A couple weekends ago, I finished all of the major pieces, and was getting excited about seaming everything up and making sure it fits. Here you can see the pieces all laid out ready to start going together.
Those of you more experienced than me, can probably already see a problem, but we'll get to that later. Since this is really my first major undertaking of seaming, I thought I should do a little research. I found a guide to finishing in my
Spring 2008 Interweave Knits. It said I had to seam up the shoulders first, add anything that has to be added (in this case button bands and the collar), and then, I could seam up the sides and arms. I got over my disappointment of knowing that I wouldn't be able to try it on this weekend and grafted the fronts to the back.
I was proud of my grafting job, but wasn't very happy with the way it looked. Grafting looks like stockinette, and my very textured and cabley cardigan did not look it's best with a stockinette join. I pushed on anyway because I knew that the collar would cover it up. By the end of that weekend I had the button bands almost done, and I finished them up last weekend.
When I went to pick up stitches for the collar, something struck me as odd. I should have been picking up well over 100 stitches, and with the space I had, if I really squeezed them in there, I could get maybe 20. I pulled out my
Sweaters 101 book in hopes of finding an answer. My problem was how I had set my pieces out that very first time. Compare that first picture to this one.
I had set my pieces together as if they were set in sleeves, but I was really working with raglan. So, last weekend I ripped the old shoulders out (which I was ok with since I didn't like how they looked anyway) and made new shoulders that included the sleeves. Then I picked up the stitches and got started on my collar. I now have about three and a half more inches of collar to go before I bind off, then I'll pull together all the seams, and then I think it will be finished. I am pretty confident that I'll finish the collar this weekend, and since I have tomorrow off, maybe the seams. I'm not certain about that, but I have some great podcasts to listen to and a beautiful snowy day to watch outside my window so I should get really close.
Those of you more experienced than me, can probably already see a problem, but we'll get to that later. Since this is really my first major undertaking of seaming, I thought I should do a little research. I found a guide to finishing in my Spring 2008 Interweave Knits. It said I had to seam up the shoulders first, add anything that has to be added (in this case button bands and the collar), and then, I could seam up the sides and arms. I got over my disappointment of knowing that I wouldn't be able to try it on this weekend and grafted the fronts to the back.
I was proud of my grafting job, but wasn't very happy with the way it looked. Grafting looks like stockinette, and my very textured and cabley cardigan did not look it's best with a stockinette join. I pushed on anyway because I knew that the collar would cover it up. By the end of that weekend I had the button bands almost done, and I finished them up last weekend.
When I went to pick up stitches for the collar, something struck me as odd. I should have been picking up well over 100 stitches, and with the space I had, if I really squeezed them in there, I could get maybe 20. I pulled out my Sweaters 101 book in hopes of finding an answer. My problem was how I had set my pieces out that very first time. Compare that first picture to this one.
I had set my pieces together as if they were set in sleeves, but I was really working with raglan. So, last weekend I ripped the old shoulders out (which I was ok with since I didn't like how they looked anyway) and made new shoulders that included the sleeves. Then I picked up the stitches and got started on my collar. I now have about three and a half more inches of collar to go before I bind off, then I'll pull together all the seams, and then I think it will be finished. I am pretty confident that I'll finish the collar this weekend, and since I have tomorrow off, maybe the seams. I'm not certain about that, but I have some great podcasts to listen to and a beautiful snowy day to watch outside my window so I should get really close.
2 comments:
Your sweater looks great and I can't wait to see it finished. I have about 10 inch above the back rib done and found something wrong with the start of the cable. I thought I could live with it but can't I will be frogging soon. The postings about it will be very helpful. Thanks
Thanks! I've tried it on, and now I am relieved to know that I won't have to frog the entire thing. I hope yours is as fun to knit as mine was. I love that texture pattern that makes up the arms and most of the body.
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