Sweaterday, missing a sweater

It’s Saturday. Which around here has lately been Sweaterday, the day I discuss the progress I’ve been making on projects related to my “knit six tops for myself in 2010” goal. And yet, I have no sweater to show you today. This is not because I have nothing to show. I finished my Petrie a week and a half ago. Real life and uncooperative weather have gotten in the way of taking finished object photos. And I haven’t started on another sweater, as I’ve got work projects that require my attention in the evenings.

I have, however, been working on a triangular shawl. I started my Haruni last weekend and am getting really close to finishing it now.

It’s a fast, easy knit, but I’m not in love with the “choose your own adventure” style of instructions. The charts are excellent, and I like that Emily Ross gives you options, but I think I prefer a little less prose and a little more “do this.”

Around here, the weather is trying to warm up overall (aside from this week, where the skies just dumped rain), so I’m turning my eye to some summery knits. What projects are coming up on your warm weather knitting radars?

Sweaterday: Vivian is done!

I’m very excited to show you my finished Vivian! My friend Drew was able to snap some shots of me wearing the jacket while we sat in The Bean Cycle on my day off, and she did a fabulous job!

If you look at the sleeves, you can see that I’ve folded back the cuff a good five or six inches. If I were to make this sweater again using this yarn, I’d probably leave off the last cable repeat on the sleeves. Perhaps another yarn would not grow quite so much in the blocking process, but this was a little ridiculous.

Now, I love Ysolda’s designs and think she is a brilliant designer, but I’m really kind of annoyed that stitch counts are not provided, following the shoulder shaping. That’s the biggest reason why I don’t have a hood on the back of my Vivian. My stitch count is obviously wrong, based on how the hood is supposed to flow out of the shoulders, but without anything to check myself against, I figured that ripping back to the shoulders would be a waste of time, since I could get it wrong every time. Instead, I worked the hood portion for a few rows, and then worked two short rows on either side in the seed stitch portion of the back, to give it a little bit of lift.

Overall, I’m happy with the way Vivian turned out, but between the sleeves (my fault) and the hood snafu (not entirely my fault), I’m not as thrilled as I wanted to be. I must say though that the sweater is super comfy and snuggly to wear.

Details!
Pattern: Vivian by Ysolda Teague, Twist Collective Winter 2008 (My project notes)
Yarn: Cascade Eco+ in Spruce. I used about 3½ skeins
Needles: US 8 (5 mm)
Modifications: The only modifications I made are in the hood/collar portion, otherwise everything is as written in the pattern.

Sweaterday, with a little bit of cheating on the side

You’ll have to forgive the crappy webcam photo, but I could not get any timed self-portraits to really work. I need to enlist a friend who’s not afraid of my camera to help me out with real Finished Object photos. I just sewed in the zipper this morning, and that was less stressful than I thought it might be. Please note, my sleeves came out WAY too long. I have ideas for how I could have fixed this, but I’ll save that for my overall “debriefing” of this sweater.

This week, when I wasn’t working on Petrie (the back is finished, the front is almost half-way done!), I was indulging in my other new crafty pursuit, weaving.

This is my second project! I haven’t washed and dried my first project, and there are no photos of it, but I wanted to have something to show for my quietness this week. The warp yarn is a brown cotton I picked up… somewhere. The weft is the remnants of my Fresh from the Cauldron Debbie Pelt, which I used for my Ishbel. If my calculations are correct, I should be able to get a skinny scarf out of these remnants.

I’ve got a lot of “non-public” projects that need my attention, but hopefully I’ll still be able to weave, and knit Petrie, and take real pictures of Vivian this week!

Sweaterday: One down, four more to go

Vivian is DONE. Done done done. Aside from the zipper. But she’s currently finishing drying after her dip in the woolwash yesterday morning, so I’m calling her done. Hopefully soon I’ll have quality finished object photos and I can talk about her in detail.

The new hotness (yes, I said it) is my Petrie. I think something in simple stockinette was the right call, post-Vivian. I’m also thinking that this was a good idea, because it will give me a beginner’s introduction to seaming garments. However, with only two pieces, it’s not as intimidating as having to seam multiple pieces might be.

I’m using Berroco Pure Pima for my Petrie, which was the yarn used in the pattern from Knitty. I haven’t used much cotton before this—typically, I think cotton is a rough and not-knitter-friendly yarn, but the Pure Pima is a pleasant surprise. It’s smooth, with a lovely sheen and fabulous drape and I’m excited about working on this project. I will say, though, I’m glad I bought a Bryspun circular needle for this project. The Bryspuns have rather blunt tips, and the construction of this yarn—eight 2-ply strands lightly spun together—makes it really prone to splitting, and having softer, rounder tips on the needles cuts down dramatically on the amount of split stitches. I’m not loving the joins in these needles, but that’s a simple bargain for a nice, even fabric.

Being a simple, two-piece stockinette project, I imagine that Petrie will be done in no time. I’m so excited!