It’s sweater time again, although this is the last garment I’ll be showing for a while. This is the minisweater designed by Stefanie Japel. I think I began on 1 September and ended 5 September or something like that, and I worked on several other projects at the same time. I deviated from the pattern quite a bit, but that’s sort of the point with this setup. Instead of worsted weight yarn I used very nearly all of two skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in a variegated bright green. The body was knit on U.S. size 7 needles with the garter stitch edges done on U.S. 4 needles.
I used yarnover increases to make decorative eyelets along the raglan seams. I made straight raglan sleeves, omitting the puffed portion, and threw in a few short rows. The sleeves are also not as long as the ones in the original pattern because I was running out of yarn. I think I got through 5 rows before starting the garter stitch border. I made two more sets of increases on the body after separating the stitches that make up the arms, although this may not have been a great idea as the back is just a tiny bit loose. The button also wants to come undone, so I may end up taking it out and moving it so the fronts have more overlap where they meet, which would then tighten up the extra space in the back.
And here is the front with its button closure. Moving the button would give me slightly more coverage, although coverage clearly isn’t really the point of this design. Because it’s wool and knit much less loosely than the garment in the pattern, it seems very warm and should be a great coverup to let me keep wearing tank tops into the fall. The fabric is very fuzzy but doesn’t seem to be pilling and doesn’t leave fluff on my clothes. And I chose a red button on purpose, because I had a theme for this sweater and that theme was TURTLE.
This is Foucault, my six-year-old red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). He doesn’t actually live in the sink, but I was scrubbing out his tank tonight and figured this was a good opportunity for a photo shoot. Since he’s a mature turtle, his shell is fairly dark now, but I like the combination of various greens and a spot of red and used a color scheme more reminiscent of his looks as a hatchling. I don’t think he’ll get the following that some comics bloggers’ pets have, but that’s okay. Being a turtle, he values his privacy.
Ed Cunard says:
I’m certainly a fan of your turtle now!
Have you ever thought of selling sweaters, by any chance?
— 13 September 2005 at 3:54 pm (Permalink)
Rose says:
Hey, Ed. I’m a fan too. He’s a pretty cool turtle, even if he did claw up my palm yesterday. (I can’t really blame him for not wanting to be taken out of his tank. I always try to tell him it’s for his own good and I just need to clean, but apparently he forgets.)
I have not thought of selling sweaters for a number of reasons. I typically use (or at least bastardize) a pattern someone else has written rather than hacking everything out for myself, which means someone else owns the copyright and (typically) it would be illegal for me to sell such a sweater. But also the cost would be prohibitive for any buyers. The yarn for this sweater cost $16, which is probably more than I’d be willing to pay for a sweater in a store because I’m totally cheap, and if you then factor in the hours spent working on it (at least 10, I’d think) you’re talking about $75 or so for this little thing. Plus then I’d have to deal with the actual marketing and whatnot. Ugh.
I do knit gifts for people I actually know and I suppose I’d take requests, but I mostly end up knitting for myself because I can choose something I think I’ll like and monkey around until it really fits me. I just ripped out almost an entire sweater because I thought it would be too loose and blobby, and I’d hate to do that if knitting on a deadline or for someone else, but for me it was worth it and now I’ve got the yarn working up in a different sweater and I’ll get new yarn better suited to the original sweater. I like to have that kind of flexibility. But I’m also finishing a gift shawl in the next day or so, and I have made shawls and scarves and socks and hats and a sweater as gifts for various people, mostly relatives.
— 13 September 2005 at 5:00 pm (Permalink)