Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Lacy Aqua Aptitude
I put it off long enough, but now the secret’s out - my camera sucks almost as much as my photographic skill.
But I thought it was about time I started showing off some FOs! Ya can’t do that without snappin’ a few pix, eh?
This is one of my major accomplishments - a lace-patterned jacket, finished sometime in the ‘90s. The pattern was from a Knitter’s Magazine and for once I used the recommended yarn, Brown Sheep Naturespun worsted, a good-quality, surprisingly inexpensive classic. The original design called for a color called “Cat Blue” (where do they come up with these???), but since I look terrible in most blues I chose one with more green in it, called “Arctic Turquoise.” Long since discontinued, a few years after completion I managed to score a boatload of the identical color in their fingering-weight, which I plan to whip up someday (rofl) into a matching tank-shell to wear underneath. Ah, dreams ...
Anyway, the other departures I made were to construct it seamlessly in-the-round and to add both vertical and horizontal bust-darts. Yes, you heard me - I added bust-darts. Can’t see ‘em? Here, lemme give you a close-up:
Still can’t see ‘em? Yeah, that’s how good I am. ;~)
Seriously, I have no idea how I managed this. It was before I started keeping notes. Of course I’ve done bust-darts before and since, but never in such an intricate stitch-pattern. I think I just worked out the math for a regular bust-dart, then when I got to that point, finagled the number of stitches and rows around the stitch-pattern as I went along. At any rate, it fits me like a glove and I hold it as a far-too-rare perfect intersection between captivating knit and flattering wearability.
What really got me to knit t
his were the bobble details -- the way they accent the scallops made by the stitch-pattern and their use as buttons along the button-band. And the yos in the lace pattern are the buttonholes! Clever!
The only - and I mean only - thing I wish I’d done differently is the neckline. By this time, I was totally ensconced in the “why seam when you could be knitting?” school of practice; I never bound off at the top, just grafted the shoulders and kept all neck stitches on a stitch-holder, from which to knit off when I got to the neckline edge treatment. I figured out that the shoulders really needed the stabilization of a bind-off, so I switched those from the grafting to a 3-needle BO. But the back necklines I continued to pick up directly from the live stitches.
Only recently (d
oh!) did I realize that the shoulders and sleeves of a garment hang like a coat-hanger from the back neckline! All those perfectly formed neckline edges are stretching like Bush’s truths. I now have to go back and add crochet (spit, cough, choke) to the inside necklines to tighten and stabilize them.
From this point on, I promise to always BO the back neckline stitches and pick up the edge stitches from there. So help me G*d.
