Ene's Scarf, Rib & Cable Socks, Greek Pullover

Tonight there will be pictures of Ene’s Shawl, unpinned, and in all her glory. Really, I’m loving this shawl. In fact, I was so excited about it that I skipped my knit night on Wednesday night and went out to dinner so that I could wear the shawl out and about. It was a lot of fun.

I’ve been working on the Rib & Cable Socks for Stephen. They are going very well. I should say that the pattern can be found in the Fall 2005 IK, because I got it wrong in an earlier entry. The socks are worked from the top down and begin with three inches of ribbing, in the pattern repeat. Since the socks have several cables (7, in this case) you have to increase the number of stitches so that you actually have about an inch of ease in the sock. Obviously, by the time the sock is finished, it fits snugly because of the ribbing and cables.

I like the Wildfoote yarn, but I have some complaints. There are places in the yarn where the plies have almost un-plied themselves. This means that it’s really easy in places to split the yarn with my needle. In addition, the yarn itself lacks a certain sproingyness that I like in a sock yarn. I have a small gripe with the yardage. You only get 175 yards in a skein. Lorna’s Laces give you 215 yards in a skein of Shepherd Sock. The result of this lack of yardage is that I cut out a couple of repeats on the leg of the sock. Indeed, once I got down to working the toe of the sock I began to really worry about running out of yarn before the end of the skein. As it turns out, I had enough yarn. I may have even had enough yarn to keep in those two repeats on the leg, but only just barely. So, Brown Sheep Company: more yardage please? That extra 40 yards of yarn is like taking out a bit a fiber insurance, and every knitter could use a little fiber insurance.

I think today might be a good day to talk about my Greek Pullover. You might recall that I made this sweater from the recommended yarn, Rowan Kid Classic, and that I may have overcompensated for my mistake in sizing with the Lotus Blossom Tank by making this sweater too small. Well, I was right and I was wrong. The size that I made is actually a good bust size for me. Where I really went wrong was when I measured for the length of the sweater. I had recently watched an episode of Knitty Gritty featuring Lily Chin. She recommended measuring your work while holding it up so that you will see it as it will actually hang while it’s being worn. This appealed to my logical side that side, why yes, it’s not like I’m going to wear my sweater while lying in a horizontal position (all the time.) Unfortunately, I failed to take into account that the designer probably laid her work on flat surface to measure the length of it. The end result for me is that I do wish that the sweater was just a tad longer. An inch? ½ inch? Just a little bit would do it.

After I had finished the sweater and worn it for the first time I discovered two things: first, I can’t wear the sweater with nothing underneath it because the size of the needles (size 8) combined with this particular yarn creates a very, shall we say, “airy” fabric. Personally, I don’t like to go out in public while exposing my nipples. At least not so blatantly. I also discovered that I had made an error in seaming in one of the sleeves. Not the sleeve that I sewed in a little wonky. The other one. On that other sleeve there is a hole at the top where I somehow managed to: miss a couple of stitches? Stop short with the seaming? Some combination of both? Needless to say, I need to fix it.

Lastly, I recently removed the chiffon ruffles on the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater because the chiffon had started to fray so badly that I had to basically trim the sweater every time I wore it and it became really annoying. The directions specifically instruct you to actually rip the chiffon into strips then create the ruffles and sew them in, cut side facing down. This does not work, people. If you’re going to make this sweater with the ruffle (which is cute) then you need to cut the chiffon into strips, then hem in the cut ends either before you create the ruffle, or while you create the ruffle.

All of that aside though, I wear this sweater pretty frequently (at least several times a month) and I really like it. It’s not too fuzzy, but has a nice halo. It’s really warm. Also? I really, really like this yarn. This was my first Rowan yarn purchase and I have to say that I’m quite impressed. It’s next-to-the-skin soft and it hasn’t even pilled.