Next episode of "how I rescued the Lace Trimmed Sweater".
Let's remember: The darts were too generous. But I couldn't simply rip out the front because the sleeves are worked top down. Then I had the idea, to rip out the short rows and re-work them with fewer rows.
mit eingezogenen Nadeln / with needles poked in
To start the adventure I inserted small circulars into the first row above the short rows and into the last row before them. I picked up one leg of each stitch, being careful to stay within exactly one row.
durchgeschnitten / clipped
Then I clpped the yarn on the last row BEFORE THE UPPER NEEDLE, about 20 stiches from the seam and undid one row step by step.
herausgetrennt / ripped out
Then I ripped out the whole short row section down to the second needle. I was left with a "cut open sweater" without horizontal darts. Now I can work that part again, but with fewer rows. Originalle I lengthend the rows by two stitches, my new calculations give a increase rate of 3.
I'm not quite sure about the Lace Trimmed Sweater.
Seems like I didn't get the math about the vertical and horizontal darts and now there's too much fabric and everything is in crumples. Simply frogging isn't the solution because I worked set in top down sleeves so they would have to be ripped, too (3 balls of yarn ...).
I think I'll have to deeply think about this, wether I can reduce the horziontal darts in another way. Cutting the yarn just before the first row where all sts are worked again, rip out all the short rows and do them again over less rows (increase on each row by 3 - 4 sts instead of only 2 sts). Finally I'll have to graft everything.
Should work - this part is worked without the selvedge sts and thus I should be able to work there without opening the seams. I think I'll look at it in the light of day.
I made quite some progress on the Lace Trimmed Sweater.
One sleeve is half finished.
Lace Trimmed Sweater - halber Ärmel / half a sleeve
The front looks a little funny - reason is, I used some techniques to make room for the girls. When everything is finished and I like it, I'll go in depth about it.
After sewing front and back I picked up my iron und made a little dance with it. The effect is quite astonishing. The lace pattern is rather easy (basically there are only 4 patterning rows with being 2 more or less the same) and yet very pretty.
As soon as I start whining that I make hardly any progress, my knitting mojo is back.
Meanwhile the front of the Lace Trimmed Sweater is finished and I started the first sleeve. To make it less boring (I have to recalculate everything anyway) and I'm short of yarn although I re-baught some, I decided on doing top-down cap sleeves. I haven't done this before, but until now it looks rather good. Let's see, how it ends.
This time not a deep pink but a dusty rose - one of my alltime favourites.
Lace trimmed sweater - MaPro / gauge swatch
The gauge swatch is a real trial and error thing - different needle sizes during the lace part, different techniques for ssk to achieve the right look. And a generous swatch was more than necessary: the lace part has 22 sts on 10 cm, the plain part 26 sts ...
Der Anfang / the beginning
This sweater is great fun to knit, although I have to do some heavy math. Not only is my gauge total off, but the instructions are for a size 8 inches less than my actual size (or is it only 6 - who cares?).
With the great tutorials from knitting daily it's no problem (it wasn't that much before them, but I like to read I'm doing the right thing).
Needle size 6.0 mm and 14 sts = 10 cm make for quick knitting success.
This means: the cardigan is finished and looks good so far. Or at least almost finished - the buttons are yet missing. Somehow big and unobtrusive is what I'm looking for. Good chance it will take some time until I find some, buying buttons is always much harder than deciding a new yarn.
Yesterday afternoon my daughter begged me to knit her a dress. Acutally she wanted to claim the cardigan as hers, but I could convince her it's not really her size - "but mommy, you know I'll grow into it" ... At least I won't be bored.
Rib Jacket - Vorderteile fertig / front pieces finished
The cardigan is rather fitting so I added some short rows for the bust - it's my first time doing so on a background of reverse stockinette. Looks rather fine.
With a yardage of 50 m, needle size 6.0 mm and 163 stitches you don't get far with one ball of yarn. But now it knits up relative quickly so it was definitively the right decision to rip back and start over with thicker needles.
Detail / close up
And that's what really fat stitches look from a short disctance - the yarn makes for rather even stitches. That's not always so with pure cotton.
At the moment it's growing at a rather slow pace. It's not a problem with the pattern but rather with the yarn. Or better not-yarn. It's industrial yarn, 6 strands and probably somehow conditioned to make it work better with machines. After washing it changes significally and gets much smoother and softer. I could have skeined everything, washed and dried it and then reballed it. But we are talking 6,7 km of yarn! Because I ordered the yarn as two-stranded in three different colours and now knit from three cones / balls in varying combinations. Alone to ball half of each cone was more than enough boring.
Since having short circulars from Addi everything goes a bit smoother.
Tubey - erster Ärmel / first sleeve
On this picture one sleeve is finished and the second one is 1/5th finished. I did start at the center of the back so the stripes are matched on both sides and I don't have to do too much math.
My first little modification to the pattern: I did the last few rounds of the sleeve in garter stitch to prevent it from rolling up.
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