Tuesday's Sweater

This sweater (my own design, and my own handspun) began life as a scarf.

Which wouldn't be particularly impressive or unusual (yarn changes its mind about what it wants to be all the time), except that the scarf is still there, as the collar.

I knit a scarf, then knit the upper center back out from one edge to form a T. Then the sleeves and sides of the upper body out to the cuffs, then picked up all around the bottom edge to knit the lower body.

I tried pinning it closed for a while, then I tried actually sewing the lower front closed (from a little bit above my hand to the hem, in the lower picture). I wore it that way once, but ripped out the sewing yesterday morning in the gym locker room. I have become that crazy person at the gym, by the way--the other morning I did yoga off to the side of the indoor track--and ripping out a small seam in the locker room is only another sign.

In other news, I'm just about done with a pair of socks, have rediscovered the difficulty of knitting kidsilk haze-style yarns without looking thanks to Malin, and developed a puncture wound on my fingertip over the weekend from knitting too much. My Malin is going to be brown, not surprisingly. (Did I mention that most of my sweater quantities of yarn are brown or purple? There was a point in the fall when I have yarn for three brown sweaters and two purple sweaters... and zero sweaters of any other colors. The situation is less alarming now--I have a brown sweater and a purple sweater in progress, plus sweater quantities of yarn for another brown sweater and one green sweater.) I'm enjoying the lace pattern, but it's slow going, so I've only knit a few inches. Good thing it's sleeveless!

Bonus

This isn't one of the handmade problem sweaters, but it's a problem nonetheless.

I want to wear socially acceptable bathrobes to work as much as the next person, but I think this sweater may have crossed some kind of clothes/pajamas demarcation line:



It's too big maybe? Not enough waist shaping? There's a belt, which I pull to the back and tie as through that might create some shape, but I think it just makes it more bathrobe-esque.

I've though about taking it along the side seams, but I worry about the bulk of the excess fabric (or that it would unravel if I trimmed it off... although that's basically a steek, isn't it? I'm not sure how well the yarn will grip--it looks tweedy and woolly, but it's actually a cotton-acrylic blend).

I have another store-bought sweater which lacked a waist, but which I was able to fix--I sewed a strip of fabric horizontally across the inside of the back (where the waist should have been) leaving the short ends open. Then I cut a length of 1" wide elastic shorter than the fabric, ran it through the channel I'd made with the fabric, and sewed it securely to the sweater on both ends. That way, it gathered the sweater across the channel. I can't tell if that would work here, or if the addition of elastic would just move the sweater further into pajama territory.

Is this all in my head? (Two people complimented my sweater, but they're kind people who thought I'd made it, so does that really count?) Is there a way to add shaping to a sweater that I'm missing? (I've also tried belting over the sweater, but haven't like that one bit.) What would you do?

(P.S. I thought the sweater was a wool-acrylic blend, till I checked the label as I was writing... now that I know its secret, I'm just going to attribute all its troubles to lack of memory, ok?)

Problem Sweater Week

I do this crazy thing where I bring my outfits for the week to the gym over the weekend or on Monday, so I can run to the gym the rest of the week, shower there, and go right to work. It basically works out, but from time to time I make a swap during the week which leaves me with a strange assortment of leftovers to wear on Friday. That happened last week--on Thursday, I decided to swap shoes between my remaining outfits. This improved my Thursday outfit, but on Friday, my shoes still seemed wrong. By that time, they were the only non-sneaker shoes in my locker, so I wore them anyway.

At lunch time, a woman came over, apologized for interrupting, and said she loved everything I was wearing, especially my shoes. (This story would be better if I had a picture of my shoes, huh?) As I thanked her, she explained that she's trying to give more compliments, since people tend not to.

Meanwhile, in the land of long digressions, I've been thinking about taking more pictures of my daily outfits, complete with knitwear, because I think I'm pretty good about actually wearing my knits in real life. I'd decided not to start on Friday, thanks to the shoe crisis. But after the problematic shoes were specifically complimented, I decided to do it anyway:



The sweater is Martha, from Rowan's Fresh Fashion Knits (looking on Ravelry, I see Rowan has designed many Marthas). The invisible shoes are like these, but grey suede. They're the ones I wrote about as being useless, but cute. Although a short-sleeved wool cardigan seems like a bad idea, Martha is actually very versatile. I leave you to decide on appearances.

