Nadine is finished!

I've finished Nadine from French Girl Knits, and I love it! The yarn is Tahki Yarns Sierra, a silk/linen/nylon blend. When I first saw this pattern, I liked the overall look, but not the tunic length, and it looked like it required a lot of fiddly assembly work. After studying it more closely, I decided that this pattern can be highly customized for fit. As long as you know your own gauge, are comfortable with short row shaping, and study the schematic, you can make this fit any way you want. My gauge was a little finer at 15 stitches/4" and I wanted to shorten it by 5 inches.

Here's a summary of my size adjustments (omitting the gory details like number of stitches, which are specific for my fit)
- knitted 4.5 repeats for the lace panels, which establishes the length. I knit the pattern symmetrically.
- shortened and narrowed the lace insert short rows
- shortened the hip increase short rows
- lengthened the back bust short row increase rows.
- added a little bit of short row shaping for the front bust
- I made the back extension piece 7" wide instead of 9" -- 9" would have made the back way too wide the the sweater would fall off my shoulders.

The biggest technical difference was using the 3-needle bind off instead of grafting the lace panels. I discussed more of that in the last post. I also used slip stitch edging for the top edges, and a single crochet row for the bottom. I got lazy and did not want to pick up and knit stitches for the bottom.

I got a little frustrated with the assembly and finishing, which is rare for me because I like finishing work. I learned a technical lesson from this -- if I'm going to be sewing, picking up stitches, or adding a finishing edge, don't slip the first stitch of each row. The pattern calls for slipping the first stitch of each row on the lace panels, which looks nice if they will be standing alone. However, if I'm going to be adding more stitching, having the full number of stitches makes it easier and might look nicer because you get more options as to where to put new stitches. I should mention that I was not concerned with making the sweater reversible, which is a design feature, but is much more troublesome to accomplish.

A note on the yarn -- it's very soft, but feels like soft string. I'm not sure that I liked knitting with it, but the end result is very comfy. The yarn does tend to break when you do seaming and pull on it over and over -- it's fine for just knitting or crocheting.

Nadine on the needles

I'm currently working on Nadine from French Girl Knits (ravelry link) The yarn is Tahki Yarns Sierra. My gauge is a bit finer at 15 stitches/4" instead of 14 stitches. I'm also knitting it about 5" shorter than the pattern's length. I knitted 4.5 repeats of the side lace panels. I did one less pair of short rows on the bottom lace flutes and also made them 2 stitches shorter because my top is shorter and I did not need as much fluting on the bottom.

The biggest technical difference is that I used 3-needle bind-off to join the front panel with the side lace sections instead of grafting with the Kitchener stitch. The 3-needle bind-off is much easier to do. There's already a discontinuity between the center horizontally knit piece and the vertical side pieces, so I figure a little more discontinuity wouldn't hurt -- I could just consider it a design element. The main reason I did it is because I wanted some stability to prevent the sweater from stretching with wear. This yarn is like very soft string, and with the loose gauge, I could just see it reaching my knees with a little wear unless there is some kind of seaming.

I'm working on the back panel now, so it shouldn't take much longer. I'm hoping to get enough wear out of it before summer weather ends.

FO: My first felting experiment

I'm a big time sweater knitter. I do on occasion knit small accessory and baby gift items, but sweaters are my favorite things to knit. Just recently though, I did get this bee in my bonnet about wanting to make a felted bag. I've always liked the comforting fuzziness of felted knits, and I had this Araucania Magallanes yarn sitting around that I wanted to use up. I got that yarn from Robin over at Yarn Crawl when she was giving away some yarn for the cost of postage. It's a very scratchy wool unsuitable for any garment I might want to wear. I found this free pattern on ravelry that is easily adaptable to any size. I just wanted a simple tote large enough to store a sweater project, so I made it bigger than the pattern's petite size. It turned out pretty well-- it's not quite as stiff as I would like, but that's probably because of its large size and also because my yarn wasn't that buiky, even though I knit it using double strands. It's quite suitable aa a project bag, and it does indeed have that comfy thick fuzzy feel.

I persuaded Large Dog to model it for me as a messenger bag.

Here it is before the washing and drying cycles. I was a little worried that I might have made it too big, and it was so floppy. It did shrink down nicely. I started with a 13" diameter base and about 12.5" height, and it shrank to 10" diameter and 9" of height. I did one wash and dry, then 2 wash cycles and a dry. The different colored handle is not a style element -- I ran out of yarn!

I don't think I'll ever try this large a felthing project again. It took WAY too long to just knit, knit, knit.... It cut into precious sweater knitting time!

Knit Mags

Between the U.S. postal service and the local Borders, I'm loaded up with new knitting magazines. I really like the Yarn Forward because I find it fun to read. I like the cover sweater, assuming I can ditch the ribbons. I usually don't buy the Knitscene magazines, but for some reason, I like a few patterns in this fall issue. I added the Flourish Vest (ravelry link) to my queue for starters. As for the Vogue Knitting, I like quite a few elements in quite a few sweaters, but there's something I don't like about each of them also. That's usually the way it is with Vogue Knitting, but the photos are always nice.

Update on Veronique

After a full day's wear, my Veronique shrug stretched in the upper back where the gathers sit. This flattened the gathering a bit and also made it easier for the shrug to drift off my shoulders. I followed RebekahJean's (ravelry) lead and added a row of single crochet on the wrong side, pulling the yarn through the purl bumps of the K3tog stitches. It worked like a champ! The shrug is much more stable in the back.

FO: Veronique

For some reason, camera batteries always seem to run down at inconvenient moments and at a faster rate than expected. Maybe I have some strange X-Men-type skillz that allows me to drain camera batteries. But then again, I digress.

This is Veronique, from French Girl Knits (ravelry link). I used Jaeger Trinity, which is a textured silk/cotton/polyamide blend. It is much heavier than the recommended Rowan Kidsilk Haze, so the shrug does not have that super-light ethereal look. It's still a very light and airy warmer weather garment. I'd like to think it has a more urban look.

I love the way the back of this shrug looks, with the swing shape and the gathering at the top of the back. I wish could have an owl-type neck that would allow me to rotate around once in a while to admire the back of my garment. The front is nice, but it is your basic shrug-type front.

Regarding the border, thanks for your comments and votes. I ended up using the same colored yarn, and it's really for a technical reason. The border is picked up with knit stitches, so the right side looks fine with the color change, but the back purl stitches have that divided purl bump look with 2 colors. The shrug would look fine on the bottom, but it's designed such that the front and neck edges roll a bit and the wrong side with the purl stitches show, so the color change would not look so great.

The pattern has an interesting construction, and it's really easy to knit. I imagine that it might be trickier using the Kidsilk Haze yarn, so if you like the style but don't want to use that yarn, I'd say just try a sport weight yarn and it will probably work out just fine.

I knitted my sleeves flat and sewed them along with the side seams. I tapered the sleeves a bit -- decreasing from 48 to 40 stitches.

WIP

I'm almost done with Veronique, from French Girl Knits. All I have left to do is pick up stitches and knit the decorative border. (It looks much better worn than on a hanger!) This yarn is Jaeger Trinity, in a denim blue. I first thought I would just do the border with the same yarn, but I then I thought it would be more interesting to use a contrasting border with the same yarn in light gray, which I also have in my stash. I thought I'd try one of these reader polling things and put the question to the blogsphere, just to see what you think. Which would you prefer -- the same color border, or the light gray contrast border? The polling gadget is on the sidebar. (I haven't figured out how to get one of these within the blog entry)