I guess I understand naming sweater patterns after people, if they are the people you designed the sweater for originally, but it makes it a bit hard to remember said names. I spent the month of January calling this pattern from Interweave Crochet Fall 2012 the Jenny sweater. Then I noticed that I called it the Julia sweater when naming my pictures, which is closer, but the actual name is the Sylvia sweater. Of course. It's too late, anyway. The song is now stuck in my head.
Anyway, the Sylvia sweater. The last time we saw it at the beginning of January, it was here:
Now it is here:
I made size 32 out of Galway worsted wool in burgundy, left over from P1's aborted Christmas scarf. I didn't have enough for a solid sweater, so I did part of it in grey, also left over from the Christmas presents.
This is my first sweater.** I'll put specific pattern comments down here (since while I do have a Ravelry account, I can't get into it and so you will have to put up with it on the blog, as you have to put up with every else). I will say that I had to completely redo every part of this sweater at least once due to a) my apparent inability to pay attention to simple instructions (despite reading them oh-so-carefully) and b) not having enough burgundy yarn. Also? There was a crochet-along on the crochetme.com website. Except that I seemed to be the only person crocheting along. Which was frustrating, because I had questions which nobody answered. Even the person running the CAL stopped posting to it.
All three of those lovely pieces I had finished at the beginning of January had to be pulled back many rows and fixed. And the picture of the fixed pieces has disappeared into the ether. Instead you get a picture of Lucy "helping" me crochet. I'm not sure what it is about yarn that attracts cats. Specifically my cat. She'll often climb into my lap when I'm crocheting. Which makes it challenging.
There might be a little bit of Lucy in everything I make.
Here is the first sleeve I made. I made 3 1/2 sleeves. I ran out of burgundy yarn half-way through the second one, as I feared I might, but at least that gave me a sense of how much sleeve to make grey so I wouldn't have to rip out the sleeves yet again; that process was oddly satisfying at first but, quite frankly, it quickly lost its charm.
Instead of frogging the whole sleeve at once, I decided to let one sleeve cannibalize the other.
And Lucy just can't stay away.
The stitch pattern meant that changing the colour makes the sleeves look crenellated.
I'm not sure if I like it, but I don't think I want to add any embroidery.
Sewing up the seams took far more time than I expected it to. And seriously? Sewing seams on a crocheted sweater? Ugh. Crochet is made for crocheting in the round.
Once that week was over, I did up the button and collar bands in grey and wound up having just enough burgundy yarn to make the bottom (thinner than written) band. As in, I ran out of yarn just as I reached the grey part again. Whew! I was very happy about this, because I think you'll agree that no pear-shaped body needs a horizontal line right at their hips. And since my signature is unintentionally crocheting a non-structural mistake into every piece, I wound up crocheting the collar into the wrong side of some stitches at the front.***
So the cardigan was almost done at the end of January. All it needed were buttons (and ribbon to support the buttons). And the energy to get said buttons and ribbon. So the sweater sat. For nearly three weeks. I finally picked up the buttons and ribbon last Monday and then waited until Saturday to sew them on. Behold my rubbish hand-sewing!
So the sweater is finished!
Well, no, it's not, technically. I haven't put the ribbon on the hole-side yet because I'm not sure of the best way to do that. I was going to do the button-holes on the machine, but I'm worried they won't line up with the holes on the sweater. I think what I might wind up doing is sew the ribbon on, then cut the holes and burn the edges to keep them from fraying, then sew the button holes to each other, doing the whole hole thing by hand. Which I'm not looking forward to, so I'm putting it off.
So the sweater is wearable!
Overall pattern comment: it is a closely-fitting sweater, but it's not too tight. For me, anyway. I do have an issue with the "waist shaping," in that there isn't any. The picture in the magazine showed a nice curvy sweater, but the schematic shows a trapezoid, so the bottom button, while do-up-able, will never be done up and the waist is a wee bit loose.
What to do next? I have the Thurlow trousers pattern from Sewaholic, the Jalie jeans pattern, and a gift certificate to Designer Fabrics burning a hole in my... er... sewing basket thingy, but I had also ordered a bunch of wool from KnitPicks to make a Saturn sweater (also from Interweave Crochet fall 2012) and I would like to have this sweater done before it gets too warm to wear it. So the Saturn sweater is next. In fact... er...
Yeah, I kind of waited a long time before getting the ribbon and buttons for the Sylvia, so the Saturn is practically done already.
And yes, the Saturn sweater should have come after I finished the poor stegosaurus, who has been sitting in its current seal-like, 1.5-legged state for over a month. But it didn't. Sigh.
