but I could be wrong about that. I'm hoping that my closest knitting buds who are also excellent crocheters, Marnie and Mary Heather, are out there poised to solve this great mystery. However, I am of the opinion that it's never a bad thing to have many expert opinions, so this is an open call to all the crocheters out there. If you think you can identify the technique, please speak up in the comments. Single crochet? Double crochet? Crab stitch? As one who crochets on an as-needed basis, and sometimes not even then, I just can't tell.

Now, on for a fun tour of the sweater. Here's the whole shebang unfurled for you:

I got pretty lucky. MIL's favorite sweater is stockinette, short-sleeved, and waist-length.

My MIL likes this sweater so much that she says she would be really happy to have just this sweater in six different colors and no others. Since I'm pretty sure that was meant as a hint, I decided to get started on the prototype. My plan is to knit the "original" by hand, and then impose upon my friends with knitting machines to let me borrow equipment to whip out several more over the year. I think that large enough segments of this sweater can be machine made that the finishing won't make me batty. I figure if I pound one out every few months, she'll have a full set by next year. I'm not usually one to take knitting requests (as all who know me know!), but in this case the pattern was both interesting enough to spend time deciphering and straightforward enough to spend time producing. Challange! (Imagine that in a Frenchy accent.) There you have it.

The fun features of this sweater (aside from the clever edging), reside mostly in the sleeve area, where the designer made use of fully fashioned single and double decreases. The decreases on the back body do not match those on the front exactly (there are fewer back decreases, for the broad of shoulder gal), and there is increasing on both the front and back shoulders at the armhole edge (also for the broad of back). This was a really interesting sweater for me to deconstruct, as it was created for someone of a very different body type than myself. My MIL is tall, short-waisted (but thin-waisted), buxom, and has strong swimmer's shoulders. We have identical ideal length measurements for armholes and body, but we vary widely in our width measurements. I've never owned or seen a sweater with increases at the shoulder, but for her body type, they work perfectly. I've made schematics and written out all the instructions for her perfect sweater (sans crochet edging) and found it really instructional. I feel I'm one step closer to getting the sizing on other body types, which is a great thing for someone who likes to design. Now all I need is some yarn....