Friday, April 29, 2016

New sweater

I recently finished knitting this sweater from an improvised pattern. This is more or less a classic pullover, with a slight vintage look. It came out a smidgen shorter and a tiny bit more fitted than I wanted, and that's probably adding to the vintage effect. The yarn is Handwerks Silky Sock, which is a fingerling weight silk/merino yarn. It's the first fingerling weight sweater I've ever knitted. It didn't take as long as I expected, probably because the sweater is small and only has tiny quasi sleeves. I used most of two skeins, for a total of 870 yards.

The pattern is pretty simple. The bottom section is a broken rib, as is the neckline and sleeve edgings. The center panel is stockinette. The side panels are stockinette interspersed with 1x1 cables that shift one by stitch every other row. This sweater is shaped by increases from the bottom band up towards the underarms. I was aiming for a more dolman effect, but I didn't do enough increases as I approached the armholes section. The fit turned out fine anyway, and I really like the dressier look and feel of a fine gauge sweater. It just seem like very slow going when I'm knitting it.

Here's my tip for putting edgings on this kind of extended shoulder quasi sleeve. I picked up the stitches around the armhole at two stitches for every three rows except at the top 2.5 inches at the shoulder seam. For that area, I picked up one stitch every other row. This pulls in the top area and prevents it from poking upward at the upper arm.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Pictures from an exhibition

I went to the De Young Museum last week. It was a great time to visit -- the Oscar de la Renta retrospective show is there and last week was also the Bouquets to Art week. I thought I'd post a few of the photos from the day's visit.

This pic shows some of the day dresses in the collection. I think I could actually wear that pink number with the embroidery.

These colorful caftans are from a collection of resort wear.

Some more lovely gowns.

I believe this group is from the garden inspiration section.

This was probably one of my favorite gowns. It actually has a lot of texture -- too bad we couldn't touch it!

On to the flowers. This was one of the cutest floral arrangements. The painting that inspired it is in the back, but I did not capture it very well. It does have a little yellow cart.

Both the painting and the floral arrangement have a dark look, but I sort of like it.

Here's one more.

This scene overlooks the museum entrance area with hanging bouquets.

This was probably my favorite floral arrangement. The tub is filled with hydrangeas.