Squeeeeee! Here's paulie:
Isn't she lovely? I'm really pleased with the colour combination and the fit. All my swatching paid off!
It's a gloomy day outside, so I wandered around my house trying to find some reasonable light to take a few selfies.
Look at how she nips in perfectly around the boobs, I love her already! She still needs buttons, but as we all know, a cardigan is very wearable without buttons.
The perfect length too!
So now the knitty gritty about how paulie came to be. The journey started with a complete ripping back of the collar and shoulder section after I misread the pattern and increased far more often than I was supposed to, right up to the end of the garter stitch section when I was going to start the stripes and get into the body of the sweater. I ripped it back all the way to the first few rows and started again, and thankfully that was the only major setback of the whole project.
I mostly kept to the directions on the pattern, I didn't need a lot of modifications because my measurements lined up more or less with the medium size. I added a couple extra stitches around the upper arms, and I added an extra decrease or two to the sleeves.
The shawl collar deserves its own paragraph. I had no trouble with the length of any other section of garter stitch edging (the cuffs, the bottom of the sweater), so I went merrily along with the directions for short rows for the shawl collar. When it was done, I completed the i-cord bind off in the contrasting colour, and everything looked lovely. When I tried it on (before blocking), there was no way the shawl collar would fold back on itself and stay there. It kept popping up and looking like a douchey cardigan-style popped collar. I thought it was either that the collar itself wasn't wide enough to give enough room to fold it back, or the edging was too tight and forcing it to go against my wishes. I toyed with the idea of ripping out the i-cord bind off and doing it again, much looser, but I figured blocking might cure what ails me.
I made sure to block the collar folded back on itself, and it sat for 3 days drying in my mud room. Annnnnnnddddd, the result is still kind of the same, but it's smoothed out a lot more so I'm very ok with the collar staying flat. Whatever.
Next up, selecting buttons! I hear that Shall We Knit? has a new fancy pants button selection, so I may check them out next month when I'm in Waterloo for the Guild meeting. My go-to place for buttons is Lens Mill, but I think paulie deserves something nice. The official wearing of paulie has started already, so buttons or no buttons, she's now a part of my wardrobe. Her ceremonial debut is this evening, at a friend of Fuzzyhead's birthday party in Dundas.
And I'm back to sock knitting! Paulie was my one and only project for the last two months, and I've been neglecting Maeva. I picked these up again on Monday night knitting at Margot's, and I've finished all of the cabling work for this first sock. The leg of the sock is just panels of Stockinette with seed stitch columns - simple, but with a bit of interest.
The shawl collar deserves its own paragraph. I had no trouble with the length of any other section of garter stitch edging (the cuffs, the bottom of the sweater), so I went merrily along with the directions for short rows for the shawl collar. When it was done, I completed the i-cord bind off in the contrasting colour, and everything looked lovely. When I tried it on (before blocking), there was no way the shawl collar would fold back on itself and stay there. It kept popping up and looking like a douchey cardigan-style popped collar. I thought it was either that the collar itself wasn't wide enough to give enough room to fold it back, or the edging was too tight and forcing it to go against my wishes. I toyed with the idea of ripping out the i-cord bind off and doing it again, much looser, but I figured blocking might cure what ails me.
I made sure to block the collar folded back on itself, and it sat for 3 days drying in my mud room. Annnnnnnddddd, the result is still kind of the same, but it's smoothed out a lot more so I'm very ok with the collar staying flat. Whatever.
Next up, selecting buttons! I hear that Shall We Knit? has a new fancy pants button selection, so I may check them out next month when I'm in Waterloo for the Guild meeting. My go-to place for buttons is Lens Mill, but I think paulie deserves something nice. The official wearing of paulie has started already, so buttons or no buttons, she's now a part of my wardrobe. Her ceremonial debut is this evening, at a friend of Fuzzyhead's birthday party in Dundas.
And I'm back to sock knitting! Paulie was my one and only project for the last two months, and I've been neglecting Maeva. I picked these up again on Monday night knitting at Margot's, and I've finished all of the cabling work for this first sock. The leg of the sock is just panels of Stockinette with seed stitch columns - simple, but with a bit of interest.
I'm also itching to pick up some lace work for spring, I'm thinking Annis will get her time in the sun with my indigodragonfly singles lace. Annis is nice and simple, and I've got her pegged for such a fun and bright colour, I'm looking forward to it.
In non-knitting news, I'm engaged to be wed to Fuzzyhead. The facebook status update was released on Monday night, and we watched all of the "likes" come in fast and furious. People love us.
Happy knitting!
Onward,
vrock
