Monday 27 August 2007

Snowflake Sweater Update

It's about time I wrote something about my knitting. I'm about 97% done on the Snowflake Sweater - just need to sew on the sleeves and sew up the remaining seams.
The bands posed a bit of a problem. Since separately knitted bands weren't in the 1940's pattern I'd based this on, I didn't have a suggested length to go on. Also, by the time I'd done an 15 inches or so of the first band, my carefully blocked edges had curled back up on themselves, making it impossible to use them as a measure. In the end, I decided that I had to stitch the bands on as I knitted.


The next problem was how to join the bands at the back. I didn't cast off when I finished the first band, just put the stitches on hold on a safety-pin.


I settled on grafting the two ends together. Good in theory, not so pretty in practice. How do you graft ribbing? I couldn't figure out how to do the purls. Here is the join - not as pretty as I'd like, but hopefully not that noticeable.


Sewing on the sleeves poses another set of problems. I'm not 100% sure that I won't unpick the first sleeve and do it again. Firstly, it has "ears", which result in it making a puffed sleeve-head. I hadn't planned on that.


I'm not sure if I've made a mistake or if both sleeves will turn out the same. The sleeve head on the other doesn't seem to be quite so stepped, but I'll only know once I sew it on.



In the meantime, I've finally stopped procrastinating and blocked the waistband on the Reynold's sweater from this post. Picked up the stitches for the back yesterday and have knitted just over 6 inches. The Reynold's cotton is a dream to knit, the pattern is simple and at this rate, I'll have it finished by the end of September.

- Pam

1 comment:

Mother of Chaos said...

Nice! I love pattern in this - it's interesting, but not too-too "busy".