A Cardigan for Arwen KAL

Its Done!

2007-12-19T11:00:00.000-05:00

Stitched the zipper in last night. Finished just in time for giving on Christmas day. I'll have my daughter model it so I can get some pictures then.

Thanks to all of you for all of your assistance with this project.

So, in a couple of weeks I'll start thinking about what the sweater for next Christmas will be.

Happy Holidays to all of you!!

Almost done with the hood!

2007-12-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

I've been faithfully working on the sweater, working at least 3 or 4 rows every day, and I'm now only 10 rows away from being done!!

Now a question for anyone that put a zipper in the front of this (or more appropriately, DID anyone do that?)

How did you stitch it in? By hand? Did you do anything else special to that front edge before you did?

Would love to hear about anyone else's experience with this before I just dive in!

A question about seaming.....

2007-11-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

I've finally completed both sleeves and was wondering if anyone had a favorite seaming technique for these -- I'll be working with both edges as open stitches on holders.

Any ideas for something fairly easy that makes a good looking seam on both sides?

Thanks!

how to attach the sleeves to the back when knitting Arwen in one piece

2007-10-25T05:29:00.000-04:00

Well, one way, anyway. It's a little difficult to explain, but um. I joined new yarn at the right armpit (with a nice long tail, because the armpits needed some tightening anyway) and knitted across to the last stitch. I slipped that last stitch, then picked up one stitch in the selvedge edge of the back of the left sleeve and passed the slipped stitch over the picked-up stitch. I always slip my selvedge stitches, so I had a nice clean edge to work with.

As you can see, there is a visible line, but it's not nearly as lumpy as a sewn seam would be. Erm, a seam sewn by me, I mean. I'm sure y'all are much better at seam-sewing than I am.

Back to working......

2007-10-22T12:12:00.000-04:00

After a break to marry off the daughter I'm making this for and then to recover from all the flower preparation, cake decorating and general chaos, I'm back to working on this.

I'm knitting in the round, so at this point one front and one sleeve are complete and I'm now working on the other sleeve.

Can anyone that did this in the round tell me how they handled the back and attaching the sleeves to it? I'm guessing that I will be stitching up the sleeves and the back then going upward for the hood.

Something to think about as I work on this second sleeve......

maroon soon!

2007-09-15T16:30:00.000-04:00

Well, hm. I was going to do the hood, even though I don't usually ever wear hooded things, because I didn't want to go to the trouble of re-jigging the neckline. But I just happened to come to the end of a skein when it was time to start the hood, so I tried it on, and I'm okay with the neckline. So I did a bit of moss stitch and bound off, and once I get the ends tucked in, and the whole thing washed and blocked, I'm going to call it done! And be happy!

Oooops......Sorry!

2007-08-15T09:47:00.000-04:00

It hit me last night right before I went to bed that I posted just a picture of Arwen after blocking. Here is a finished picture. For moire info/specs. check out my blog.

It Is Done, hurray!

2007-08-13T09:07:00.000-04:00

OK, so, I finally decided last week that I needed to get over my block about blocking the Arwen sweater and just "git 'er done". So I got her blocked and sewn up and wore the sweater to a new group of spinner/knitter/weavers/ and other fiber crafters last Friday. More pics of the finished Arwen on my blog.

Color me maroon!

So far so good, pretty much

2007-08-08T10:30:00.000-04:00

Well, the weather broke, and it's damp and cold enough that I can face the idea of a lapful of merino, so I've made a bit more progress on Arwen. The second sleeve is done, grafted and seamed.

Someone else posted about a 6-foot wingspan, so I thought I could afford to shorten my sleeves a bit. I took off what I thought was about 3 inches, and maybe after blocking it will be, but at the moment, the cuffs hit right at my elbows. And if that's where that thick cable really hits, it'll be difficult to bend my arms while wearing the cardigan. No way I'm ripping back, after all that work: I'll try to block them longer, or learn to live with it.

So now I'm on the upper half of the back, and still hoping to avoid seaming. At the end of each row I slip the last stitch, pick up one stitch in the selvedge edge of the sleeve, and pass the slipped stitch over. It's a tad lumpy, but less lumpy than a seam would be.

Ok, its back to the drawing board {sob!}

2007-07-30T11:40:00.000-04:00

I'm admitting defeat and throwing in the towel on trying to correct the cuff edge.

Yesterday I tried to pick out just the cuff edge and "redo", but have succeeded in just creating a HUGH mess at the end of the sleeve, so for now I will be setting this aside to be addressed after my daughter's wedding....there's just too much to be done for that in the next 19 days!

