My faithful Orange is benefiting from this timeout. Here it is, blocking out nicely on the kitchen counter:
And here it is, getting its left button band/collar.
This design (scroll down to find it) calls for the stitches for the button band to be cast on with each front section, knitted for a few rows, then placed on a stitch holder while the rest of the front is knitted. Then you go back, slip the stitches onto a needle, and knit the rest of the button band, increasing into a shawl collar. Finally, you have to sew the whole thing onto the sweater. This is not how I would have done it, had I the patience and foresight to read the entire pattern in advance and figure out how the thing was to be finished. I'm sure there's a good reason for doing it this way, but wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just knit the button band as part of the front and work short rows for the collar? That's how I would have done it. But maybe the designer likes eight-stitch rows and forty eight inches of sewing to attach the collar. Any way you slice it, it's still a vacation compared to the lace.
4 comments:
Orange looks good. Not being the queen of blocking myself- did you mostly just get it wet, roll it in a towel and lay it on the kitchen table? How did that work?
Seems like way back I said I'd live vicariously through your first go at lace. I'm glad it wasn't a KAL. Hang in there- the subconscious time works for me often- except of course on socks.
I'm doing a sweater right now with that same button band setup. I've been questioning it, too. My band is done in moss stitch and the rest is in stockinete. I'm wondering if it's a tension thing. Seems strange to me,
Li
You pull out the red 'fro for next Crack Saturday and I'll let you choose between the feathered junior prom hair or the "much too short for a tall gal like me" cut I got in 1983. At least it wasn't a "Dorothy Hamill" wait- I think I've got a younger version of one of those to choose from as well.
I'll look for the red afro picture for you, Sophanne. As for the blocking, I'm too impatient to wait for anything to dry, so whenever possible, I use a steam iron held just above the knitting and steam the heck out of the wool until it relaxes, then pull it into shape and let it cool. That's what I did here, and it worked fine. Just don't EVER try it with acrylic, unless you really like sweaters that feel like plastic bottles.
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