Persistent Knitter

I know I haven’t posted in a long time, but I’ve been busy! I finally finished The Nanny’s Sweater.  Let’s all breathe a collective sigh of relief.  My final picture of this will be her wearing it, but for now, here is it doing it’s final "blocking" on a sweater dryer:

Pretty horrible picture, and it looks lumpy because it’s soooo heavy with all the water in it (I squished it out in a towel as much as I could).  The reason I did this final wash/blocking was to get the collar to lay down flat. The yarn really relaxes a lot when washed; and the collar wasn’t folding down very nicely pre-washing. I think it’ll be just fine as it is now.

Some (fairly random) thoughts on the making of the sweater.

I knit a swatch to start with, and I’m glad I did. the pattern called for a half moss stitch/half plain cable, and it just didn’t show up well at all in this yarn.  The plain cable was much easier to knit, and also showed up better in the yarn (do not judge by the above picture. it sucks)

I really hated the yarn at the end. It was nubby so it didn’t slide smoothly over my needles. There was plenty of Vegetable matter bits in it, so I think it’ll be scratchy (luckily it’s an outwear garment). For how much I paid for the yarn, I wouldn’t recommend it. Maybe if you found it half price in a bin somewhere. Maybe.

I used a Debbie Bliss pattern, and in order to fit the wearer properly, I had to size down the pattern quite a bit. Length I left just about the same, but the width I really modified.   Since I did a swatch I had a fairly good guesstimate on my gauge. I knew the sweater would stretch width wise when washed.  I did a lot of calculations based on the pattern sizes, creating percentages and applying them to the sweater I actually knit. 

Due to all my careful planning, I did not have to rip ANYTHING out on this sweater! I’m amazed after all my torture with Hardangervidda, that this one went so well. I think the fact that it was knit in pieces helped some, and I was only working on small bits at a time.  I am doubly glad I didn’t have to rip because I don’t think the yarn would have withstood ripping out more than once, and it would have been torture.

I ordered 20 balls of yarn.  That was the amount the smallest size called for in the book. I ended up using 16.5 balls.  Not bad.  The yarn will felt so I can make catnip mice or something else with it if I wanted to. At this point I’m willing to sell my leftovers to anyone who wants to try the yarn out. I’ll make you a good deal - really!

There might be more thoughts later - but for now. YAY! I’M DONE!

PS. For those of you who were guessing about what my posting at 3am on March 26th was all about.  Only my mom really knew. I was born right around 3am on March 26th.