And I think I'll be giving up on the idea of knitting both sleeves at once, its just more than I can keep straight (maybe I'll feel differently about that after the wedding)

Ok, I may be in over my head here.....

2007-07-27T10:08:00.001-04:00

while I successfully figured out the short rows and I'm moving along on the sleeves, I find that the cuff edge cable just doesn't look right.

So, folks, short of ripping out all of the rows and starting over AGAIN, is there any way to "re knit" just a section -- the cuff rows?

I'm guessing I know that the answer is NO, but I am not real experienced and I'm hoping someone knows more about this that I do.

beginning (sleeves) again

2007-07-16T10:48:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I finally had the chance to run my rescue thread and rip back to where I really needed to begin the sleeves.

Yesterday I decided to have a go at knitting both sleeves at the same time, so I now have 308 stitches on the needle, and it takes a while to get a row done, but I'll only have to keep track of the pattern rows once this way.

We'll see how this goes....

OH NO! (why not getting gauge BOTH ways will come back to haunt you)

2007-07-14T11:59:00.000-04:00

I've been knitting blissfully along, smirking slightly and feeling superior that I was almost half way up the first sleeve, and it is a Christmas present, and it was going so well, etc., etc., etc.

Then the fact that I was only able to get gauge with this yarn and these needles in one direction caught up with me and bit me in the butt.

There I was, not even half way through the sleeve and finding that the front edge was already the full length it was supposed to be when finished....Uh, DUH!

Obviously there will be a trip to the frog pond (rip it, rip it) in my future here. Nuts!

I've now spent quite a bit of time recalculating all of the lengths of each section and converting them to my actual guage and figuring out how far back I'll need to take this.

So today I will be running a "rescue thread" in the row that I need to rip back to, making very careful note of the sequence of stitches in the cable section and letting it rip.....{sigh}

I am strongly considering working both sleeves at the same time when I start in again tho' at least then I can be sure they will match.

I figured out the provisional cast on!

2007-06-29T10:22:00.000-04:00

Ok, I understand for the experts of this group I probably sound like a real DORK, but until this project my knitting had all been very "old school" -- the most exotic thing I had done was knit a pull over sweater from the top down all of a piece.

A bit of explanation about the picture....the lavendar yarn at the top edge is my "stitch holder" for the left side and the back of the sweater.

The lavendar yarn in the center is my provisional cast on for the right sleeve. I have done about 3 rows on the sleeve and now realize that I must next figure out the much feared "short rows"....something I was NOT going to attempt at 10:45 p.m. after being up since 5:30 a.m.!

Perhaps today...

Can someone help me out here?

2007-06-27T09:43:00.000-04:00

I've been knitting right along, delighted with the cables, happy as a clam that I was going to avoid the part of knitting I hate most -- sewing things together --until last night when I realized its time to start the sleeves and I have no clue how to begin this with these weird shaped pieces!

Sooooo....surely in this big group at least ONE of you has done this that way, and could you give me some assistance here with how to go about it?

Thanks SO VERY MUCH!!

four skeins in...

2007-06-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to remember to take a picture every time I reach the end of a skein, so I can document my progress without having to do battle with a lot of long hangy-bits, especially since we have a very playful new kitten. So here you can see the waist shaping, the cable, the seed-stitch border, and the short-rows on the sleeve. Sorry about the curl. The sleeve looks quite short; I think the cabled cuff will be just below my elbow, which is good because it won't dangle in the dishwater or anything.

progressing nicely, thank you!

2007-06-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

I'm moving right along on the body of the sweater.

Now that I can actually see the "field" versus the cable, I really like this pattern (almost enough to consider making another one for myself!)

I will be adding 1 1/4 inch of length to the body, and I've decided to add it at the middle of the sleeve so the tightness of the arms that folks have mentioned being a problem will be taken care of.

Nonprogress report

2007-06-13T19:04:00.000-04:00

Maybe this will spur me on to finish Arwen! Here is a photo of the sum total of my Arwen knitting.

progress

2007-06-13T16:07:00.000-04:00

Oops, I promised to put up a picture of the seed stitch hem, didn't I? Here it is, I threw the sweater-in-progress in the scanner when I'd reached the end of the first skein. I've just started the fourth skein now.

Somebody wanted to know more about knitting in one piece: well, I cast on the back and both fronts at the same time, and worked back and forth for about 11 inches (with waist shaping). I've just knit across the right-front, and then provisionally cast on 60 stitches* and knit those (and put the back and left-front stitches on a holder). Cable set-up row on the return, and now I'm working the short rows.