*
** No, it's not. I knit a sweater in acrylic when I was living in Philadelphia (and let me just say that knitting during a hot Philadelphia summer was not a lot of fun) and back then I was all "pfft gauge! I don't need to check no stinkin' gauge! or use the proper-size needles!" and when it was done it was much too big for me and I had to give it to my then-boyfriend, upon whom it was comfortably loose. But this is my first sweater where I did it properly. And that I will wear. So there.
***It's noticeable, too. Except I didn't notice it until Saturday. I'm annoyed, but not enough to redo it.
Notes
There are a few issues with how the pattern was written up. In the front pieces, I had to make some adjustments to the pattern after the increases as written because the beginning of each row changed as I increase from an odd number of stitches to an even number, for example, and to keep the stitch count right. Eventually I started ignoring the written beginnings and endings of the rows and just went with the way the pattern was worked.
For size 32, the last increase on the front happens on an odd row, not an even one. If you follow the pattern as printed, that means the 2 sc in the ch-1 space happens on the centre edge, not the side edge like the other increases. I did it as written on the right front the first time and it looked wonky. (You can see this if you go back up to the first picture. )When I crocheted the left front, I made sure to put the increase in the ch-1 sp closest to the side edge, and the centre line was nice and straight. I had to rip out most of the right front anyway due to the aforementioned inability to follow instructions properly, so I fixed that while I was at it.
The sleeve pattern is just wrong. At least, the stitch count only takes into account the decreases on one side, and the ending rectangle thing is about an inch too wide than what the schematic says. I decided to roll with it, although it makes the shoulder seams a bit weird.
I made the sleeves grey for the first 20 rows, and then burgundy after that. I somehow managed to make the ribbing on one sleeve tighter than the other, but whatever. Since I was making the button/collar bands grey, I had to start them on the opposite side from the written instructions because otherwise I get an unattractive, broken grey line on the front. This meant I had to start with the holes and work them bottom-up instead of top-down. I did some strange math to figure out where they started... and didn't quite get it right, as you can see from the top button being a bit too close to the second button. I also added an extra row of slip stitches along the edge of the button-hole band because it seemed too flimsy. I didn't add the embroidery because the yoke would have looked too busy.
I shortened the bottom band to 3 stitches because a) I was going to run out of burgundy and b) I thought it would make the sweater too blousy and too long. I still think they mucked up the pattern because there really should be a dip at the waist. If I make this pattern again, which I might, I will make the hips bigger and shape at the waist.
Anyway, the Sylvia sweater. The last time we saw it at the beginning of January, it was here:
Now it is here:
I made size 32 out of Galway worsted wool in burgundy, left over from P1's aborted Christmas scarf. I didn't have enough for a solid sweater, so I did part of it in grey, also left over from the Christmas presents.
This is my first sweater.** I'll put specific pattern comments down here (since while I do have a Ravelry account, I can't get into it and so you will have to put up with it on the blog, as you have to put up with every else). I will say that I had to completely redo every part of this sweater at least once due to a) my apparent inability to pay attention to simple instructions (despite reading them oh-so-carefully) and b) not having enough burgundy yarn. Also? There was a crochet-along on the crochetme.com website. Except that I seemed to be the only person crocheting along. Which was frustrating, because I had questions which nobody answered. Even the person running the CAL stopped posting to it.
All three of those lovely pieces I had finished at the beginning of January had to be pulled back many rows and fixed. And the picture of the fixed pieces has disappeared into the ether. Instead you get a picture of Lucy "helping" me crochet. I'm not sure what it is about yarn that attracts cats. Specifically my cat. She'll often climb into my lap when I'm crocheting. Which makes it challenging.
There might be a little bit of Lucy in everything I make.
Here is the first sleeve I made. I made 3 1/2 sleeves. I ran out of burgundy yarn half-way through the second one, as I feared I might, but at least that gave me a sense of how much sleeve to make grey so I wouldn't have to rip out the sleeves yet again; that process was oddly satisfying at first but, quite frankly, it quickly lost its charm.
Instead of frogging the whole sleeve at once, I decided to let one sleeve cannibalize the other.
And Lucy just can't stay away.
The stitch pattern meant that changing the colour makes the sleeves look crenellated.
I'm not sure if I like it, but I don't think I want to add any embroidery.
Sewing up the seams took far more time than I expected it to. And seriously? Sewing seams on a crocheted sweater? Ugh. Crochet is made for crocheting in the round.
