Day Four: On Schedule
Yesterday (day three) I knit about a day-and-a-half's worth (90 gms)(I love my scale), and it felt good. Today however, I fell behind, as I've only knit a couple of rows, and it's almost 8pm.
Oh, the highs and lows of the Olympic sport.
Here is my day three knitting (one of the side fronts) blocking this morning:
Would anyone care to have a technical discussion of this sweater? I do! I do! I'm a total knitting geek today, don't say I didn't warn you.
Okay. Here's a major lesson I have learned already.
I've come across this issue before, but never this glaringly obvious. I almost always knit a size large or XL. The samples are (as far as I can tell--except maybe in Knitty) always knit in a size small or medium. The way that sweaters are "graded" or sized-up is pretty much this: keep the pattern the same, and add stockinette on the sides, beyond the pattern. This can lead to a bunch of empty space on the sides, which, depending on how much there is, and how busy the cable pattern is in the first place, can either look fine or look terrible.
As you look at the side front above, I think it will look ok. Not necessarily fine, but not terrible either. Most of the sides are covered up by arms, anyway. Where it will look the worst is up at the shoulder, where there will be about an inch of blank space before you get to the sleeve. I think it will be ok. I am not so much of a perfectionist that I want to rip out the entire side front (and then, it wouldn't match up with the back at the shoulders, so I'd have to redo the back too). But if I had charted out beforehand, and I'm talking, a chart of the entire side front, which would have taken me an hour or so, but would certainly be do-able, then I would have seen this situation. I could have shifted the entire pattern to the right by 2-4 stitches, leaving a couple more stitches between the button band and the pattern, which would have been fine, and the whole sweater would have looked more balanced.
See how it looks on the model? The whole front is covered with pattern. Mine won't look quite that nice. It would really have been a good idea to have charted the whole dang thing out.
And speaking of the model, see how nonchalant she looks? Like that nice squiggley cable just matched up with the neck shaping like magic? (See black arrow.) That doesn't happen by magic, and they don't warn you about that in the pattern. I was a knitting machine, crusing along and keeping track of the armhole shaping and the neck shaping at the same time, when my cable started traveling up to the left, as my neck shaping was gracefully leaning right.
Alarm bells! This is not what our lovely model is displaying. She is displaying a curve to the cable that matches up with the neck shaping. I had to rip back several rows to re-start the shaping, and not quite to the point that they did in the photo, or it would have been too low a neckline on me.
Here is what mine looks like, do you think it will work? (Is anybody still reading this?) Be honest. About the sweater, not about the reading.
I think I will do a sleeve next, and do a sew-as-you-go maneuver. I don't usually do this blocking-as-you-go either, but it is keeping me motivated.
Oh, the highs and lows of the Olympic sport.
Here is my day three knitting (one of the side fronts) blocking this morning:
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Would anyone care to have a technical discussion of this sweater? I do! I do! I'm a total knitting geek today, don't say I didn't warn you.
Okay. Here's a major lesson I have learned already.
I've come across this issue before, but never this glaringly obvious. I almost always knit a size large or XL. The samples are (as far as I can tell--except maybe in Knitty) always knit in a size small or medium. The way that sweaters are "graded" or sized-up is pretty much this: keep the pattern the same, and add stockinette on the sides, beyond the pattern. This can lead to a bunch of empty space on the sides, which, depending on how much there is, and how busy the cable pattern is in the first place, can either look fine or look terrible.
As you look at the side front above, I think it will look ok. Not necessarily fine, but not terrible either. Most of the sides are covered up by arms, anyway. Where it will look the worst is up at the shoulder, where there will be about an inch of blank space before you get to the sleeve. I think it will be ok. I am not so much of a perfectionist that I want to rip out the entire side front (and then, it wouldn't match up with the back at the shoulders, so I'd have to redo the back too). But if I had charted out beforehand, and I'm talking, a chart of the entire side front, which would have taken me an hour or so, but would certainly be do-able, then I would have seen this situation. I could have shifted the entire pattern to the right by 2-4 stitches, leaving a couple more stitches between the button band and the pattern, which would have been fine, and the whole sweater would have looked more balanced.
See how it looks on the model? The whole front is covered with pattern. Mine won't look quite that nice. It would really have been a good idea to have charted the whole dang thing out.
a.jpg)
And speaking of the model, see how nonchalant she looks? Like that nice squiggley cable just matched up with the neck shaping like magic? (See black arrow.) That doesn't happen by magic, and they don't warn you about that in the pattern. I was a knitting machine, crusing along and keeping track of the armhole shaping and the neck shaping at the same time, when my cable started traveling up to the left, as my neck shaping was gracefully leaning right.
Alarm bells! This is not what our lovely model is displaying. She is displaying a curve to the cable that matches up with the neck shaping. I had to rip back several rows to re-start the shaping, and not quite to the point that they did in the photo, or it would have been too low a neckline on me.
Here is what mine looks like, do you think it will work? (Is anybody still reading this?) Be honest. About the sweater, not about the reading.
a.jpg)
I think I will do a sleeve next, and do a sew-as-you-go maneuver. I don't usually do this blocking-as-you-go either, but it is keeping me motivated.
posted by Emily at 5:53 PM
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7 Comments:
I think it will look great on you, st st space or no. Hers (I love how we talk like that girl actually made it) is almost too busy, with no spot for a breath of air. The cable/neck transition of sweaters drives me crazy. They almost never warn you about where things would need to happen to make it work out right, and even if they did, if your row gauge is off, you're going to have a long or short sweater if you try to compensate.
I think it looks great. I think the sample is almost too busy and really like that yours has less cabling. I think the neck shaping looks fine too.
your sweater looks fabulous even if i don't understand any of the knit talk. check out whipup.net, they have a post about sock knitting today that you might enjoy! good luck with knitting olympics!
Yes, I love that neckline squiggle. And -- the stockinette section at the shoulder might prevent your sweater from looking too intensely cabled. In the pic, there's a weird 90 degree angle created where the shoulder meets the sleeve. In yours, the stock might diminish that clash. Just thinkin' out loud...
Good luck! You're flyin'!
Thanks for the comments. I have never thought about how a sweater is sized up, but I will need to check that in the future. The sweater I'm doing for the KO has double seed stitch on the sides, so in the larger size which I'm doing, it doesn't look weird.
Now I am not a knitter but on the plain part if you wanted to do something to it what about some more of those bobble thingies?
Considering you have young'uns, I think you're making great progress!
And yes, I hate how patterns don't give you any "tips" about making adjustments. Esp. b/c beginning knitters might not know how to figure out some of the changes on their own.
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