I was actually kind of planning to pretend that this sweater didn't exist, but I foolishly mentioned it in my last entry, so I figure I should probably post pictures so you can see it and I can get some sympathy from people who will understand that I tried to save it, I really really did. (My non-knitting friends just look at it and say things like "WTF is that?")
Here's the backstory. I made a Hemlock Ring (a very pretty, very normal-looking Hemlock Ring, except for the dropped stitch I found while I was blocking it, and that's more than fixable). When I was done, I had, oh, a skein and a half of Eco left over, in a pretty sort of medium green. This picture is almost color true, and that stitch marker is the dropped stitch that I haven't fixed yet.
What's a girl to do with all this leftover yarn? I'd always said I was going to make a sweater, and it was cold and rainy, being the beginning of that season in the Bay Area, and my copy of Knitting from the Top Down was sitting there taunting me. I figured "okay, I know a bulky sweater is not going to be the most flattering thing ever, but at least it'll be a nice fast knit, and then I can say that I've made a sweater and not feel bad about never doing it again." Bad plan.
I looked at all the sweaters I enjoy wearing, and realized that they all have V-necks. Okay, there are instructions for V-neck raglans, I can do that. Great. Cast on, knit, knit, knit, knit, hey, arms! Look, it works! Get it to about three inches past the armholes, try it on. Er... I know I have big shoulders, but I'm not that big! Go consult TB, who rather reasonably suggests that I should put in some ribbing on the sides to draw it in. Don't wanna rip back that far, so I grimly dropped a whole bunch of stitches and picked them back up as purl stitches. Actually, this was kind of exciting, since it was the first time I had managed to do the whole "drop something all the way back to the beginning and start over" trick.
Continue on. Hrm, let's knit some arms now. So I knit the arms to roughly 3/4 length, Since I tend to wear that length sleeve anyway, and I was afraid of running short of yarn. Back to the body, pretending I can't see that weirdness on the front center from joining in the round after figuring out the armholes (I'm still not quite sure how, following her raglan directions, you don't wind up with an extra half-row somewhere). Knit, knit, knit, try on, add some more ribbing, knit, knit, okay, I'm running out of yarn. Try on. Oh, dear -- I've managed to knit myself a nice, warm, pleasantly green... belly shirt. Panic. What am I going to do to add length that doesn't require me to go find another skein of Eco?
So I dug out some of the black Paton's merino I had bought myself when I first said I was going to make myself a sweater, back when I was a newbie knitter. (That one never got made because the sweater I picked, Mariah, was and is a bit too hard for me, since I haven't quite figured out how seaming works yet.) Hrm, I've been knitting all these shawls with knitted-on edgings, why wouldn't it work for a sweater? So I carefully found two different but complimentary diamond-type patterns (one for the sleeves and one for the bottom edge, in an effort to pull the thing together). Find some size 10.5 DPNs, knit on the edgings on the sleeves. "Huh. Have I found the one color in the world that doesn't go with black? I must be hallucinating." Start knitting the edging on the bottom. Wow, this takes a really really long time! Knit, knit, knit, knit, knit. Finally finished! Yay!
It wasn't until I'd finished it, and put it on, that I remembered that wool stretches. A lot. From the length that the green is now, I probably could have just bound it off and blocked it to the length I was going for. I'm considering pulling off the black and just binding off and pretending this never happened. Alternatively, I could just block it for another six inches of length so it'll cover my rear end, and wear it out with tights and pretend I'm trendy. So there it is, the ugly sweater in all it's (admittedly warm and comfy) glory. If nothing else, I'll make S. wear it when she comes over in the middle of the winter in a cotton t-shirt and complains that she's cold -- maybe that'll teach her to wear proper clothing!
2 comments:
I'm impressed by the drop back and purl up trick to get the underarm ribbing. I think your idea of detaching the edge and blocking is perfect. It really does look from the pictures that it will block to be long enough for official sweaterness. Would you be happy with the 3/4 sleeves? Me, I like those, but if not, you could get rid of the black edge and hunt up maybe one small ball of a more matchy wool somewhere?
I think that color's too nice to frog the whole sweater :)
Definitely a candidate for salvage. As susieh already said - take off the lace edging and see how it blocks out. (If you block it longer, it will be skinnier.) And if it's good, you're done. And if not, well, a different contrast wool in plain knit or ribbing for sleeves and body (and maybe pick up a row around the neckline). But finding something the right weight and a good colour - argh! Hope it blocks out well. When you get around to it.
Gwen (I never remember my blogger sign-in)
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