* Sleeve notes: I know the pattern wants long sleeves, and it does look nice that way, but I have to take my own habits into account. I am perpetually shoving my sleeves up, and growling about it, so I decided on 3/4-length sleeves. I also noticed on my first attempt that the sleeve was too tight around the upper arm, so I've added another inch there.

All this means that the short-row scheme as written will not work, and if I try to add stitches evenly across the length of the sleeves, I'll wind up with a sort of bat-wing effect that I definitely don't want. So I'm knitting back and forth across the front, and with each row I knit two stitches further into the sleeve. Mr Husband is in Utrecht with the camera, but I will take a picture as soon as I can. I don't know how useful it will be, since I'm working with such dark yarn, but for you, I will try.

I think I've decided to include the hood. Now that I've shortened the sleeves I'll probably have enough yarn.

Knitting Emergency

2007-06-05T16:13:00.000-04:00

I have been knitting away like crazy. I was hoping to finish my Cardigan by the end of May, and I might have if I hadn't run out of yarn. More yarn is in the mail, and I'm anxiously awaiting it.
See pictures of the progress on my sweater on my blog.

The hem is now done

2007-05-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

I tried doing several rows of seed stitch below the edge of the cable band, but I just didn't like the look of it.

Instead, I have worked 1 row of knitting (actually just the row where I picked up all 190 stitches across the cable), then used a knit two together bind off on the WRONG side of the work to get this hem edge.

Part of the problem with the seed stitch was that when I started to bind it off, it looked like a ruffle below the cable band, definately NOT what I was going for! (my daughter is just not the ruffle type)

This edge I like. Using this bind off was new to me, and doing it from the wrong side was just serendipity, so as usual, my sweater knitting is a basically a "happening".

Now its on to picking up the stitches along the top edge and start knitting the body of the sweater.

I'm Maroon!! I'm Maroon!!

2007-05-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

Ignore the dorky face, I was staring into the sun, LOL.

Anyway, I finished her last week, seamed her up last friday, and then she took 5 days to dry. So I finally got around to taking pictures tonight, and I actually wore her to Kohl's. LOVE LOVE LOVE this sweater!! Especially because it is my first sweater I ever made!!

I obviously made some modifications, you can see the details on my blog!

Slow but still working.....

2007-05-13T10:47:00.000-04:00

I have finished the cable band that will be the bottom edge of the sweater.

Since I'm working on about 10 things at once, this seemed to take forever. The last 6 inches went much faster since at that point the pattern suddenly made sense to me and I was able to fly along through the cabling (that bodes well for the rest of the work -- I hope!)

So now I'm picking up stitches along the bottom for a "hem", tho' not the one the pattern has you do.

There is hope that this will be done for Christmas!!

back in blue!

2007-05-13T06:56:00.000-04:00

Well, teal, probably, but that doesn't make a good post title. Hi! Sorry I was gone so long, but my Arwen yarn was just not working out. Too thick, too pilly, wrong color. So I embarked on a massive search for the right yarn, found the right color in the wrong fiber, the right gauge in the wrong color, the right yarn on the wrong continent, etc. I finally settled on this Zara merino from my LYS which does not have the right gauge, so now I have to re-math everything, always fun. It is nice and stretchy - perhaps even stretchy enough to hide a miscalculation or two.

But I have finally cast on, and am making fairly good progress. Changes to this pattern thus far:

as you may recall, I hate, hate, hate seaming (never sew when you can knit!), so I'll be making it in one piece.
Also, while the finished sweaters all look just fantastic, I've decided I don't want the hem on mine, so I have an inch of seed stitch at the bottom instead.
I also decided to include some shaping, inspired by the math4knitters podcast.
That backward-loop cast-on made grafting the sleeve together a total nightmare. Provisional cast-on, from here on out.
And I am seriously considering leaving off the hood, but I still have some time to decide on that.

So! Again I apologize for my long absence, but there really was nothing to report, just a lot of teeth-gnashing. I've got about two inches knit so far, and will post an image of the seed-stitch border in a few days.

Hmmmmm

2007-05-10T19:23:00.000-04:00

Well I finished her, seamed her up and she is currently blocking. With and arm span of 6 feet. Ummmm isn't that a bit big? I mean I am 5'9 but 6 feet??? I am freaking out a bit. I blocked it according to what it should be for my size, except for the upper arm which I added 2 inches too. It is also 2 inches longer, which I did on purpose. But 6 FEET???

I am going to be worried about this sweater until it is full dry and I can try it on.

This is my first sweater ever. I have been working on her since January. If this fails I don't know what I will do!!!