Once that week was over, I did up the button and collar bands in grey and wound up having just enough burgundy yarn to make the bottom (thinner than written) band. As in, I ran out of yarn just as I reached the grey part again. Whew! I was very happy about this, because I think you'll agree that no pear-shaped body needs a horizontal line right at their hips. And since my signature is unintentionally crocheting a non-structural mistake into every piece, I wound up crocheting the collar into the wrong side of some stitches at the front.***
So the cardigan was almost done at the end of January. All it needed were buttons (and ribbon to support the buttons). And the energy to get said buttons and ribbon. So the sweater sat. For nearly three weeks. I finally picked up the buttons and ribbon last Monday and then waited until Saturday to sew them on. Behold my rubbish hand-sewing!
So the sweater is finished!
Well, no, it's not, technically. I haven't put the ribbon on the hole-side yet because I'm not sure of the best way to do that. I was going to do the button-holes on the machine, but I'm worried they won't line up with the holes on the sweater. I think what I might wind up doing is sew the ribbon on, then cut the holes and burn the edges to keep them from fraying, then sew the button holes to each other, doing the whole hole thing by hand. Which I'm not looking forward to, so I'm putting it off.
So the sweater is wearable!
Overall pattern comment: it is a closely-fitting sweater, but it's not too tight. For me, anyway. I do have an issue with the "waist shaping," in that there isn't any. The picture in the magazine showed a nice curvy sweater, but the schematic shows a trapezoid, so the bottom button, while do-up-able, will never be done up and the waist is a wee bit loose.
What to do next? I have the Thurlow trousers pattern from Sewaholic, the Jalie jeans pattern, and a gift certificate to Designer Fabrics burning a hole in my... er... sewing basket thingy, but I had also ordered a bunch of wool from KnitPicks to make a Saturn sweater (also from Interweave Crochet fall 2012) and I would like to have this sweater done before it gets too warm to wear it. So the Saturn sweater is next. In fact... er...
Yeah, I kind of waited a long time before getting the ribbon and buttons for the Sylvia, so the Saturn is practically done already.
And yes, the Saturn sweater should have come after I finished the poor stegosaurus, who has been sitting in its current seal-like, 1.5-legged state for over a month. But it didn't. Sigh.
*
** No, it's not. I knit a sweater in acrylic when I was living in Philadelphia (and let me just say that knitting during a hot Philadelphia summer was not a lot of fun) and back then I was all "pfft gauge! I don't need to check no stinkin' gauge! or use the proper-size needles!" and when it was done it was much too big for me and I had to give it to my then-boyfriend, upon whom it was comfortably loose. But this is my first sweater where I did it properly. And that I will wear. So there.
***It's noticeable, too. Except I didn't notice it until Saturday. I'm annoyed, but not enough to redo it.
Notes
There are a few issues with how the pattern was written up. In the front pieces, I had to make some adjustments to the pattern after the increases as written because the beginning of each row changed as I increase from an odd number of stitches to an even number, for example, and to keep the stitch count right. Eventually I started ignoring the written beginnings and endings of the rows and just went with the way the pattern was worked.
For size 32, the last increase on the front happens on an odd row, not an even one. If you follow the pattern as printed, that means the 2 sc in the ch-1 space happens on the centre edge, not the side edge like the other increases. I did it as written on the right front the first time and it looked wonky. (You can see this if you go back up to the first picture. )When I crocheted the left front, I made sure to put the increase in the ch-1 sp closest to the side edge, and the centre line was nice and straight. I had to rip out most of the right front anyway due to the aforementioned inability to follow instructions properly, so I fixed that while I was at it.
The sleeve pattern is just wrong. At least, the stitch count only takes into account the decreases on one side, and the ending rectangle thing is about an inch too wide than what the schematic says. I decided to roll with it, although it makes the shoulder seams a bit weird.
I made the sleeves grey for the first 20 rows, and then burgundy after that. I somehow managed to make the ribbing on one sleeve tighter than the other, but whatever. Since I was making the button/collar bands grey, I had to start them on the opposite side from the written instructions because otherwise I get an unattractive, broken grey line on the front. This meant I had to start with the holes and work them bottom-up instead of top-down. I did some strange math to figure out where they started... and didn't quite get it right, as you can see from the top button being a bit too close to the second button. I also added an extra row of slip stitches along the edge of the button-hole band because it seemed too flimsy. I didn't add the embroidery because the yoke would have looked too busy.
I shortened the bottom band to 3 stitches because a) I was going to run out of burgundy and b) I thought it would make the sweater too blousy and too long. I still think they mucked up the pattern because there really should be a dip at the waist. If I make this pattern again, which I might, I will make the hips bigger and shape at the waist.
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