Posted: May 23rd, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: lorna's laces shepherd worsted, projects: worsted owl cardigan, sweaters, things i knit, yarn i use | Tags: cardigan, craft, crafty, grey, handmade, knit, knits in progress, knitting, lorna's laces, owls, purple, steek, sweater, yoke | 1 Comment »
You guyyys this sweater. It makes me so happy. I was really, really nervous about starting the yoke, because I wasn’t sure if the purple would look stupid or the math on the owls would work out funny (knitting it steeked, I had to make sure that not only was the yoke a multiple of ten, but it was a multiple of ten before the steek and a multiple of ten after the steek). But I’m, like, 90% sure it looks awesome and I’m a rockstar at knitting. For the record? 33 owls.
Naturally, because the owl pattern is 20 rows long and I am knitting at a much smaller gauge than the pattern calls for, my yoke was too short to start the decreases right away. So I added on an inch or so of garter stitch, which again – I was nervous about it looking stupid, but it works much better than I thought it would. The decreases are going to be an experiment, but we’ll see how they go. I have high hopes.
Song of the Entry: Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester – Good Girls Go Bad (Listen)
Posted: May 10th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: lorna's laces shepherd worsted, projects: worsted owl cardigan, sweaters, things i knit, yarn i use | Tags: craft, crafty, grey, handmade, knit, knitting, lorna's laces, owl, owls, steek, sweater, yarn | 2 Comments »
In keeping with my lazy weekend, I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on TV and knitting, and this is the result – I’ve made a lot of progress on my Owls sweater.
I mentioned this obliquely before, but I’m actually adapting this pattern quite a lot. I really, really wanted to knit this yarn up with smaller needles at a tighter gauge, because I liked that fabric better than the closer-to-pattern-gauge one that came out on larger needles. Ordinarily, my strategy would be to just knit the pattern as written but with a larger size to compensate for my tighter gauge, but in this case the math didn’t quite shake down properly.
So, I sat down and redid all of the math for the entire pattern, rewriting it for myself in terms of proportions, rather than numbers. That way, I can (theoretically) work it up on whatever gauge I want, and still get the basic shape of the thing pretty much right. It’s going alright so far, and I have a fair bit of confidence since this is really a very intuitive construction, but we’ll see what happens when I get to the yoke. I may have to do a double row of owls or something to make this work.
Oh, right. I’m also cardiganizing this by adding in a steek, rather than working this side-to-side. This is mostly because I’m lazy and hate purling, but also because I apparently like to complicate my life as much as possible. IT WILL BE FUN, IDK. (And actually, the steek on my last sweater was an incredibly fun experience, and has yet to unravel on me. So that’s a good sign.)
I also just need to point out this design feature from the original pattern, which honestly has never occurred to me before and I love it – the shaping for the waist is worked as two darts at the back of the sweater, rather than as shaping under the armpits. Ridiculously, ridiculously clever.
Song of the Entry: Men At Work – Down Under (Listen)
