Thursday, June 24, 2010

tempestuous

who's taking who for a walk

Yay, Tempest is finally finished! (Just in time for the hottest weather evah, when you really have to be some kind of masochist to don a woolly cardigan. I had to wait till evening, eat seventeen icecreams before taking these photos, then jump into a bath of icecubes afterwards.)



I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end. This sock-yarn-on-oversize needles idea is full of win. Because sock yarn is so pretty and fun to knit with, it quite literally flies by. Especially when it's lovely handdyed 100% merino Wollmeise (colourway Gazpacho). The stripe is Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply. It really didn't feel like it took all that long to make a cardigan out of it at this gauge. Even though I made a couple of modifications:


skipping through meadows
  • First, and most obviously, I missed out the stripes. I wasn't planning on having any at all but a catastrophic pooling issue made me go for a sweep-it-under-the-carpet monostripe approach. A sensible person would probably just have gone with the stripes as suggested in the original pattern, and would have been completely fine. In many cases, the pattern is written in reference to where you are in the stripe sequence, saying things like 'start decreasing after you've done 3 stripes'. This makes for a lot of unnecessary mental arithmetic if you're doing it in a single colour, which is fine as long as it isn't too late at night. (i.e. Count 58 rows. Laugh at a funny thing on the television. Lose your place and start again. Repeat until bedtime)
  • I also made it longer. By quite a bit actually - the straight bit below the waist shaping is twice as long as it should be. I'm very glad I did this, as I feel that my midriff is best kept under wraps at all costs, and in a light fabric like this it adds very little extra weight.

Stuff I like:

  • The delicateness of the fabric - see, it floats, like a butterfly! But doesn't sting like a bee! Swirliness in knitting I consider to be a Good Thing.
  • The seams. These are about a billion times tidier than normal, thanks to Audrey and Corinna from my knitting group. They basically talked me out of the evil ways of backstitch and showed me the delights of mattress stitch. Why, why did it take me so long to realise how awesome this is! So neat, and you can do it on an angle really easily. I have attempted it before but I somehow reached the conclusion that it was slower than backstitch so not worth it. Everybody: it's not truuuuuue! Backstitch is soooo 2k9! Srsly.

Stuff that's rubbish (there's always something):

  • The buttonholes. They were done horizontally, by casting off two stitches then casting them on again on the next row. I foolishly used backwards loop cast on for this, which is far too loose, and means there is an annoying strand of yarn lurking around to snag an unwary button. With hindsight, i should have cast on by knitting-on. It's possibly fixable. I mean, I am almost certainly too lazy to frog back past the problem area, but I might try buttonhole stitching round each one, it may help prevent excessive cursing as I attempt to free myself from the cardigan's embrace.
  • I also sewed most of the buttons on slightly wobblily on my knee whilst approaching the end of a long car journey from Stranraer, because the child was asleep and you have to seize these opportunities, even though a voice in my head was saying 'nooo, wait till you get home and you will do a better job, you clown'. I ignored the voice by turning up the stereo.

Ah well, at least with my new woolly creations I have neutralised the weather-related damage caused by making that sundress... you can all relax and fire up your barbecues again... phew!

7 comments:

CatR said...

I had no idea you hadn't mattress stitched before - *shock*!!

Looks ace, congratulation!

rubbishknitter said...

Cheers! What have I been doing?! Up till now I have been Mrs Shabbyseams. But now, even though it's a deeply unfashionable thing to say in knitting circles, I'm actually looking for more cardies that I can knit in pieces and sew together...

Anonymous said...

it is very gorgeous (and photos are amazing). Yay for mattress stitch, it's like grafting and makes you feel all clever and proper-knitter-ly

Kate said...

It's full of win. :-P The stripe looks just like it's supposed to be there and I love the floatiness. I must knit one RIGHT NOW, if only to have a reason to eat seventeen ice creams in one sitting.

Katy said...

Oooh, I especially love the nice dark stripe at empire waistline and the bracelet length sleeves (I do love bracelet length sleeves, especially when worn with bracelets).

YTT said...

Oh wow - how beautiful is THAT sweater. Tempest has been on and off my list for ages, but this one puts it ON again with a vengeance. I love the way it looks longer. And you inspire me by saying it doesn't take as long as you expect. (Though I was planning to do it with handspun so it may be 2012 before I get around to it.)

(Did you see that someone on Rav made a Tempest twinset?)

I also wonder who the child on your hand is since that large toddler is far too big to be your son... Oh, how time flies.

julie ridley said...

Hey what a lovely sweater, and what gorgeous photos! Ahh, mattress stitch...something I finally mastered when coming up to most recent baby's due date, when I had 3 cardigans all knitted, and nothing stitched. :-)