I love Kitchener Stitch

No, really I do. I find it simple and methodic enough to be just as relaxing as knitting. I get absolutely giddy when I've worked a good size segment and I pull the working yarn taut and the seam zips right up. I love the finished look of stitches uninterrupted by a seam. This is a good thing, because last time we talked about my Christmas Cardigan, I was facing a lot of Kitchener. I curled up with Hubby on the couch for a LOTR marathon and had at it. Long before Frodo made it to Mordor, I was done.It is a really cute sweater, and Hubby can't stop complimenting me. You would think that that would be enough, but of course it is not perfect. I didn't really understand ease going in to this project. A few weeks ago, Kelly did a great podcast on ease, but it was about a month too late. Not only did I not understand that I might want ease, it never occued to me that incredibly gifted pattern makers who do so much for me already, wouldn't have just worked that it. As I blocked each piece to my exact measurements, I never thought about what that would mean for fit. All in all, it was a noob mistake, but I'm not embarassed at all about making it. The sweater still fits, it just looks like it is not intended to shut, and if I did try to button it, there would be big pulling gaps inbetween each of the buttons. It makes the sweater look a bit more trendy and less cozy. It works, and it looks really cute with a particular orange top that I have (the orange just doesn't photograph as well as the brown did.)

The other problem is more serious and I'm not sure how to handle it. It is the collar. I've never had a top with a collar like this before, so I didn't really know what to expect from it. The collar is really heavy, and I feel like the weight is constantly pulling the top of the sweater away from my neck. It is a really odd feeling for me. It is kind of like the sweater is around my shoulders instead of on top of them. I thought it was just an odd sensation that I would have to get use to, so, I've been wearing it as often as possible to try and get comfortable with it. In the past two weeks, I've worn it three times and I can't sop pulling, readjusting, and trying to get comfortable in it. Then I went to put it on Friday, and instead of just feeling like it was falling off of my shoulders, it actually was slipping right off. (Which makes me wonder what it would be like if there were extra ease in there.) I think maybe if I soak it and reblock it that I can get the shoulders to pull back in to their original positions, but that seems like a lot to do everytime I wear it. It is outerwear, so I was hoping I wouldn't need to clean it as often as my other sweaters. Even when I do clean my other sweaters, I just lay them out to dry. I don't spend time blocking them to measurements. Since the wool is superwash, I threw the guage swatches into the washer and dryer with my delicates to see if that might be an options. The swatches came out at least a half an inch shorter in all of their measurements. They didn't felt. If I got them wet, I could stretch them back out to their original sizes, but that doesn't save me any time and a half an inch in height and width to every 4 inches would not be an acceptable change in size.

I've been thinking that if it is not a sweater I am comfortable in and I never wear it, then all of that time and effort is going to be wasted. So, I've been trying to consider the fact that it might need to be ripped out and made into something else. I've been thinking that Amused might maintain the spirit of the sweater, but being a pull over instead of a cardigan might keep the front flaps from adding the weight of the collar. I just don't know. Until I figure it out, it is going to stay in one piece. I'm going to re-block it and try to wear it as often as I can. Maybe it is something that I can get use to.

Four More Inches (A Christmas Cardigan Update)

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.

Change of Pace

On Monday I start my new job with Brooklyn College. I am excited about the position and the office I'll be working with, but this is going to mark a drastic change in pace for me. I can't wait because quite frankly, I've been getting restless at home. I think the changes will be positive for everyone except the few avid followers of this blog. I imagine I'll be posting less, and the content might not be as knitting focused as it currently is. This prediction is based on my expectation that I won't be knitting as much, but you never know. I will have about an hour to commute and maybe since I'll be riding the subway away from Manhattan, I'll have some knitting time there. We'll just have to see, but I thought you deserved a warning.

Now for the fun stuff:

Since I accepted the position on Thursday, I didn't have to dedicate any of my normal time to job hunting yesterday or this weekend. I've reallocated all of that time to catching up on podcasts (I am still way behind since I didn't listen to any the week after thanksgiving) and working on my Christmas cardigan. I don't expect it to be done by Christmas, but I know that I have two days off next week and two days off the week after. I am hoping to get the bulk of the knitting done during these times so maybe I can set aside a weekend for seaming and another for the button band and shoulder flap.

Before you get too excited by my productive sounding plans, I should warn you that I am facing a full sweater frogging. I finished the back yesterday, and I blocked it this morning. Blocking is really the part of this project that I've been most worried about. Up until this point, I've been blocking things just to give them a nice bath and a finished look. The dimensions of my blocked items haven't been vital. This time, if the sizes aren't the same, the pieces aren't going to seam together right. So, while I was consumed in the worries that my haphazard blocking is going to get me in trouble, I neglected to worry about other things.

I finished the back of the sweater yesterday, and I blocked it this morning. to my dismay, it was stretched way too long. I managed to schunch it up into the proper measurements, I don't know how much of the schunching is too much. The width is fine, but none of the lines lengthwise really look clean or straight. (I'm sorry the picture is bad, my blocking space is not well lit.) I'm pretty confident that the weight of wearing it, is going to pull that length back out. So, I've been battling all morning with the options of frogging now, or waiting and potentially frogging the entire thing. I think I've decided to trudge on. I realize that if I finish the entire thing, I'll be less likely to frog it, and less likely to wear it if it fits poorly, but I have a lot of reasons to think it might be ok even with the extra length (there is a little YarnHarlot inside my head telling me that those will be marked as my famous last words). First, the width is good, so conceptually, the sweater should still fit, just be longer. Second, I made the smaller size, so a little bigger might be to my benefit. Third, I already cut an inch off the bottom, so if the added length makes it fall at the widest part of my hips that is undesirable but not disastrous. Fourth, even before the extra inch was cut, the bottom didn't reach the widest part of my hips yet so there is even more room to play with. Fifth, this is my first pieced together sweater, so I don't know what kind of stability seaming in the sleeves (which will have a width dimension that matches this length dimension) will give to the sweater. Sixth (and finally), I have absolutely no idea how to fix it if I do frog it. It is not the main body of the sweater that I am worried about, but section from the arm pit up. That section doesn't have any knit to X" long directions in it so I am uncertain about where I could cut anyway. I realize that I could decrease faster to make it shorter, but that would change the angle and the shape so the sleeves might not fit anymore.

Well, all of that just made me more confident. Did it convince you? I am going to keep going, and if in the end it was the wrong call, hopefully, I will have learned enough about this type of sweater that I can come up with a plan to adjust it. In the meantime, maybe I'll keep my eye out for some top down patterns just in case.