Tuesday, May 19, 2009

At Last My Love Has Come Along

greensweater_01

Here's a finished project that I've finally gotten photos for. (Thank you, Jay! You're hired!)

Please excuse the flood of photos. I'm just pleased as punch to have had a real, live photographer to help me out!

greensweater_02

The pattern is Ubernatural by Stephanie Japel. Word of warning: this pattern has errors in it, and I wouldn't recommend it for a knitter who isn't confident adjusting the "recipe." Notes below.

The yarn is the green merino I salvaged some time ago. Although the yarn itself is two strands of worsted-weight held together, as the pattern recommends, it wasn't quite "bulky" enough to get gauge.

Still: this is a very wearable little sweater when I want some warmth in the cool Colorado evenings! Here, I was dressed up for the premier of Sex, God, Rock 'n Roll, Boulder's very first nationally-broadcast cable TV show!

rsz_greensweater_16

So, the notes. Two things seem off. The first is that the raglan increases, as written, won't work. If you purled one of the YO's, maybe, but it doesn't give you the nice paired-increases in the picture. I'd replace them with the instructions "yo pm yo" in row 2 with the instructions "yo pm k1 yo", and thereafter on RS rows "knit to marker, yo, pass marker, k1, yo". The effect is to add a stitch between increases. This is necessary. This also requires shuffling some stitches around. See below.

The second is a little less straightforward. The instructions for the small size say "CO 40", and row 2 sets up the distribution of stitches: "Make buttonhole, knit 7 [for right front panel] yo pm k1 yo [for raglan increase], k4 [for right shoulder], [raglan increase], k18 [for back panel], [raglan increase], k4 [for left shoulder], [raglan increase], k7 [for left front panel]." Sounds OK. But here's the problem:

The button bands are knitted with the rest of the garment, with the first and last three stitches of each row done in garter. That means that the front is effectively only 11 stitches in width, compared with the back's 18. Uh oh!

There are two ways to fix this problem. The first is to size-up and cast on extra (that's four extra for corrected raglan increases and about six extra for the button bands) and work as follows: "Work 3 in garter stitch (making buttonhole), k7, increase, k4, increase, k18, increase, k4, increase, k7, work 3 in garter stitch."

The second fix would be to pull the extra increase stitches from the back panel, knitting row two as follows: "Work 3 in garter stitch (making buttonhole), knit 4, increase, k4, increase, k12, increase, k4, increase, k4, work 3 in garter stitch." I believe this is what Ms. Japel intended. Choose your fix depending on your gauge: the first will have 82 stitches at the bust, the latter 72. I chose the former, and mine was still pretty darn tight. But pretty!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

snazzy! 很美丽

Unknown said...

Hello! I am Inés from Abuelita Yarns Company. I loved your cardigan!! you are a nice model! :)
We are a uruguaian brand which sells yarns. If you want to know more about us please enter www.abuelitayarns.com or if you wish to see our articles and pictures enter www.abuelitayarns.com/blog/
Good luck! :D

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