Ok so I feel like I left my poor lacy hooded tunic somewhat stranded out here on the blog, but after finishing it a couple of weeks ago in the park, I did come home and take a look at it in the mirror, and I was pretty happy with how it came out. I've been wearing it as much as I can since then, before it gets too cold and it is comfortable and fun to wear.
Anyway, here, finally, is the official write-up.
Lacy hooded tunic
Date:
June 9th - September 9th, 2007
Yarn:
11 skeins of Dale of Norway Svale in white 10
Needles:
Addi Turbo 40" circulars in US#6
Pattern:
Lacy hooded tunic from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 207 (link doesn't work right now as website is down)
The story:
This was my first sweater! For some reason, it doesn't quite seem like a "real" sweater to me, I guess beause it's not what comes to mind when you think of a knitted sweater, and also because it's loose fitting so I didn't really have to worry too much about shaping, which is perhaps what made it a good first sweater.
Actually, it was in some ways easier than I expected, but also harder than I expected. The hard part was the mesh stitch itself, which was pretty easy once I mastered it but I really struggled to begin with. Also, I found it to be a rather slow and monotonous knit and at times it seemed like I would never finish. I guess I can't expect a plain white yarn to provide a very exciting knit, but I do love the resulting fabric, and, to my surprise, since finishing the sweater, I've found myself missing it. It took three months but I wasn't knitting on it consistently or exclusively by any means. I think it kind of went in bursts.
What was easier than expected was how it all came together. As I mentioned at the time, there seems to be a mistake in the pattern (that was not included with the errata). You should not bind off the back, as it ends up getting grafted to the front using a three-needle bind-off. Aside from that, it all worked like a dream, although I did end up forgetting that the end of my yarn was not at the center of the cap of the arm, so the first arm I attached was a little off center. It didn't seem to really matter though so, following my "thou shalt not be a perfectionist when it comes to knitting as it's supposed to be relaxing" rule, I left it.
There is a lot of seaming, though, and, just to make things interesting, 11 skeins really was cutting it very tight for me, so I wasn't quite sure I had enough yarn to seam! I was saving little tiny pieces of yarn, I had to frog my swatch and I literally had about 15" of yarn left to spare! It's a good thing I wasn't planning on doing the tassle on the hood as I would definitely not have had enough yarn for that. Still, it means there was very little waste...
Finally, I just loved finishing this up in the park with Harry. It was perfect.
In progress shots:
Swatching was very helpful just to get the hang of the mesh stitch
Where better to start this project out than on the beach?!
At times it seemed like the project would never end. I would say the project divided up into the following major sections, each taking about the same amount of time: back, front, arms, hood, finishing (edges and seaming).
Here's the back and front in progress:
The arms, and trying to see in the mirror what it's going to look like:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Sleeves:
On the home stretch... seaming!
The tiny scraps and my one remaining decent lengthed piece of yarn (which strangely disappeared after this photograph):
Hot off the needles:
Finished shots:
Bear in mind that I am neither a swim suit model or a fashion photographer... and do you know how hard it is to photograph something white?! Especially when it's a self portrait on an automatic camera? I ended up having to stand in front of the camera to set the self-timer to get the balance right, and thus the focus is not that great. But it was fun! A great end to the project...
Full flickr set here.
