KNITSTER

Okay, let me explain…

I finally finished a long overdue UFO. Or I should say, it’s an FO now. Last year, I was always freezing at work, as my boss wouldn’t have the heat kick in until an hour before I left, which would be several hours after I arrived. I’m also a person, whom I swear is pre-menopausal (okay, TMI, sue me), so atmospheric/environmental temps are important to me, and in the winter, I like to feel toasty. When your fingers are getting so cold that they feel arthritic INSIDE, you know it’s too cold. And even with long sleeved shirts, I still felt cold. Not having many sweaters to my name, I decided that most of the time, if I just put another layer over my arms and shoulders, I was fine. Hence, the idea to make my own shrug was born.

I wanted something with some texture to it, so I looked in my Vogue Stitchonary Volume One, and chose the Flying Geese stitch pattern. It has a certain brocade-y like look to it. I chose my yarn– Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky in Duck Egg Blue. I got a basic concept in my head of how I would do it, and it’d be one piece going wrist to wrist. So, to say the least, this was the first completely, totally, original design I’d ever done, and it was freestyle to boot. Well, mistakes were made along the way, but it still came out looking okay.

Here’s me wearing it, a look from the back (don’t look at my big ol’ butt)

And here’s me with it from the front.

And here it is, without me in it! (It’s more the color of the first two photos, but you can see the detail of the pattern better in this one.

Essentially, the stitch pattern is in multiples of 10, so I cast on a multiple of 10 that I knew would make it around most of my arm. When I got to the shoulder, I increased the stitches by another multiple of 10, and when I was leaving the other shoulder, I decreased it by 10, and then finished until I got to the other side. In other words, this was made in one piece, wrist to wrist. Then, just to make it look more finished off, after seaming the sleeves, I picked up the stitches that were left on the “inside”, and did a 3X2 rib pattern in the round. And that was that.

Now, I started this about a year ago, and finished it up yesterday. Did it take a year to make? No. I started it, then put it down for a while and did several other projects, and then decided that I needed to finish this one up before the end of this winter and/or spring.

It was certainly a learning process, and it taught me that I still have a lot to learn about making garments! But it was a good experiment that came out looking okay. Lessons I learned were:

Learn how to do increasing and decreasing in a stitch pattern better, especially in WHERE to do the increases and decreases.

Make sure you have enough yarn (I did, but justenough.

Try to actually have a laid out plan before making something.

The problems I had, I think, were fixable, or could have been better done with a better design, but that’s part of the learning process. I’ve realized that I would’ve preferred tapered cuffs that I could’ve put that same 3X2 rib on, and it wouldn’t looked REALLY tailored. I learned that where my armpit is needs more ease than the rest of my arm, so I should’ve increased stitches sooner. The bottom part, under my shoulder blades, originally bunched up when I wore it, and I think that with some breaking in, it’s starting to flatten out. Still, I wonder if I could’ve made it differently so that wouldn’t have happened.

In the end, it serves its purpose well, and I am toasty warm in this very, very soft yarn. Maybe someday I’ll work the kinks out of the pattern, and I can get it on Knitty or something like that. That would be cool. But at least it’s done now, and I can enjoy it. I think it’ll be a while before I do another shrug. And hopefully it won’t take a year between starting and finishing it.

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by Dani
Filed under: Finished Objects, Patterns, Photos, Projects