Actual Knitting Content!

At last some knitting to post about!

This project , from the IK Spring issue this year, was started at the end of June.

The yarn is a DK Mirasol cotton/linen blend. and yields a very beautiful fabric. (Not surprisingly, as the weather turns cooler the fabric becomes less and less engaging.) I am determined to get this project done before I indulge in anything deliciously woolly though so onward I am pressing!

My plan with this (other than to have it finished and ready to wear a couple of months ago!) was to focus on shaping for a better fit. Anne Hanson (in the workshop I took with her at Purple Purl last spring) suggested I might generally try moving shapings in from the edge to create kind of darts both above and below the bust line to better address my shape and measurements.

Before I tried that approach with this pattern, I did a trial run with knitting the back as written.  It didn't take long before I decided it was worth trying something different because with the shaping out at the edge the knitting seemed stiff, the shaping a bit awkward.

So I ripped it back, restarted and this time placed increases and decreases just as the pattern recommended except that below the bust I placed them 4" in from the sides and above the bust, 3.5" in.

So despite its appearance, the right side edge of the piece above is actually dead straight!  The shape of the piece, driven by the increases and decreases about 4" in from that straight edge. When I hold it up to myself it hugs me all the way across the front rather than just being necessarily narrow at the sides. 'Just what I was hoping for!

If you look closely at the larger photo you might notice that the shaping below the bust (close up photo directly above) looks a bit like a plant stalk with little buds on alternating sides.  They are "paired" on alternate sides of a mark to yield that slightly wiggly line. I figured that since the cotton/linen yarn in a stockinette background was bound to make the decreases and increases visible I decided to play them up to go with the viney leaves on the saddle shoulders.  By contrast, above the bust I left them in a simple line placed inside the markers...

...I didn't want too much of a good thing!

At the arm holes I wanted to keep the arm scythe narrow so I went down one size in terms of the height of the arm hole. I did this both because it seems to be an adjustment I need to undertake with most patterns but in particular, the photo in the magazine and on the website shows quite a bit of bunching under the arm on the model so I'm assuming there is unnecessary extra room there to begin with. I'm playing with fire on this count but since the saddle shoulders are made right on the sweater I should be able to tell by the end of the first sleeve if any changes need to be made to things work well together.

I worked on sleeve number one yesterday for quite a while and made good progress. Hopefully by the end of this evening I will have that one done and know whether I've dug myself into a hole by reducing the arm scythe as I have.

Wow. a bona fide knit blog post about knitting! I'm sure my new "knitting supervisor" is much more impressed than his expression indicates!

Thanks so much for dropping by!