So, Martha is not a problem sweater. But, this all relates to Problem Sweater Week because when I was assembling my clothes for the week, I decided to give some of my problem sweaters another chance not to drive me batty: my Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday outfits all include sweaters which haven't ever been quite right. The woman who loved my shoes made me wonder whether the problem sweaters really are problematic, or if I just think they are for no reason that anyone else can see. If I can remember to take pictures, we'll all find out.

280 Yards?

After approximately 1.3 million years (actually, 3.5 months), I have finished knitting Zora!



I got some snazzy blocking wires for Christmas, which are in place in the picture, even though you can't actually see them. This was the first time I used them. They were really easy to use and my edges are definitely nicer than usual. Although, now that I look at the picture, I'm not sure what's going on with the weird lump on the sleeve...

Since that picture, I've sewn most of the pieces together, and knit the front bands and collar. The bands and collar took forever--I understand that they're wide (4 inches), and that the sweater is hip length (and that I'm tall-ish), but good heavens! I never counted the stitches per row, since I suspected the number would be disheartening, but each row took 15 minutes, and the collar and fronts bands used up HALF a skein of yarn (Schaefer Anne comes in 560 yard skeins, so that's 280 yards)!

I may need another speedy sweater break before I sew up and set in the sleeves.

(I'm thinking about making a tunic/dress out of some purple wool boucle I bought at Thanksgiving... maybe with pleats at the neck, like Manu... but the fact that it's purple worries me. Maybe I also need a break from knitting purple? Also, maybe a dress/tunic is not actually speedy, and I'm just distracted by the prospect of knitting on size 7 needles, rather than sizes 2, 4, and 5 as used in my current projects?)

Stripes!!

Are addictive!



I started this (the Stripes to Keep Me Warm Cowl) at knitting tonight. And I don't seem to be able to stop. The orange/red/gold/peach yarn is handspan from a fiber club (Lulu and Pancake, a present from Kevin for Christmas last year), and the brown is a partial skein, left over from a Harminia's Rings Tunic I knit this weekend (as my break from the purple sweater). It's String Theory Merino DK, bought as a second at Stitches East. I'm going to try to wear the tunic (more of a vest) tomorrow, if I can successfully assemble an outfit. Maybe I'll even remember to take a picture or two.

Orange/red/gold/peach aren't really my colors, but I'm hoping the brown will help it look more like me... It seems like it's working so far, but I won't be sure till more of it exists.

Unsuited

In addition to my hatred of having dirty/dusty fingertips while being otherwise clean, I am also unable to type the word "papers" correctly on the first try. It generally comes out as apeprs, because apparently my hands type at different speeds, with my right hand getting ahead of my left.

Really, is there a profession to which I am less suited than archivist? What was I thinking?

In other news, I spoke too soon about the purple Zora cardi going relatively quickly. It's now going incredibly slowly, and I am contemplating taking a break from it to knit something speedy and instant-gratification-y.... like a sweater. But with short sleeves! On size 8 needles (or 9! depending on gauge!)

Finn-ished

My spinning group met this weekend, and that inspired me to finish the batch of wool I have been working on forever--the half finnsheep fleece I got over the summer.

As I was spinning I found some spots where it turned out that the fleece wasn't completely clean (no surprise since this is the ony fleece I have ever washed, and since the main thing I learned is that I don't enjoy it enough to do a good job!). Now that it's all spun, what seemed like a few spots feel like a lot more, so tonight I'm going to try washing it again.

I'm also still thinking about dying it. It's a pretty cream color (of which I will someday take pictures!), but I wear dark and jewel tones much more frequently, so if I'm going to keep whatever I make, it might be more useful in a darker color. I suspect the lanolin would prevent those areas from taking up the dye, so unless I want it to turn out spotty, that's another reason to give washing it another try.