Persistent Knitter

Tada!

Ok, so it’s not a great picture. You can see the patterning in the lower right corner. It desperately needed blocking, so here it is in for it’s Eucalan bath. It’s drying right now on a sweater rack. I tried to take a picture of that, but for some reason it came out looking green, which was unacceptable for the final final picture. I will get my husband to model it for a real blog picture when it’s dry (which will apparently take about 10 years given how heavy it is).

Now that I’ve finished Hardangervidda. I want to do put down some thoughts on it.

Specs

Pattern: Hardangervidda, in Dale book 126
Yarn: Falk, Heathered Navy, Heathered Grey, Deep Red
Needles: Don’t ASK!

Gauge

As everyone reading this blog knows I had serious gauge issues with this project. To me, working on a tiny little swatch does not equal knowing what your gauge will be like when working on a large object in the round. In this case, casting on, and seeing where I was a few inches into it was the best way to go. Now I can use this information when I knit other sweaters with this same yarn (like Bjerk, which I cast on Saturday night!)

My sleeve gauge was different than my body gauge. I was using totally different needles, because you have to use smaller ’round needles (or DPNs even) on the sleeve. I had to compensate also for my row gauge (which is usually tighter than what the pattern calls for) and increase less often, or I would have had a gargantuan sleeve.

What was my gauge? 5.75 stitches/inch

The pattern called for 6 stitches/inch. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’ve got 250 plus stitches, that extra .25 stitch adds up.

Body vs. Sleeves

It made sense for me to do the body first because I needed to find out how far down the body would go in order for me to make the sleeves the right length. I believe I ended up making the sleeves the same length as called for in the pattern size I was working on, however the body measurements around did NOT jive with what the pattern said. What do I learn from this? Hmm…. use common sense and all will come out fine. I also ended up making a smaller size than I thought made sense from looking at the pattern measurements.

Pattern

Pattern could apply to two things - the fair isle patterning or the written directions. We’ll deal first with the written directions.

This was not the clearest pattern I’ve ever followed. There are still parts of it I’m fuzzy about what they mean. The formatting sucks. Everything is all squished together. Thank god for the charts! I do like using the chart for the colorwork. Could you imagine? “K1 with Mc1, k3 with cc2…” Bleah!

As for fair isle patterning. I really liked it. It wasn’t hard to do, and I’ve gotten much better at knitting two handed fair isle. There is a bit of draw in for me, but not too much, and I’m sure that blocking will take care of most of it. (Can’t you tell in the picture above? :-P)

Color & Yarn

This sweater wasn’t made with the most exciting colors. Black (really dark blue) for the body and grey with some red for the accents. But it’s for my hubby, and it’s what he’ll like and wear, and that’s the most important thing isn’t it? I did try to substitute a heathered green for the red, because hubby said he didn’t like the red in the picture. He was wrong. It didn’t show any contrast at all, and the red is really what helps the pattern “pop”.

How much yarn did I use? How did it compare with the pattern specs?

MC body: 9 balls MC sleeves: 6 (bought 20. returned 4. keeping one for emergencies)
Not sure on the Contrasting Colors, but I think 2-3 of the grey and only 1 of the red.

New Techniques I Learned

Back stitch to put sleeves in. Putting a zipper into a sweater. Two handed Fair Isle. (I actually learned that for Ingeborg, but didn’t end up making the sweater) Steeks! (Both Sleeve and Neck steeks).

What Worked, and What Didn’t

What, you mean the sweater isn’t perfect? Ha!

There is a visible error in the pattern on the back. I will never tell my husband this, and will never point it out, but I know it’s there. That’s the mistake that was meant to be in it, so as to show God I’m not perfect. (I’m not religious, but find the Amish theory on this amusing).

I think I picked up too many stitches for the neckline. It’s a very wiiiide neck. This works out well, as my husband has a pretty wide neck. We’ll see how it fits him when I block it. I also did a funny thing with the turning edge on the neckline. The ‘right’ side of the neck is the block rib pattern. Then it tells you to knit two rows for a turning row and proceed to use stockinette on the back so it’s a double-thick collar. Where I ended up in the block-rib pattern there’s a short non-ribbed area on top before the turn. I decided it wasn’t horrible, and it was OK and did not rip it out to redo it. Amazing, I know.

The zipper I ordered was a full one inch too long. I measured before I was done with the facing because I was impatient and decided to mail order the zipper. Luckily I know how to shorten a zipper, and you probably can’t tell unless you grab the sweater off my husband and really really look. Again, this passes the galloping horse theory so I left it alone and did not order another zipper.

This is all really picky stuff. What worked? The rest of the sweater. The two handed Fair isle was easier than I thought it would be before I tried it. By the time I did the sweater I was comfortable enough with it that it didn’t draw in very much. (I did switch to a larger needle size during the color work as the pattern suggested). Steeks were a non-issue for me. Although next sweater for hubby, I’ll make the armholes about 1/2 to 1 full inch deeper (we’ll see how it fits him after blocking).

I’m really very very pleased with this sweater overall. If my husband does anything to wreck it, I will flog him. :)

Better pictures later. Remember you can re-read the whole Hardangervidda saga here.