The Finishing Faeries Have Been Delayed

The knitting portion of my Sommelier sweater is finally complete.

I had to tweak the back neck band a bit to get it to fit better. In spite of my experience with the specified stitch pickup counts for the front bands, I went ahead and picked up the designated number of stitches for the neck band. Readers Reader Internet, I'm not sure why I was surprised that the stated 136 stitches were too many. The band bowed/sagged out out in back so I ripped them out and picked up 12 fewer stitches. It's still not quite right but it is definitely in the 'good enough' range at this point.

This project has certainly dragged on well past my interest level, in large part due to initial irritations with the pattern but subsequently from the suspicion that the sweater is not really flattering for me*. It's challenging to feel excited about finishing a sweater that one likely won't wear.

The pattern only specifies steam blocking but I wet blocked everything since the steam blocking didn't give the result I wanted (i.e., removing the stockinette curling at tops of sleeves and edges of armholes and really opening up the lace pattern).

There's no mention in the pattern of sewing in the sleeves, the pattern simply ends with completing the shoulder seams, neck/front bands and the armhole bindings (not present on the sweater version of this pattern and apparently just a repeated section from the vest portion of the pattern).

I left the blocked pieces out for the faeries to complete in the night, however they seem to have been delayed as the sweater parts have been laying about for two evenings now with no finishing activity at all. Perhaps the blatant disregard for the dictated steam blocking has violated some faerie union working conditions clause?

I suppose at this point I need to assume they aren't coming and move forward on my own. Darn.



*Yes, I know I tried on the sample sweater and thought it looked fine. I now suspect that I may have been under the influence of the excitement of Madrona , yarn and fiber fumes in the marketplace and the exuberant encouragement of enabling knitter friends.

Sommelier

Inspired by the most recent period of Mercury retrograde*, I organized my hoarder's corner spinning area and the gathered up the various 'knitting in progress' projects scattered throughout the house to assess the situation and possibly actually finish up some projects. In the process, Sommelier managed to float to the top of the heap and make a bid for my attention.

The more detailed project narrative will have to wait for another post (i.e., when it's not 10:18 on a work night), but here's where I am so far:


The remaining original front band is on the right and as you can see, there are too many stitches in the band and it's curved up and out beyond the sweater body. The band has fewer stitches than specified in the pattern but it's still too many.

I ripped out the other side and re-worked it with fewer stitches. I re-calculated the number of stitches for the band using the gauge from the first band and the length of the sweater front. The new band has 64 stitches instead of 76 and fits much better.

Just need to rip out the remaining band and reknit, sew in the sleeves (also re-worked from the original pattern) and finish the back neck.


*I'm seriously not into astrology all that much, but Mercury Retrograde always seems to result in a flurry of organizational activity for me. In fact that unexpected and irresistible urge to organize yarn and clean the basement typically has me consulting the Google to see what that darn Mercury is up to.

Sample Sweaters

I'm a sucker for shop samples. The opportunity to try on a sweater to see that it fits and flatters me is reassuring and alleviates the anxiety that I usually have when knitting a sweater (I fret the whole time that I'm spending weeks (or months) knitting something that in the end will make me look frumpy/lumpy/dumpy).

So, yeah, shop samples seem to practically propel my credit card out of my wallet to buy the pattern and yarn! Which brings me to my current project: Sommelier (Raveled here)

Black Water Abbey Yarns was at Madrona this year and, as usual, had a nice selection of sample sweaters to try on. The Sommelier sweater was there and several of us tried it on and liked it. I bought the pattern and, since BWA was out of the color I wanted, bought the yarn for the sweater from Shelly at Butternut Woolens.

I cast on right away and have made good progress (it's relative - I'm a slow-ish knitter)

Not shown but also done: the sleeves

There are a couple of minor errors in the pattern but easy enough to spot and work around, I've listed all the details on my Ravelry project page.

I finished up the sleeves and prepared to sew them in but there was a slight problem.


Worked as written, the sleeve cap is several inches smaller than the armscye. Mary Scott Huff (the designer) has been quite helpful. We've compared photos and her sleeve and body both have the same number of lace repeats as mine but clearly the sleeves on mine need to be longer for this to work.

So the sweater is in project time out for just a bit.

Because I'm trying to work on my bad habits of procrastination and avoidance that have caused many a project to come to a dead-end in the past, I'm not allowing myself to start a new project until I sort this one out.

Socks don't really count as a project though, right? I had to have something to take on the plane and the sweater just wouldn't work. (That's my rationalization and I'm sticking with it).

Spring Forward Socks in my handspun BFL
(Raveled here)